[Politics] Ethical Investment

[davywavy]

The latest buzz term in investment is ethical investing. I first encountered this as a concept about fifteen years ago whilst talking to someone about their investment portfolio and having them tell me about how they wouldn't put thier money into things that they disagreed with, like weapons manufacturers and so forth. However, as time has gone on ethical investment has gone from being a personal decision like that was to being big business - I doubt any major financial institution now doesn't offer ethical investment opportunities, from Green Funds to full-on Ethical investment right through to the slightly off-centre Blue fund for US Democrats.

You might have seen the news the other day regarding the ongoing fallout of the recent 'cash for peerages' scandal-ette which is that whilst the Conservative Party appears to have had a bumper few months and cleared it's outstanding cashflow shortage though donations, the Labour Party is still some £12m in debt. As the Guardian noted on December 17th, "More than £20m in debt, if Labour were a company, the party would now be calling in the receivers."
Whilst an interesting question would be what the constitional implications are if the ruling party of the day were to declare bankruptcy, this won't happen - Labour will fight back out of it's financial black hole through a mix of donations and loans. The difference is that now loans must be declared and charged at commercial rates, and with the recent hike in interest rates, commercial rates are about 7.5%.

And it's this that gave me my latest cracking wheeze. With commercial interest rates of 7.5%, a £10,000 loan over a 5-year term will carry about £50-60 per month in interest as well as payments to reduce capital. With this in mind, I'll be setting up a fund whose investment strategy will be to lend money to the Labour party because, when you think about it, there's no more ethical investment you can make. Every £10,000 lent to Labour will take nigh £3-4000 out of their coffers which otherwise they would waste on haircuts for Cherie, pies for Prescott and fighting elections - none of which I think are things anyone would really want to encourage them to do.
Thus the more money I lend to Labour, the higher my return and the less money the Labour party has to actually spend. Indeed, if I lend the party enough money it will actually put them out of business altogether, and I doubt anyone can think of a more decent, ethical way of spending your money than the destruction of the Labour Party.

I'm planning on calling this the Bankrupt The Labour Party Mutual Benefical and Friendly Society and shall be seeking investors.
The BTLPMB&S. It's good for the planet, it's good for the country, and it's good for you. Who's in?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

An amusing notion, but you won't get your money back. Nulabour doesn't produce any value, and so has no prospect of repaying your principle plus interest. What you propose (get them in hock to you, them pull out the rug) is the legal equivalent of assassinating the whole bloody lot, and good riddance.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

In teh short term it s winner - they'll have to raise money from the unions to pay me back my loans and interest. This will have the effect of taking money out of the pockets of the unions and putting it into mine, which would reverse usual Labour policy.

[(Anonymous)]

I think Bliar et al would get short shrift if they went cap in hand to the TUC. They'd be handed a list of policies to implement in exchange for the cash which would bring ruin upon us all if they were spineless enough to capitulate...

Having reasoned it through, your idea is a turkey.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You say that, but it seems that Labour's plan to get themselves of the hoel they've dug is to...go cap in hand to the unions.

[(Anonymous)]

Their fair weather plutocrat pals deserting them having plundered the nation of it's industrial heritage eh? Who would've seen that coming? Bit late for them to rediscover their working class foundation, now there isn't a working class any more. Go Blair!

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Actually, the policies agreed by the TUC would improve the lives of the majority of people in this country. They just wouldn't benefit the already-rich.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

...and given that all unions' money come directly from working people, you'd basically be using this as a means of taking money from people poorer than you. I can see how that might be attractive to you ;-)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Poorer than me? I assume you don't look at the salaries being paid on the Guardian Public Sector jobs pages then?
if there's one thing that public sector workers aren't, these days, It's poorer than me.
Remember I still qualify for the definition of poverty.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I have looked at those salaries (jealously) but union membership is hardly exclusive to the public sector, and the biggest Labour-affiliated unions (i.e. the T&G, the GMB and Amicus) are all primarily blue-collar. You, like me, might well qualify for the Oxfam definition of poverty but you aren't (so far as I'm aware) on the National Minimum Wage...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

This is where I shake my head and wonder about the blue-collar unions - given that the 50%+ corporation tax regime of the 70's was a great contributor of blue-collar manufacturing work moving overseas, I simply cannot understand why they'd continue to stump up to a political philosophy which is anathema to their members.

