Genre: Forum

babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other -- and the world -- what's up with our work and campaigns. Think Left, Invest Left: How to do that? We've all read the criticisms, too many to really go about noting, where Left-seeming supposed progressive politicians make promises to Leftist goals but then turn around and put money into far Right investments. I'm speaking of an issue that is constantly passed around like a wobbly chair that people are afraid to really sit at, an issue that goes past the criticism of right wing business ventures and into progressive oriented investments. I see this issue in two ways first off in our current capitalist state, and it is the same with many other countries. We have private investments, public investments, and come hybrid combination of the two , which are called public private partnerships (PPPs). What I want to address here though is the private investment section for a minute because it often seems like that gets little attention sometimes by activists, where somewhat there seems to be a sort of visceral indigestion with having to get wrapped up in the greedy, selfish and vapid world of stock markets and other markets. What I am concerned with is that it seems that politicians can play this farce where they fake left but turn right when it comes to economic projects, and so I now ask myself, being a little older and having trouble acquiring the small amount I do have, while wanting to go to college and possibly incur a little debt through a loan there, that what can I do withthe money I've saved that would make me more money in the future by investing it in ethical industries, which may not have the same growth spikes as the more cancerous industries, but I would have peace of mind and in the end understand perhaps the sustainable development goals better in both an environmental and a financial sense. I've read a little for instance about solar energy and wind enrgy companies and then looked them up on the stock market only to find that they are doing horribly. I'm wondering if high-speed rail is a solid bet, which some investment does seem to suggest, and most importantly from an ethical perspective, high-speed rail is more energy saving for people if they can be coaxed off cars and into this system. California is planning to build a high-speed rail is it not? I know that some of these companies have legs and arms in other ventures that are not noble like Bombardier for example, so I would either want to not go there, or go there in terms of an isolated division that makes air-brakes specific to high-speed rail for example. Please note that my high speed rail example is just an example and not the bulwark of some industry I'm trying to defend here. What I'm trying to do is lay out some examples so that anyone reading this can get a sense of the parameters of the economic issue I am addressing. Perhaps there are solid solar and wind energy companies, this I would want to know too. In fact what I want is the biggest most elaborate list of research information possible. Send me a billion relevant links alright? Just try and keep it bs free. Thanks! Comments But then I try to look into the SRIs suggested like Meritas/OceanRock http://www.qtrade.ca/orFundProfilesOV.do\\... , and I'm left scratching my head somewhat as to what exactly ethically Meritas is doing in Funds like this Money Market Fund from Meritas that contributes 2% to community development assistance but then has Enbridge as one of its top ten holdings? This bs seems like the fund is just mainstaining the status of a SRI merely by fitting in with some incredibly unreliable definitions of "socailly responsible." The community development is good but Enbridge seems bad if you ask me. Here's corresponding links to cite this example: http://www.qtrade.ca/orFundProfilesOV.do\\... (under the tab fund information you will find various questionable holdings like Enbridge) I've read a little about Socially Responsible Investments (SRIs) but some that I've found I'm not overall sure about, I do want to rule out oil for sure, so like no fossil fuels, and I think I found a Scotia Bank one that touted being an SRI but didn't really seem like all that much of one. Like how do the Scotia bank ones stand up?: http://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/0,,393,0\\... I'm by no means an expert at this stuff but some of it seems fairly obvious when you're trying to track down their good deeds aside from their mandates and those lame overview statements they provide about what their funds stand for, rhetorically speaking that is. I really would like some feedback, and if you think it is next to impossible to do some of this stuff, please explain that too. If you think I am digging down the wrong tunnel please say that rather than skip over this babble entry and not saying a thing. I somewhat imagine that some of the reasons for poor stock performance in some wind and solar energy may have little to do with true bad performace but may be due to a lack of sufficient funding to get the real depth of the project implemented that is necessary to start making a return on profits. There are plausible reasons why ethical investing may not be functional due to lack of funding to get a project off the ground, that easily is supplied to more readily returnable profit to shareholder companies like those involved in tar sands energy for example. Provide some feedback please. You know in a number of ways this ethics of investments goes to the heart of society's blind trust that led to this financial crisis of gouging customers and ripping the face off clients type stuff, stuff like pension money going into harmful industries -- our misunderstanding of the business we invest in. The election in America and the ambivalence surrounding the difference between Obama and Romney, as progressives break down the matter, is very central to misleading clients (the citizens of America in terms of public programs are clients also), where Obama flat out lied by stressing issues in his 2008 campaign speech taht he never honored. Matt Stoller from Salon has a good write up: The policy continuity with Bush is a stark contrast to what Obama offered as a candidate. Look at the broken promises from the 2008 Democratic platform: a higher minimum wage, a ban on the replacement of striking workers, seven days of paid sick leave, a more diverse media ownership structure, renegotiation of NAFTA, letting bankruptcy judges write down mortgage debt, a ban on illegal wiretaps, an end to national security letters, stopping the war on whistle-blowers, passing the Employee Free Choice Act, restoring habeas corpus , and labor protections in the FAA bill. Each of these pledges would have tilted bargaining leverage to debtors, to labor, or to political dissidents. So Obama promised them to distinguish himself from Bush, and then went back on his word because these promises didn't fit with the larger policy arc of shifting American society toward his vision. For sure, Obama believes he is doing the right thing, that his policies are what's best for society. He is a conservative technocrat, running a policy architecture to ensure that conservative technocrats like him run the complex machinery of the state and reap private rewards from doing so. Radical political and economic inequality is the result. None of these policy shifts, with the exception of TARP, is that important in and of themselves, but together they add up to declining living standards . Then on the other hand, Romney we call the etch-a-sketch, for his speaking out of two mouths at the same time contradicting himself on the campaign trail, and we call this deceitful because it is happening in a closer space of time, this contradicting values by Romney but yet it is fair for Obama to do this by lying consistently throughout a campaign and then later on selling out to the public. How little we seem to care about the actual ventures they are on, exhibiting a sort of blind faith the rhetorical spinner of good deeds is better than the guy who sort of tells you that profits are the ultimate good. My question then is are SRIs better than buying directly in Enbridge because they can hide holdings of companies like Enbridge within other entities that hide these interests, as do SRIs by complying with flimsy standards on social investment that allow oil companies to still make the grade while speeding up global warming and harming local communities upset by oil operations like in the tar sands for example. You know, maybe ethical choices despite everything else is best. Perhaps this would mean in AMerica that Jill Stein of the Green Party is the true ethical choice because they will use their funds honestly and are geared towards actual transparency and accountability, auditing, regulations -- all that stuff talked about that we're so often used to hearing sold in the way you sell your kids the lies of Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. What in effect are real investment answers that are good and ethical that are not the lesser of two evils or the better of the bunch or framed in ways like that, but actually just good stuff for a healthy planet?