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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Ethics man. God, mammon and investing
“I am not able to arrange any divestment at short notice. But I can arrange for the gas central heating in college to be switched off,” St John’s College principal bursar Adrew Parker tells students demanding divestment from oil companies. https://t.co/NMnLXRPrBf
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I suppose the opposition said That’s just taking the piss. But when they taxed piss themselves it was hailed in the news sheets as a master stroke to get the empire booming. Rather like Boris mansion tax, and raid on our pensions.
https://twitter.com/EmersonPolling/status/1226355037653393408?s=19
Klobuchar lacks the Nevada organisation of Warren or Buttigieg.
So, coming third in New Hampshire doesn't really propel her into the first tier of candidates, as she's still trailing Buttigieg and doesn't have any likely wins coming up.
Now, if she were to beat Buttigieg, now... that would be something.
And it's broadly good news for Pete Buttigieg. He had the biggest increase in favourability; the biggest increase in "likely to beat Trump"; and the biggest increase in "would consider voting for this candidate".
Klobuchar also showed progress. If she'd had her surge just a few weeks earlier, it might all be different.
Who did badly?
Well, um, that would be Joe Biden.
See: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/democratic-debate-first-february-poll/
As you can imagine this comes up every year when there is a new student intake
The conflict is between our task to manage the endowment as effectively as possible (to build resources which we then use to subsidise the School’s charitable mission) vs investing in a way which is counter to our mission
Where we currently are is no tobacco or defence. The most recent step was to sell divest from coal (respiratory). I fight hard against pulling out of natural resources entirely because they are such an important component of the U.K. market (and even more on dividends which are important for cash flow even though we operate on an absolute TSR basis)
Divestment is a more sensible strategy, both for risk mitigation, and because it tends, at the margin, to increase the cost of capital for those companies,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51432440
If his defence to allegedly mucking about with his own organisation's data is that he was indulging in unsanctioned pen testing, then this could get quite messy for him.
Also, good morning, everyone.
It was entirely intentional.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/08/joe-biden-new-hampshire-112545
But the damage had already been done with voters like Tricia Owens, a 59-year-old therapist from southern New Hampshire and Biden donor, who said she was so disappointed that she won’t volunteer for him “for a whole bunch of phone-banking” she had signed up for over the coming days.
“I could not stop thinking about what he said about how he wouldn’t do well in New Hampshire,” she said, noting many New Hampshire voters are undecided “and then he said something stupid like that? I just thought it was so disrespectful to us in New Hampshire.”...
It sounds like a statement of the bleeding obvious.
The Bursar cannot arrange disinvestment at short notice because he is just one member of a College Committee that takes such decisions. He probably won't even be a very important member of the Committee (after all, Professor Parker is a neurologist and has no expertise in financial matters like investment).
As regards heating, Professor Parker is in sole control of the College's thermostat.
Meeks as usual doesn't understand.
A College's bursar is in charge of rather more mundane things like payroll, accounts and student finances. He does not direct the investment policy, and has at most a rather minor role in influencing it.
So the Professor is just stating the facts.
But I can’t fault his logic here or the way he exposes the hypocrisy of the campaigners. They’re quite happy to demand empty gestures but not actually make any personal sacrifices. And bearing in mind that St John’s college is four centuries old and built before central heating at a time when the climate was far harsher than now (and, for the matter of that, clothes were far less good at conserving heat) their reaction looks not only hypocritical but hysterical, in all senses of that word.
Extinction Rebellion are third rate virtue signalling hypocrites. What’s even worse is the nauseating way they try to justify themselves - see here for a particularly ridiculous example (‘It’s not our fault we’re all hypocrites, when we’ve changed the system we’ll be nice’). They claim to care about the planet but not only take no steps to preserve it but actively do further damage.
The Principal Bursar “holds the responsibility for the assets of the College, including its buildings and their contents, the investment portfolio that supports the College’s teaching and research activities, as well as HR responsibility for non-academic staff....”
I’m pretty sure that they didn’t have gas central heating before the buildings were listed...
Of course he might have engaged in a reasonable discussion of these points rather than indulging in a rhetorical gesture.
It is obvious he does not actively manage the portfolio - but equally clear that he has considerable influence in setting investment priorities.
They were carefully manufactured at vast expense to exactly match the originals.
