In the mid-nineties, after sending many fruitless faxes, emails and phone calls to Governor George W. Bush about death penalty cases, I concluded he could be the next president. He was negative enough and deaf enough to real concerns and rational objections to unite the angry white people around the country. He would approach the problems of the world the way he dealt with crime in Texas. Kill people. My liberal friends scoffed: "He is a buffoon and a local phenomenon peculiar to Texas." Now I feel the same way about Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. He is taking advantage of changes in immigration enforcement in the Obama administration to defy the federal government and highlight and publicize his unrelenting persecution of immigrants. If the dice of US and world events roll the wrong way...
I hope they don't. I hope I'm wrong.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Evil Funds- a joke that is 6 years behind reality
I thought of the following announcement as a joke last night. When I started to get a few links for it I found my joke had been preceded by reality 6 years earlier: the Vice Fund.
see also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Fund
Fortunately, the latest performance numbers show that at least one hypothesis, that such "vice" investments as defense and tobacco are recession proof, seems to hold little water - it is down just like most other investments.
Here is my unoriginal spoof - I have not yet researched the second more radical "Ultimate Evil" hypothetical fund . I hope nobody has made it a reality, though I fear a real version exists, even if it is not public knowledge. (Fifty years ago, I met a couple of Canadian billionaires who closed two highly profitable businesses just to punish workers for embracing unions, and bragged about it. )
As an evil twin image of ethical investment funds, these funds tap highly active information sources like Corpwatch to identify potential investments:
1) The Evil Fund maximises profit regardless of the ethical consequences, going boldly where others would hang back out of mundane ethical concerns.
2) the Ultimate Evil fund is for those investors with a triple evil bottom line - even if an investment is less profitable, it may be worthwhile if it generates enough mayhem and suffering.
see also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Fund
Fortunately, the latest performance numbers show that at least one hypothesis, that such "vice" investments as defense and tobacco are recession proof, seems to hold little water - it is down just like most other investments.
Here is my unoriginal spoof - I have not yet researched the second more radical "Ultimate Evil" hypothetical fund . I hope nobody has made it a reality, though I fear a real version exists, even if it is not public knowledge. (Fifty years ago, I met a couple of Canadian billionaires who closed two highly profitable businesses just to punish workers for embracing unions, and bragged about it. )
As an evil twin image of ethical investment funds, these funds tap highly active information sources like Corpwatch to identify potential investments:
1) The Evil Fund maximises profit regardless of the ethical consequences, going boldly where others would hang back out of mundane ethical concerns.
2) the Ultimate Evil fund is for those investors with a triple evil bottom line - even if an investment is less profitable, it may be worthwhile if it generates enough mayhem and suffering.
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