Terrifying/Inspiring Thought of the Week
Another large bank just announced that it is dropping it’s commitment to net-zero and limiting it’s disclosure about greenhouse gas emissions.
Apparently, in our current economic model, it is just too hard to not destroy the world and maximize profits at the same time.
Ummm … then don’t you stop worrying about maximizing profits and don’t destroy the world. That is an option … yes?
I very much prefer credit unions to banks.
While it's true that the banking lobby has pretty much destroyed any financial advantage that credit unions might have had (I can remember in the 1970s and 1980s when they paid more interest than banks), at least they tend to be small and more responsive to members' pressure to be socially responsible.
If you are a in a deciding position as this bank or any other such entity, yes, you can decide human survival is more important than profits You can attempt to turn the policies of the entity you manage in the right direction to avert disaster. Then the board will decide you must be removed because you are failing in your fiduciary duty to privilege stockholder interests above all else; you will shortly be replaced by a more "responsible" manager who will reverse your efforts. For a time it improved the PR for banks to pretend to carer about DEI and sustainability; now the Trump mandate is to jettison all that and they're happily doing so.
Another blog I follow , the Raven, just did a review of a book by a Japanese named Saito which has just been translated into English and espoused degrowth communism...called Slow Down I think? Anyway you might check it out.