Personal ethics and the Rise of Greed

[Twitch]

While I am no fan of conglomerate oil coprorations merging and merging into giants remember they make about 10% profit where the average manufacture, include Microsoft here, makes 30%. Part of the obscene amounts are due to the fact that the dollar amount profit is more due to the the higher wholesale cost set by petoleum on the world market. In other words 10% of a higher amount is a higher profit amount in relative terms.

The real culprit is a close as our friendly government in the form of gasoline taxes. Don't even search for the income they make or you'll need a vicodin:eusa_doh:

 

[Etienne]

Agreed! (Speaking of "greed"...)

 

[Marc Chevalier]

My investment strategy? Simple. Invest in vices my friend. They will always be with us. Gambling, liquor and cigarettes will never let you down. They are perfectly legal and you can make a fortune. Are they ethical? I don't see how they can be any worse than any other business as Paisley mentioned. In some sense, I am investing in myself and recapturing some of my own money. Everyone goes in with their eyes open now. :cheers1:

And while you're at it, jamespowers, work on legalizing prostitution and marijuana ... which, after all, "will always be with us". Then you can "invest in [even more] vices", since they'll be "perfectly legal". Mazel tov!

 

[jamespowers]

And while you're at it, jamespowers, work on legalizing prostitution and marijuana ... which, after all, "will always be with us". Then you can "invest in [even more] vices", since they'll be "perfectly legal". Mazel tov!

If it were legal then I would invest in it. Prostitution is legal in certain states but I am not sure how to go about investing in it though. Have any ideas Marc?
I confine my drug investing to legal pharmaceuticals and I have no interest in vying for legalization of any drugs that are illegal now. I know legalization would make getting a better job easier and getting into a good college easier because drug Darwinism would eliminate the stupid but I think I will leave that for someone else to do.

Regards to all,

J

 

[shamus]

My take on the original question is it all depends on the person.

As we've seen here there are a lot of people that have no problem making money off greedy/un-ethical companies.

If you're not a money hungry person, then you can still plan for your future without having trouble sleeping at night.

land purchase is a very nice way to make money and you actually have something, not a piece of paper.

It all depends on what you're willing to give up in order to get.

 

[jake431]

That's not genetic engineering. As far as I know there were few if any "hybridizers" who put a tomato and a fish next each other to produce a random mixing of genes.

But we have used genetic engineering to create corn, blueberries, strawberries, apples, etc. It wasn't called genetic engineering when it was done because the notion of genetic manipulation didn't even exist. Sometimes I think if farmers were the ones with the labs no one would be up in arms about genetic engineering. The way I see it, genetically engineered plants can be a good thing. And it can also be abused. Basically it's the same as most every other human endeavour.

But I digress - I empahize - ethical investing is something I too am interested in. Of course I would like my investments to pay off, but not at the cost of someone else's well-being. I know that might not be possible, but I at least like to attempt to avoid knowingly harming someone else. That, to me, is ethical investing. Others may have differing definitions.

 

[shamus]

But we have used genetic engineering to create corn, blueberries, strawberries, apples, etc. It wasn't called genetic engineering when it was done because the notion of genetic manipulation didn't even exist. Sometimes I think if farmers were the ones with the labs no one would be up in arms about genetic engineering. The way I see it, genetically engineered plants can be a good thing. And it can also be abused. Basically it's the same as most every other human endeavour.

Actually what farmers do is not genetic engineering, but cross pollination. Big difference between the two.

Genetic engineering is actually going into the cells of the plant and splicing.

 

[Paisley]

If it were legal then I would invest in it. Prostitution is legal in certain states but I am not sure how to go about investing in it though.

I read some time ago in the Wall Street Journal about a legal brothel in Nevada that had closed for lack of business. There had been plans to develop it, but nothing came of them.

Maybe you'd be interested in a new fedora, though:

 

[jamespowers]

I read some time ago in the Wall Street Journal about a legal brothel in Nevada that had closed for lack of business. There had been plans to develop it, but nothing came of them.

Maybe you'd be interested in a new fedora, though:

You would have to be just as careful investing there as anywhere else. Some business models do not work. Try watching HBO this June there is a brothel in Nevada that makes tons of money and has its own TV show.
That fedora is for a guy that has feet on the street. I would be more like the finance guy.

Regards to all,

J

 

[Lincsong]

Somehow this doesn't surprise me.
And WOW! I've go to add some big tobacoo companies to my 'watch' stock list.

R.J. Reynolds (RAI) pays a $5 per share dividend. $1.25 per share is paid quarterly. Six years ago the stock was around $20 per share and was paying $2.50 per year dividend. So if you still held that share at $20 you'd be getting $5 or 20% return per year. Altria (formerly Phillip Morris, MO)has too many eggs in the basket. That's why it's trading in the 70's. R.J. Reynolds spun off the non tobacco companies so it's pure "smoke". That way it's easy to predict how the stock will do. Some analysts are predicting it will reach $180 per share. Hopefully it will split before then. An oil company that is trading near it's low is Valero Ltd. Partnership (VLI) it is paying 5%.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Maybe if all countries had this kind of warning on their tobacco packaging, you'd be getting less of a dividend.

