MarionSauce 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Debate in 1.5 hrs. I have to argue AGAINST Ethical Investing, so give me some good ones, other than that they perform lower than the S&P 500 and that there is no good return. Link to post Share on other sites
Kaedin 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 just force choke the person(s) you're debating against and the moderator until they declare you victorious and then kill them anyhow. Link to post Share on other sites
nutonflop 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Debate in 1.5 hrs. I have to argue AGAINST Ethical Investing, so give me some good ones, other than that they perform lower than the S&P 500 and that there is no good return.ethical investing is like jumbo shrimp (oxymoron)capitalism is inherently unethical, whenever you make money at someone's expense you are screweing them over. There are "bottom line" companies out there "newman's own" etc. But for capitalism to work, you need companies that make more than the bottom line; else, you are living in a socialist bartar system and investing would be a Moot point. No investing in socialism. Love philosophy, keep these coming Link to post Share on other sites
Socrates 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Claim that it is unethical Link to post Share on other sites
greatwhite 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 quote]ethical investing is like jumbo shrimp (oxymoron)So true. Link to post Share on other sites
Smasharoo 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Property is theft, hence any investing at all is inherently unethical. People truely concerned with ethics would simply give their money to the poor to facilitate redistribution of wealth, as wealth itself is by definition unethical.Quote Peter Singer and Marx. Link to post Share on other sites
MarionSauce 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Author Share Posted July 12, 2005 Claim that it is unethicalI can say something completely absurd like , if you didn't invest in so and so arms company, I would not have shot that creepy dude who was trying to get into my pants. This is going to be hard. Hopefully Milton Friedman can help me out. Link to post Share on other sites
Smasharoo 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Hopefully Milton Friedman can help me out.He could definately tell you how to fix inflation in a South American economy by fucking poor people... Link to post Share on other sites
nutonflop 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Property is theft, hence any investing at all is inherently unethical. Â People truely concerned with ethics would simply give their money to the poor to facilitate redistribution of wealth, as wealth itself is by definition unethical.Quote Peter Singer and Marx.exactly,which is why you are left with a big conundrum. "free" enerprise is the most ethical way to run econimics, however it is inherently evil. socialism makes the only truely free person the government. Tough one. Giving up freedom is never ethical. That's why i don't like the ethics dimension philosophy. A lot more is gleaned throuh morals and causation. Not to be a hedonist, but check out Ayn Rand for the other side of the Marxist coin. Link to post Share on other sites
econ_tim 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Is there a specific statement that you're debating?Or are you just arguing the merits of ethical investing? Link to post Share on other sites
MarionSauce 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Author Share Posted July 12, 2005 Is there a specific statement that you're debating?Or are you just arguing the merits of ethical investing?I am basically arguing the ethical investing is crap. Seriously I am a scientist/accountant; no idea what I am doing right now. Link to post Share on other sites
nutonflop 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Is there a specific statement that you're debating?Or are you just arguing the merits of ethical investing?I am basically arguing the ethical investing is crap. Seriously I am a scientist/accountant; no idea what I am doing right now.your answer is that, big trends in ethical investing lead to an overall stagnation in the marketplace which is bad for everyone. If everyone did it there would be 0% market growth. We would then be basically living in socialism, noone profits and profits are given away to redistribute wealth. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. You give up freedom to live in this way= unethical. Link to post Share on other sites
MarionSauce 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Author Share Posted July 12, 2005 Thanks guys, I like how I'm arguing that ethical investing is unethical. My prof is high all the time. Link to post Share on other sites
iveyfan30 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 i like popcorn...... Link to post Share on other sites
