Question "Socially Responsible Investing"

Got a post on the Northwest Progressive Community listserv.

I don't invest through mutual funds, mostly because I can't afford the minumum investment requirements for most of them. The only exception is within my 401K, but I don't have that many options there.

What I do instead is invest directly in stocks as a micro-investor. Sharebuilder.com makes that cheap and easy. There are other online investing companies as well, but sharebuilder has the lowest cost and lowest minimums. I currently have around $7,000 in their accounts.

I've always had a problem with socially responsible investing. My own reason is that it leaves the high-dividend, questionable ethics stocks in the hands of people who literally don't care about the environment, don't care about the middle class, and are willing to destroy the future in order to achieve immediate financial gains.

I strongly feel that we need to redistribute the wealth of our nation, and that a change like that must come from the bottom up. We have to put dividends into the hands of the people who will do something constructive and positive with the money, not just move it to offshore tax havens.

I can go on and on about this.

Here's an article that tells the story about SRI Funds.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_2415.cfm

Learn more at Paul Hawken's group, the Natural Capital Institute

http://www.naturalcapital.org/