EP 688 Investors Torn Between Doing Good and Doing Well: The Saga of ESG Investing

EP 688 Investors Torn Between Doing Good and Doing Well: The Saga of ESG Investing

ESG investment products have environmental, social and governance considerations at their root.  ESG investing grew out of the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investing.  A former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wanted to encourage investors to be more mindful of how their investments might dovetail with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.  Thus, they encouraged investors …

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EP 686 To Dominate the World the U.S. First Had to Own Its Neighborhood

EP 686 To Dominate the World the U.S. First Had to Own Its Neighborhood

According to our guest, there is a lost chapter of American foreign policy–the century following the Civil War in which the United States carved out a sphere of influence and became the only great power in modern history to achieve regional hegemony.  The ways in which America achieved complete supremacy in the Americas was at …

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EP 684 Is Private Equity Plundering American Businesses?

EP 684 Is Private Equity Plundering American Businesses?

Private equity is a growing sector of investment financing in America where whole companies, not shares in them, are purchased with money from the principals in the private equity firms, as well as outside investors, while the rest is borrowed, often with the company being purchased assuming that debt liability while the investors cash in …

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EP 683 Politics Often Fails Us: Why?

EP 683 Politics Often Fails Us: Why?

As the wealthiest nation on earth, America should have made poverty a historical curiosity.  Yet it is still with us and the wealth inequality gap continues to widen.  As the major existential threat we face–climate change-is showing up everywhere in the form of floods, wildfires and intense hurricanes, some among us still doubt its existence …

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EP 682 You Can’t Live Here!

EP 682 You Can’t Live Here!

Exclusionary zoning, practiced throughout most of the United States, is one of the most damaging forms of class discrimination.  There is a racial component to it in many suburbs, but it really falls on a strata of society which is generally less educated and less affluent.  Interestingly, liberal communities actually engage in the practice at …

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EP 681 A Health Care System That Pleases No One

EP 681 A Health Care System That Pleases No One

Have you talked to anyone lately who thinks that the system of health care we have now is working just fine?  I didn’t think so.  You may have coverage but your co-pays and deductibles are going up and up.  You may be eligible for government help but you didn’t know you were and, therefore, didn’t …

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EP 680 America Revisits Child Labor Law: Really?

EP 680 America Revisits Child Labor Law: Really?

There are things that still seem unimaginable even in the political chaos of our times as women’s rights are being stripped away and historical content taught in schools is being tightened so as not to ‘offend’ students.  One of those to my mind is the push in a number of states to ease restrictions on …

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EP 679 Is Christianity Dying in America?

EP 679 Is Christianity Dying in America?

The answer to our title for this podcast episode is no, but…many fewer people identify as Christians today than in the late 20th century and whether it be frustration with scandals in the Catholic Church, the politicizing of many Protestant sects or the pandemic, the pews just are not as full as in the past.  …

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