English Heritage, unbelievably, then said they had not kept to the terms of consent because the tiles looked too fresh and new - in other words, they had not been weathered.
Which was sort of the fucking point....
Yet again, if you have money to invest, do you go a neurologist for advice ?
If 'Snowflakes' can help in that process, so be it.
Are you saying he’s claiming a responsibility he does not hold ?
So, the bursar said correctly he could not arrange disinvestment "at short notice".
Statement of the bleeding obvious, really.
‘Extinction Rebellion say most volunteers are unpaid and those who give their lives for the cause should be able to claim ‘voluntary living expenses (VLR) to cover basic costs.’
If they’ve ‘given their lives’ surely they won’t need living expenses?
Certainly not the £150,000 a year they’re paying themselves.
https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/gloucestershires-extinction-rebellion-godmother-gail-3423635
The fact they even have a heating system evidences that it’s not impossible, and no doubt they have long term plans for changing it.
Had the bursar wanted to hold a reasonable discussion with his students, no doubt we’d know more.
In any College Committee, you need three sorts of people.
Someone to do the work, someone to take the credit, and someone to carry the can.
My other half is a bricklayer by trade and specialised in restoring heritage buildings. You don’t want new brickwork to look out of place next to the original. You can do remarkable things with soot and yoghurt, I’m told.
For now. you have to volunteer as a lab rat:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/06/a-pill-to-make-exercise-obsolete
As for the last sentence, the mind boggles somewhat...
Good point made against the students though. Sacrifice something more direct to you than virtue signalling protesting against something that will not hurt you one way or another
The direction of travel is clear, enlightened self interest will mean that fossil fuel companies will become worse investments over time.
https://www.ft.com/content/2586fa10-e122-11e9-b112-9624ec9edc59
https://www.fastcompany.com/90402331/its-now-cheaper-to-build-new-renewables-than-it-is-to-build-natural-gas-plants
Maybe it already has an energy supplier that uses renewables, maybe he's looked into ground source heat pumps and changed all the lighting to LEDs.
Or maybe not.
They could choose to rent a house in Oxford in which the heating system was as exactly as they preferred. They would be taking responsibility.
In fact, the Professor of Neurology is simply repeating that advice given by the excellent and sadly deceased Professor David MacKay
https://www.withouthotair.com/download.html
The two things we can do to combat climate change are take less flights to Hungary and to turn our thermostats down.
"Turning the thermostat down is the single most effective energy- saving technology available to a typical person – every degree you turn it down will reduce your heating costs by 10%; and heating is likely to be the biggest form of energy consumption in most British buildings. Figure 16 shows data from my house."
Of course, David MacKay was energy advisor to the Labour and Coalition Government's. He published his wonderful book with his own money and made it freely available.
(In fact, I misread it as £3000 a week.)
Oil and gas - yes , society would grind to a halt
Defence - I would argue less of a problem
Tobacco- no real problem, Society gets healthy.
So I would say somebody is doing the short term world a favour by still investing in oil an gas. Oil and gas needs to be invested in currently to mange it through a transition phase to clean energy .Students from Oxford should be able to see that logic #i would of thought and the Bursar was indirectly pointing it out that society cannot yet live without oil and gas.
I didn't make fun of your "Convert it to run on nuclear fusion? " despite it being stupid.
And yes, as a matter of fact, I have done all three - not that it matters.
Even turning it down to 18° (Newsflash - I find that temperature perfectly adequate) would probably save a huge sum of money
Meanwhile, Southeastern train services have been disrupted by a trampoline blowing onto the line.
Link (with photo):
Storm Ciara: Travel disruption as UK hit by severe gales https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51425482
Fellows Rooms are normally heated by incineration of swans and wigeon.
The tipping point for that change may be closer than we think. When it comes it will be momentous. And those that are invested in those oil giants will suffer. There is a huge amount of capital tied up in getting oil out of the ground and processed. That capital could quickly turn from asset to liability if the demand were to go and all that is left is the clean up costs.
With the same ammount and same Risk setting in two different funds, one normal, one 'Socially Responsible'. I couldn't see much difference in returns, so I switched to Socially Responsible. This matches with what they have found - see the table on their website.
https://www.nutmeg.com/nutmegonomics/how-do-socially-responsible-portfolios-perform/
"Our analysis has shown that there are no meaningful (statistically reliable) differences in the performance of strategies incorporating an SRI focus and those that don’t."