[(Anonymous)]

Even now, our high corporation tax rate makes it economical for foreign shells to own British assets. Companies declare their profits where taxes are low.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Alas, true. Apparently HSBC have told Brown that if their tax percentage goes up any further then they're going to shift their entire city operation to Zurich, and that's worth £1.5bn per year to the exchequer.
If you pay people to do stuff then they'll do it, and effectively tax rates are a means of paying organisations to do business in your territory. High taxes only hurt the little organisations, because the big operations can just leave.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

You've gotta understand that, in philosophy, the traditional union model is fine as long as it's applied globally. Otherwise, as you rightly say, economic globalisation basically penalises both Governments and workers for having people-friendly policies.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

As an addition, appoint Gordon 'as intelligent and ugly as an angler fish/crocodile hybrid living in a Scottish marsh' Brown as Labour's accountant.

Then start placing bets.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Well, it seems that Labour have been running their party finances in teh same way as they have the national ones - run up huge costs for the future by making extravagant promises which have proven impossible to live up to, and then desperately trying to keep the costs off the books (cf Brown changing the rules of PFI so such projects no longer appear as public expenditure).
If this was happening to csomeone elses country, I'd laugh.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

The bleakness of it all would make a remarkable post-modern French play. Sometimes I shake my head and wonder if I actually read what I read. I told my mother that every year the UK government sends me a nice little letter asking me how much I paid in taxes. If there's one thing I can say about my government, they would never, ever, ever, ever, ever do that.


Ever.

Because that's one place they do not fuck around.

[mrmmarc.livejournal.com]

UK taxation is about to get much worse.
Council Tax to be depedant upon WHERE you live (therefore if you live in a crime free, nice neighbourhood- you pay more, whereas if you live in a shithole- you pay less- so the moral is- fuck up your neighbourhood to create less council tax).
Al;so new taxes on property development- the more you do to your place, the more you need to spend on it- the proposals go like this- every YEAR you will be asked if you did anything AND they will send an inspector around to see if you did something to it.
Inspectors? NICE!

Petty, petty, nasty and more petty.

[(Anonymous)]

I can see how that would work:

"have you made any improvements to your house this year?"

"Yes, I put a dead pig in the bath & blocked the toiled with rotting mincemeat. Can I have a rebate?"

Tax property by floor area: it can be measured with a machine, so isn't subject to the whim of someone who's job it will no doubt be to beat you into a higher tax bracket, and houses don't suddenly get 20% bigger because the local school gets a good league table ranking.

What rot you do talk

[(Anonymous)]

John, this is a very silly idea, or are you just satirising Joe's "pay everyone exactly the same no matter where in the world they are," idea? 2000 sq ft in Belgravia is a very different proposition from 2000 sq ft on the Denman Road Estate. The only way to work out the value of a property is "what people are prepared to pay for it" (which is why I think the banding idea actually works quite well, since it evens out discrepancies like the Stamp Duty Threshhold). What the House Inspectors are threatening to do is take "what people are prepared to pay" as a starting point and then add on extra, imaginary value for things like schools which for some reason known only to themselves are not adequately reflected in the purchase price. Basically, it's a Window Tax by another name.

H

What I you do talk

[(Anonymous)]

I think you'll find those properties are in different wards. Still, nice to see you read all this way down.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Reading about new taxes makes me feel like a tick about to pop. Instead of being full of blood, full of bile and resentment....

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

I would invest, but presently all of my donation funds are going to the "Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society"

[colonel-maxim.livejournal.com]

I still have 'Babel and Gemorrah', the Unethical Investment bank registered somewhere. It only invests in gunrunners, Big Oil and tobacco firms and will disinvest from any company that pays above the minimum wage.
The company logo was a donkey being dropped from a church tower in honour of quaint Spanish customs.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You were beaten to the punch about six years ago when one of the US brockerages launched the 'Death Fund', which tracked Alcohol, tobacco and forearms companies. It outperformed the market for a good few years until public distain caused it to be shut down.

[applez.livejournal.com]

This peripherally reminds me of a rather good political bumper sticker I saw once. "World Peace Happens When the Air Force Has to Hold A Bake Sale for Its Next Bomber"