Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsingleton | Hacker News Reader

This is a link to Bill Gates' recent comments.

However, with pension funds this is slightly different. Funds have a huge voice and customers switching investments can influence how they use their votes. It's very easy to do, so why not do this in addition to all the other things?

It's also less about removing funds from fossil fuels and more about putting your retirement savings to better work. If you move your fund to a "future world" style one then this provides capital to clean energy projects etc. The ethical funds I looked at even performed better historically than the standard ones, so it's win-win.

View on HN

The economic system is successful because in general there is no way to stop someone from doing something economic. Much like how you can pull with a piece of string but not push; in economics you can take action but it is very challenging to prevent an economic action from happening. It is possible to do in the small but devilishly hard in the large (c.f. the content industries trying to deal with piracy for a good example).

Divesting just shifts profits away from ethical people towards unethical people. It is a bad strategy.

And the banks know that. If they stop investing in something it is because an actuary somewhere has worked out that it is risky and unprofitable.

> Funds have a huge voice

If they divest, they have no voice at all.

Most people unfortunately stick with the default investments their employers choose. So funds will still have a big vote share even if a large number of concerned people switch, however it is a signal to them.

It may be a signal to the funds themselves, but it is not any kind of signal to the underlying companies whose stock is being held in the fund.

So you’re saying that now “voting with your money” doesn’t make any sense? But wasn’t that the standard liberal answer to “socialist strikes”? /s

Also, does that mean that one has to pay to be heard? Isn’t that census all over again? (Not so /s)

> you’re saying that now “voting with your money” doesn’t make any sense

I said no such thing. Voting with your wallet means changing who you do business with. Selling your stock in a company does exactly zero to their bottom line, you are not voting at all.

Value is determined by demand. If demand drops so does value. Also bottom line and stock price are different things.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com