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Not a fan of ESG Investing 👎

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Lately, there has been a growing interest in people investing in various Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance (ESG) funds. They are usually sector funds, that only invest in businesses that have been selected based on their environmental, social, and corporate governance performance or actions. The idea is you invest in things that make the world a better place, rather then a worse place.

ESG funds are heavily marketed. It’s hard to open Facebook without a targeted ad, trying to play on your emotions and feel good about investing in these kind of businesses. But often if you look more then skin deep, they are highly scammy with few environmental and social benefits, despite the marketing hype. Often the products sold by ESG companies are hardly better then sold by those businesses not chosen by the ESG fund marketers.

But a bigger problem is that ESG companies aren’t well diversified compared to most market indexes, and that investing doesn’t actually decide which businesses have good business models and make money. Ultimately, it consumers, not investors that decide if a business is profitable and make sense. By buying an index fund, you end up with both ESG and non-ESG, and will profit when either one makes money. Risk is lower, because you have a wider range of stocks then only the ESG funds.

Is corporate greed to blame? : NPR

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Grocery price inflation: Is corporate greed to blame? : NPR

NPR crunched financial disclosures by a dozen of the largest grocery-item makers and sellers, including Walmart, Pepsi, Oreo-maker Mondelez and Procter & Gamble, which makes Pampers and Bounty.

The idea was to track changes not in the sheer dollar amount, which rides the waves of our shopping sprees, but in the percentage of money that stays in corporate coffers after a sale. Economists and accountants use different metrics for this. The gross profit margin is one of them — the portion that companies keep after paying just the direct costs to make or stock their goods.

Companies' financial disclosures cover global operations, meaning lots of variety in costs and prices. But for almost all companies that NPR analyzed, between 2018 and 2023 the margins either declined or grew less than 1%.

Apparently the internet marketers have decided I am interested in meal services, and are now serving up a series of advertisements in my social media feeds and even when I open up the browser

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Apparently the internet marketers have decided I am interested in meal services, and are now serving up a series of advertisements in my social media feeds and even when I open up the browser. Probably because I often blog about going to the grocery store, if only because that’s just something that is regularly on my to-do list for once a week, like going to the laundromat or washing Big Red.

I should become a better cook, and make healthier food but my kitchen is small and rundown, and I’m busy. When I own my own land, I probably get more into cooking so I can harvest more of my own food from my animals and plants. But I can’t imagine paying money for an overpriced meal service, one that comes in styrofoam and tons of packaging — even if I lived out in the country and had a burn barrel to burn up the packaging. I always buy bulk in store, and try to minimize packaging — so I have less to bring to transfer station. I don’t do TV dinners or anything excessively packaged — why pay for something your going to have buried in landfill or burn on up?

It just seems like so many things these days are over-packaged and waste — trying to get you to part with your money to throw it away. 🍌 👉 🗑