“World
of Good” Social-Impact Report 2006, http://www.worldofgood.com/impact/index.shtml
A
“social-impact report”? We
have heard of “environmental-impact report”;
for example, one has to be filed with regard to the disposition of
our Montebello Hills before a decision be made about the hills.
A social-impact report would talk about the probable and possible
social consequences of a planned or existing activity.
In the last part, we
attempted a definition of a social-impact report, “SIR”.
In this part, we look at a phenomenon for which a SIR might well be
needed.
If
you're wondering why driving to work has gotten so expensive, you might want
to peruse your pension fund's investments. That's because speculation by
institutional investors pouring money into the commodities market may be
largely to blame for spiking oil prices, according to testimony on May 20
before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs.
Crude oil, a so-called hard asset, is viewed as a buffer against
inflation—a foe of longer-term investment returns. At the hearing,
"Financial Speculation in Commodity Markets: Are Institutional
Investors and Hedge Funds Contributing to Food and Energy Price
Inflation?," senators heard from those defending the role of
speculators in oil and commodities markets as well as those who argue that
excessive speculation is the root of global price surges.
"[Commodities]
are experiencing demand shock from a new category of speculators:
institutional investors like corporate and government pension funds,
university endowments, and sovereign wealth funds," said Michael
Masters, managing member of Masters Capital Management, a Virgin
Islands-based hedge fund. "Index speculators are the primary cause of
the recent price spikes in commodities."
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/
content/may2008/db20080520_524455.htm
Can one say that pension
funds, by their nature, are misanthropic,
that, while serving the few, they harm the many?
And if so, should there be immediate action to remedy?
July 3, 2008