I’ve frequently written articles on the ‘Empire’ thread of “Op-Ed News” describing the ‘problem’ of Empire (including the Economics of Empire). The global corporate/financial Empire of the 21st century hides itself behind the façade of a virtual “Vichy America”. But ordinary citizens have the power to non-violently solve this deadly control of guileful Empire both through our remaining voting rights, and by turning a new era of democratic and socially responsible capitalism upon the imperial capitalists themselves.
The potential for confronting Empire has already changed quietly but significantly in the 'socially responsible' mutual fund industry ---- and this potential tool is about to change much more dramatically ---- particularly as the SR Fund industry expands and remarkets itself as the Socially Responsible and Honest Investment Fund Industry.
Yes, the quiet little 'socially responsibility' mutual fund sector of the far bigger and nastier capitalist investment world has actually already grown (with little MSM reporting, of course) to being responsible for the analytical reviewing of 10% of companies regarding the morality, legality, environmental impact, etc. of investments ---- and this SR world has also proven that it provides returns comparable to the 'Nasty Boyz' of the dominant "sell your mother" style finance capitalist investing 'professionals' (sic).
But, the big news is that the nastiest of the 'Nasty Boyz', like Citi, UBS, and Lehman have just issued 350 pages of nearly identical analytical reports saying that the entire 'nasty side' of the professional investment community (including themselves) have somehow overlooked (a well known 'market failure' that was oops, accidentally ignored) on the 'market valuations analysis' of many large F500 corporations (particularly nasty polluters like coal, oil, autos, weapons makers, etc.), and that if you take into consideration a little thing called "negative externality cost liabilities" what you find is that the real 'valuations' of such companies have to be discounted, as Dick Cheney likes to say, "BIG TIME"!
http://www.socialfunds.com/news/print.cgi?sfArticleId=2237
“The UBS and Lehman Brothers reports concur that climate change represents a classic market failure where company valuations neglect to take into account negative externalizations.”
“If climate change, one of the most studied environmental phenomena, represents a market failure, one can only wonder to what degree the legion of lesser-studied environmental and social externalities are not being priced into corporate valuations.”
Well, surprise, surprise, surprise! How do these accidental oversights keep happening? How could anyone have even anticipated things like that --- or things like the insurgency in Iraq? However, yours truly, had carried on a debate seven years ago with the then chief investment strategist of Deutsch bank about whether precisely such 'negative externality cost liabilities' shouldn't really be taken into account in any realistic financial analysis of the 'valuations' of corporations that appeared to be dumping their 'negative externality costs' on society (or the environment) ---- because, if/when they were caught and made to pay for their 'negative externality dumping' it would obviously decrease their market valuations?
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
