Here's a question: What's unethical?
Is it using chinese labor to manufacture(Foxconn, and everyone they work for like Apple)
Is it using Asian sweatshops, despite the many positive arguments for the practice, and how it raises the quality of life of those citizens working there and their progeny? How South Korea was able to climb from textiles to cars/electronics, and how it exported it's textile industry to Bangladesh when international export allowances for the US changed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweatshop#Pro-sweatshop_argumentshttp://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/05/14/184019151/episode-458-bangladeshs-t-shirt-economyIs it producing something that people kill themselves with, like a cigarette or a sugar laden drink, or a cheeseburger?
Is it producing the meat on any industrialized scale farm?
Is it unethical business practices like monopolization and bullying, while simultaneously increasing the world's food supply?(Monsanto)
I'm not saying that there's not unethical things in the world. I'm asking where's the limit? There's blood on everybody's hands, from Nestle to Coca Cola to the Koch Brothers to Diebold(voting machines) to gun manufacturers, to food producers, to DOW Chemicals and Monsanto. I choose to spend my money on the best harm reduction(from my POV of my dollars) places I can(Target or Costco vs. Walmart, any fast food place instead of Chick-Fil-A), but there's a limit to your control of the world.
And in that control of the world, if you could get a 10% return on your money vs. 8% by investing "ethically"(whatever that definition turns out to be for that social index), over a 40 year period that turns into a return of 4500% vs. 2170%(30 year: 1000% vs 1740%). It does not affect the value of the shares(Monsanto has a daily trading value of 2.5 million shares, at 115$ a share. Let's say you invest $100k into an S&P 500 index fund, .37% of that goes to Monsanto stock(in a roundabout fashion), which is 370$, or ~3 shares... the average trading volume in monsanto shares is 280 million dollars, so no, your money in "buying" those shares is absolutely immaterial.
And if I can insult Coca Cola for the Koch brothers(I made their net worth go up .000000001%, **** those guys) and water rights, and Nestle for baby formula and water rights, and Nike for foreign "sweatshops" or whatever they call them, there's not a single major company that's immune to insult.
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And then, it's made even worse by companies own interactions, with the law, with eachother, etc. I hate Haliburton. I think DOW Chemicals might be more evil than Monsanto. I can't even tailor my -consumer- actions to affect them. Now that's evil.