Investing $ morally

[CrossofChrist]

Is it allowed morally to invest money in companies that use money to fund immoral behavior? Like if I wanted to (purely hypothetical) invest $ in TEVA and Walmart, would that be immoral and gravely sinful?

 

[JSSD]

If you truly feel as though these companies are immoral, why would you? There are so many stocks out there.

Likewise, there are plenty of funds geared at ethics, social responsibility, environmentalism, all the way through vices for whatever bent a person could have.

I do not own common stock for either of those two companies myself, but they don’t particularly bother me.

 

[Kount_C]

Is it allowed morally to invest money in companies that use money to fund immoral behavior? Like if I wanted to (purely hypothetical) invest $ in TEVA and Walmart, would that be immoral and gravely sinful?

Walmart is the greatest place on earth.

Never mix money with morals, you’ll lose every time.

 

[mikekle]

Walmart is the greatest place on earth.

Never mix money with morals, you’ll lose every time.

Yea, places like walmart, who have multi billion dollar profits year after year, but claim they could not afford to pay their employees a living wage…great companies! They claim to care about their employees, but I guess not enough to provide remotely decent health care coverage, or to ‘get around’ current laws, so they dont have to even offer insurance…I guess that would be asking too much of them.

There is NEVER an amount of money they are content with, always want MORE and MORE.

I have a feeling when the second coming happening, places like this are going to have a very rude awakening! lol

 

[PolarGuy]

First off, of course you can buy Walmart. Before asking whether you can, the better question is whether you can’t. Most actions - and buying Walmart is one of them - are simply morally neutral.

Besides, if we’re not “allowed” to buy stock in a company because of some esoteric practice that someone deems unethical, very quickly we slip down a slope where no company can be invested in. What about a company whose CEO cheats on his wife? Or got divorced? Or whatever? Point is, every company has some person working for it that did something bad once, and if we disqualify one we have to eventually disqualify them all.

BTW, Mikekly, I find your post infantile, for many reasons:

1. It demonstrates no understanding of how business/capitalism operates. It sounds like regurgitation of “occupy wall street” talking points.
2. The entire purpose of a business is not to “take care of employees,” give away free money, or whatever - the point is to make a profit for its owners, in this case the shareholders. You are correct in 1 respect: There is no limit to the profit we can make investing in businesses, and thank God we live in a nation where a Walmart can exist, to make it’s risk-taking owners rich; provide goods at low prices to the buying public; and provide employment to thousands of people. If you think the workers are maltreated, here’s an idea: Give them some of your money.
3. If you don’t like the climate that gave us Walmart, feel free to move to some workers’ paradise like, say, Cuba or Venezuela where the government owns everything. Let us know how things work out for you there.

 

[Stephen_says]

There are degrees of moral culpability based on the ‘distance’ between the investor and the organization.

If you donate or invest money in an organization that is clearly against Catholic teaching, then you are morally culpable.

If you invest money in a company that in turn supports the morally repugnant organization, and you are ignorant of their support, you are less morally culpable. If you are informed of their support, but the company does tons of other good things, you should discern whether the good outweigh the bad.

If you invest in a mutual fund, and the company that supports the morally repugnant organization is part of the mutual fund, It is my understanding that you would be distant enough to effectively eliminate moral culpability.

 

[Kount_C]

Yea, places like walmart, who have multi billion dollar profits year after year, but claim they could not afford to pay their employees a living wage…great companies! They claim to care about their employees, but I guess not enough to provide remotely decent health care coverage, or to ‘get around’ current laws, so they dont have to even offer insurance…I guess that would be asking too much of them.

There is NEVER an amount of money they are content with, always want MORE and MORE.

I have a feeling when the second coming happening, places like this are going to have a very rude awakening! lol

They offer us Low Low Prices;
Anyone with any hint of sense, would know that those are not permanent jobs.
If anything; wal mart offers society a service by offering part time work to students, and retirees.