The tobacco industry is not the only industry in which these numbers are so dramatic. The mining, timber, sugar, beef and oil industries all make tiny, incremental benefits to the very few by massive transfer from the majority. They only escalate the progress toward our shared secret. Social investing is our best hope. It can return our economic structure to its purpose.
Investors operate at the rub point where corporations and society meet.
Social investors can define the terms of this intersection. This is our purpose. The struggle is too great, the need too immediate, the failure too costly to allow ourselves to do nothing. We investment professionals must be constantly vigilant. It is not enough to wear our Birkenstocks and Patagonia as we sip Odwalla juices.