 

[jamespowers]

Maybe if all countries had this kind of warning on their tobacco packaging, you'd be getting less of a dividend.

Nope. People would still smoke if they came in pine boxes shaped like coffins and the brand name was Death or Coffin Nails. The Grim Reaper could even be their spokesman. I would bet that those packs would sell even more.
You just aren't going to make people stop smoking no matter what you do. Remember Murphy's Law.

Regards to all,

J

P.S. And that claim on the package is BS. I've smoked long enough to know.

 

[jake431]

Actually what farmers do is not genetic engineering, but cross pollination. Big difference between the two.

Genetic engineering is actually going into the cells of the plant and splicing.

The technique is different, the result is the same. it is combining the genetic structures of two organisms that do not do so in nature.

-Jake

 

[jake431]

Nope. People would still smoke if they came in pine boxes shaped like coffins and the brand name was Death or Coffin Nails. The Grim Reaper could even be their spokesman. I would bet that those packs would sell even more.
You just aren't going to make people stop smoking no matter what you do. Remember Murphy's Law.

Regards to all,

J

P.S. And that claim on the package is BS. I've smoked long enough to know.

Can you explain what Murphy's Law (whatever can go wrong, will go wrong) has to do with people smoking?

-Jake

 

[jamespowers]

Can you explain what Murphy's Law (whatever can go wrong, will go wrong) has to do with people smoking?

-Jake

Sure. In the context of what I was saying, those who put big warning labels on products saying that just touching them will kill you expect that it will deter people from using said products. Wrong!
You are likely dealing with a group of people who are risk takers in the first place so further warning them is kind of ridiculous. It becomes like a dare. In other words the warning goes wrong when it falls on deaf ears.
Going back to King James in his 1604 piece entitled "A Counterblast to Tobacco," he said of Tobacco: "a custom loathe to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless."
Now if a King said this during the whole introduction of smoking by Sir Walter Raleigh and people still smoked and still do today over 400 years later then how do you expect warning labels that are far more benign than that of James to work now?

Regards,

J

 

[Lincsong]

Maybe if all countries had this kind of warning on their tobacco packaging, you'd be getting less of a dividend.

Smoking before, during or after?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

You only get to smoke if you've "performed". Not like that poor sod ...

.

 

[jake_fink]

The technique is different, the result is the same. it is combining the genetic structures of two organisms that do not do so in nature.

Cross pollination is nothing at all like splicing genes. In cross pollination the pollen of one type or species of plant is introduced to another type or species of plant via the usual route resulting in a hybrid offspring - or not. Genentic engineering allows for the splicing of fish genes into the dna of a tomatoe plant. Big difference, whether or not you're for it or against it.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Quite. If genetic engineering were no more than hybridisation ... it would just be called hybridisation.

Cross pollination is no different than a farmer hiring out a prize bull to ... well, you get the picture. (Selective breeding to generate members of the species with desirable traits of that species.) Now, if he hired out a prize male horse, that horse could do nothing for his cows (the stallion is a bit of a boor. He doesn't like those fat, black and white cows). But a genetic engineer could take a gene from the stallion and insert it into the DNA of cow, to produce a cow with the desired trait (protein). Same is true for soy beans and corn. They can't cross pollinate, but we can insert a soy gene (or any other plant, animal, or anything else with genes) into a corn genome to get the desired effect. Hence the accusation of "playing God". There is nothing natural about genetic engineering.

Back to ethics ...

bk

 

[Briscoeteque]

People have this sort of holy reverence for DNA, I don't understand why. It's not identity. It's chemistry. When 'fish' genes are put into corn, it's not like the corn is part fish or something. All the added genes do is modify protein production in individual cells. Strands of DNA are fantastically large, and the entire genetic code has four letters. Remember, genes are NOT blueprints. This means you can't, for example, insert "the genes for an elephant's trunk" into a giraffe and get a giraffe with a trunk. There -are- no genes for trunks. What you CAN do with genes is chemistry, since DNA codes for chemicals.

That's not to say it shouldn't be regulated. People can be allergic to certain enzymes that can be the result of genetic engineering. But people, plants, and animals are more than just this strand of phosphate sugars. They determine chemistry. Your DNA in your own cells is always changing. Does that make you a different person? I would be the same person if I could metabolize cellulose or something like that. It's not 'playing God'. The source of these genes really doesn't matter. It's a chemical. If a particular DNA base pair code could be modified in a lab and reinserted into corn cells, it would be the same result as taking 'fish genes' and putting them in to corn. It's not a corn/fish hybred. It's corn that can produce a particular enzyme, and this proudction is made by inserting a *few* chemicals that came from another source.