How Much Good Can You Really Do With Money?
In the world of modern finance and even international development, when “climate” or “the environment” becomes someone’s motive, it is easy to instrumentalize human beings.
How to Be a Moral Investor
Over the past 30 years, the language of business life has become replete with ethical phraseology. Words such as “social responsibility,” “business ethics,” and “triple bottom line” bounce around in MBA classes, in corporate boardrooms, and even on stock trading floors. This phenomenon is not limited to the business world. Individual and institutional investors regularly … Read more
Unknown Unknowns
When Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense, he coined some phrases about knowledge that apply far beyond military matters. Secretary Rumsfeld pointed out that there are some things that we know that we know. He called those “known knowns.” We may, for example, know how many aircraft carriers some other country has. We may also … Read more
How to Invest Like a Catholic
Among the consequences of the recent and ongoing financial crisis and economic downturn is a rekindling of interest in the moral dimension of economic life. In a recent two-part article at Catholic Exchange, Rev. Seamus Finn, OMI, identifies one particular area of renewed attention: moral investing. Ethical investing — usually called socially responsible investing (SRI) … Read more
Being where the culture is…
The Church can seem slow when responding to the culture. We have 2000 years of wisdom to draw upon, but so often it’s like we’re learning to crawl when the rest of the culture is already running. Which brings me to the fund drive InsideCatholic is doing this week… Here at IC, we’re not only … Read more
Finer Things
As I opened the package that arrived in the mail, a little voice inside my head told me I was nuts. “Have you lost your mind?” it wanted to know. “You can’t have nice things!” The little voice was right, I suppose. If 13 years of parenting have taught me nothing else, they have quite … Read more