nutonflop 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Is there a specific statement that you're debating?Or are you just arguing the merits of ethical investing?I am basically arguing the ethical investing is crap. Seriously I am a scientist/accountant; no idea what I am doing right now.also, i'd check out google's business plan. They can be considered an SRI company (socially resposible invesment) yet there are obvious ethical concers in what they do. (googel mapping can look at area 51. Also, their search accelorator captures resticted admin websites then replicates them on others computers illegally.)It is obvious that google DOES try to be an SRI, yet there is no litmus test that actually confirms it.PS you need to define what the class is considering Ethical Investing, there is a broad spectrum of what it is. e.g. It can be from what my 1st post says, to just being " a nice guy". If your just a "nice guy investor" that negates every other company from being nice which is obviously a misnomer. Whats your def.? Link to post Share on other sites
UglyJimStudly 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Debate in 1.5 hrs. I have to argue AGAINST Ethical Investing, so give me some good ones, other than that they perform lower than the S&P 500 and that there is no good return.Postulate: Ethics is a set of behaviours chosen by society.Postulate: In a reasonably free market, society's choices can be inferred from prices and returns. This is because supply and demand drives prices, and demand is an expression of those choices.Postulate: The investment market is reasonably free.Conclusion: Profitable investments are those chosen by society, and hence ethical. Specifically choosing unprofitable investments and calling them ethical is insane. QED. Link to post Share on other sites
LongOdds 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Out of the Box - There is no such thing as successful ethical investing. Three possibilities. 1) You have inside information (the definition of unethical investing, I presume). 2) You have analyzed public information and have discovered a trend/fact that indicates a successful investing opportunity. In this case, it is your obligation, ethically of course, to share such discover with those less fortunate and ignorant of said discovery. As the information is made more available, the opportunity dissipates and is no longer successful. 3) You have no inside information, and you have no useful public information, so really you are just investing blindly. Not ethical, because the money that you are investing could be used more productively (whether defined by financial productivity or societal productivity is your choice) in other ways, so investing blindly is unethical because it serves as a disservice to society as a whole (as well as your own pocket book). Basically, all investing is unethical because it is a) per se unethical, B) unethical via lack of freely sharing information that could help others, or c) unethical via stupidity (money could help you or others in more profitable ventures).Hope that helps.GL Link to post Share on other sites
MarionSauce 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Author Share Posted July 12, 2005 There was no applicable definition given to us. I'm postulating that the pro-group will say that unethical companies are those who use child labour, cheap labour, weapon and arms, nuclear, environmental, tobacco and alcohol, but forget monopoly. Apparently they are a smrt group. Link to post Share on other sites
nutonflop 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 There was no applicable definition given to us. I'm postulating that the pro-group will say that unethical companies are those who use child labour, cheap labour, weapon and arms, nuclear, environmental, tobacco and alcohol, but forget monopoly. Apparently they are a smrt group.i wouldn't count on it. This gets back to my other argument. For a company to come out and say "we are ethical" is like saying "all other companies that have not made this statement are unethical". There is no litmus test for being an ethical company which is why i think it is a BS term, like jumbo shrimp. Any compnay can make this claim and not follow through. There are the truly ethical who don't take profit, but that's socialism and you couldn't invest in them anyway. But i wouldn't go in there ready to argue why you should invest in tabacco, and booze. Ethics is rhetoric, and subjective. use that. Link to post Share on other sites
econ_tim 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Hope this isn't too late. You can make an efficiency arguement against ethical investing.People who engage in ethical investing do so ostensibly to further some moral agenda, for example to stop pollution or end child labor. But if they wanted to achieve the most progress toward this goal, they should first maximize their income and then put this income to use.Ethical investing is a waste of their resources, since investing in green companies and the like yields a return below the market average. People should invest to maximze their rate of return and then use the income as they see fit. That way they will have more money to solve the world's problems.So you can label the ethical investors hypocrites. Instead of pursuing a pragmatic plan to solve whatever problems they say they care about, they take a low maintainence approach of buying some stock. Link to post Share on other sites
HtotheNootch 0 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 Personally I like "sin" investing. Casinos, beer, liquor...If I'd put my money into that instead of tech a few years ago I'd be much better off today. Link to post Share on other sites
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