Is ethical investing possible?

[Something Funny]

I would like to get into investing, eventually but I as far as I understand, standard investing is pretty corrupt. You just buy whatever stocks you expect to turn more profits, disregarding what kind of company it is and what kind of practices allow them to grow their stock price.

By ethical investing I mean investing in companies that align with your values and things that at least don't harm the planet / society.

Is it possible to do that and still make money or will it basically be charity at this point?

The main challenge I see is that there are very few companies that would meet the criteria and also have publicly traded stocks. Most conscious businesses are smaller companies.

Also, when a company goes public, it  pretty much always corrupts them and makes them worse, even if it was some good business initially.

Are there are some other ethical ways to invest, other than buying company stocks that I am not considering?

[FourCrossedWands]

There aren't any publicly traded companies that are 100% ethical. There is always something bad you can find about any company.

Personally, I refuse to invest in companies that are undergoing numerous investigations, and have predatory business practices (eg. Google, Meta, United Health, etc.) I my opinion, such companies are worse than the tobacco industry.

Also, I refuse to invest into anything crypto related. That stuff is just a huge waste of electricity, plus millions of people have been scammed.

[Something Funny]

@FourCrossedWands so what do you invest in?

[FourCrossedWands]

51 minutes ago, Something Funny said:

@FourCrossedWands so what do you invest in?

My favorite companies are Berkshire Hathaway and Waste Management.

They are definitely not 100% ethical though...

Edited July 13 by FourCrossedWands

[Something Funny]

@FourCrossedWandsI

see, thanks for sharing.

Edited July 13 by Something Funny

[Leo Gura]

7 hours ago, Something Funny said:

Also, when a company goes public, it  pretty much always corrupts them and makes them worse, even if it was some good business initially.

Pretty much this. But, look, you don't have to be perfectionistic. The size of the market is so enormous and pretty much everyone invests in it that your choice is not going to make much difference. It is like pissing in the ocean that everyone is pissing into already.

Just by being part of society you are contributing to corruption. Trying to be too perfect while everyone else behaves like an animal will drive you nuts.

Invest in companies creating relatively good things.

Edited Sunday at 10:22 PM by Leo Gura

[Something Funny]

@Leo Gura thank you.

[samijiben]

Why would you want to do ethical investing?

That's like doing "enlightened business."

Just invest to make money, period. That's what that's for.

[Something Funny]

6 hours ago, samijiben said:

Why would you want to do ethical investing?

That's like doing "enlightened business."

Just invest to make money, period. That's what that's for.

Lol, no

[FourCrossedWands]

12 hours ago, samijiben said:

Why would you want to do ethical investing?

That's like doing "enlightened business."

Just invest to make money, period. That's what that's for.

The problem is that investing into unethical business often doesn't work in the long term. Just look what happened to the United Health stock. It was considered a blue chip company, one of the safest businesses to park your money in. Now it's crumbled. All because of bad business practices and scamming customers (letting them die).

[vinc3nc]

You're earning dollars and working hard your whole life, only for the government to devalue the dollar by printing more money. That's how society scams you if you're not smart. You don't need to invest in stocks. There are other options as well (one of them starts with a "B").
 

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

11 hours ago, Something Funny said:

Lol, no

If you won't invest to make money, then this will ensure you'll stay poor

[LordFall]

@Something Funny Of course. Depends on which causes you wanna back but green energy is a trending stock just as much as defence contractors.

You can always just build something yourself. Investing is using your capital to further someone's mission. And due to the global financial markets being based on speculation that has more leverage than you just using that money on your life(those sweet exponential returns) but it doesn't necessarily have to.

I would argue that Crypto and AI agents are gonna lead to some of the most ethical projects as they support decentralization of governance and ownership as a whole. 

[samijiben]

11 hours ago, FourCrossedWands said:

The problem is that investing into unethical business often doesn't work in the long term. Just look what happened to the United Health stock. It was considered a blue chip company, one of the safest businesses to park your money in. Now it's crumbled. All because of bad business practices and scamming customers (letting them die).

sure, but smart investing accounts for that. not investing in unethical businesses does not make you ethical because your goal is still to make money, right? 

imo OP gotta be honest with himself that he wants some fucking money. so go invest! forget ethics! ethics and chasing the bag are incompatible fantasies

 

[LordFall]

@samijiben Why are ethics and chasing the bag incompatible ethics? That’s demonstrably false and a toxic mindset. 

[samijiben]

@LordFall how do you define ethics?

[LordFall]

@samijiben The study of morality. Morality in this situation can just mean behaviour that is win-win. So I don't see why investing money in the stock market/Crypto has to make someone else lose. Therefore it is ethical and moral.