RvTV95XBeoWealthiest 10% of US Households Responsible for 40% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Study
Do your part and recycle your plastics, peasants!
Flies away in private jet
A valid critique, but also worth mentioning, as discussed in the article, much of the GHG emissions for the top 10% (which includes households down to ~$200k) comes from passive income.
Friendly reminder to check who you bank with and what’s in your 401k if you find yourself in that group.
bob_wileyHuh? How is my 401k being counted toward my CO2 emissions? That makes 0 sense.
RustedSwitchHaving not read the article, I would wager a guess that because 401k funds are invested in diverse funds, if the fund composition is includes corporations contributing to emissions… and you are making money off their profitability… you are therefore contributing to those emissions. Pick other things to invest in.
But that’s not how it works. People buying the goods and services from those companies are the reason for the emissions, not someone that throws some money into the S&P.
I could own BP stock, but drive an electric car. If I sell my stock, there is 0 change to the emissions of BP.
It seems like they are grasping at straws for more ways to attack those with money, and at this point, not even a lot of money, as most companies offer a 401k. The last thing we should be doing is discouraging people from using those, as they will just be screwing their future self, especially if they have a company match.
Companies you invest in benefit from your investment in a variety of ways. Your investment provides the financial resources needed for the company to grow and expand. Your investment helps companies develop new products, hire more talent, expand into new markets, and improve their overall operations. Your investment essentially contributes to the company’s success.
This is only true if buying an IPO.
When a company goes public it is done to raise money. In that initial public offering the company makes shares available to be purchased by the public. Sales of those shares generate money for the company. After that’s done, the company isn’t getting more money. They can decide to sell more stock at some point, but it’s not an everyday thing.
If I go out and buy a share of a company today, that company isn’t getting money from me. I’d be buying from some current owner who is looking to sell (or some market maker, but we don’t need to get too technical).
TIL, thanks
Still, they do benefit from my owning stock, even if it’s just their reputation and indicator of financial health.
Not really. Share price has no bearing on financial health. Sometimes share prices have no connection with reality. Tesla is a perfect example. It has a market capitalization of 720 billion. Market cap. Is just the number of all classes of stock multiplied by their respective number of shares. I.e. how much it would cost to buy the company in it’s entirety. General motors has a market cap of 45 billion. Toyota, the world’s largest auto maker by sales, costs 264 billion. Without getting into P/E ratios and book values, stop to think about this. Tesla would have to sell more cars than Toyota, Volkswagen, GM, and Ford, COMBINED to be worth 720 billion. That is after a substantial drop in share price.
The way security analysts and prudent investors evaluate a company’s financial health is by looking at the financial statements they have to file every quarter with the SEC and make publicly available, calculating ratios, and comparing them to prior reporting periods, other companies in the same industry, and the overall market of the industry they are in.
As far as reputation, it probably doesn’t matter. The only shareholders anyone cares about are insiders and large shareholders (big enough to file a form 4) actively managed funds, and super Investors like Warren Buffett.