SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    Portland Oregon divests from corporations
Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
Portland Oregon divests from corporations Login/Join 
Now in Florida
Picture of ChicagoSigMan
posted
LInk

Portland Bans Investment in Corporations, Risks Millions

City council will divest $539 million from portfolio over fear of supporting non-liberal causes

by Edmund Kozak

"The city council of left-wing Portland, Oregon voted earlier this month to divest municipal investments from corporations — all of them.

Corporate bonds and securities currently account for roughly a third of the city’s $1.7 billion investment portfolio.

The move is the result of a campaign launched last year by the volunteer “Socially Responsible Investments Committee” to add nine companies, including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Caterpillar, to the city’s “Do Not Buy” list.

The Portland City Council was unable to agree on which companies to blacklist from its investment portfolio — so in December 2016 it placed a temporary halt on all corporate investment, a halt made permanent this year by an April 5 vote.

“As their decision stands now, it’s permanent,” said Amanda Aguilar Shank, a member of the radical left-wing group Enlace, which describes itself as an “international multiracial multisector alliance that does capacity-building training and engages in strategic campaigning for the self-determination of the working people.”

“We can rest assured in Portland that our money won’t be funding prisons, pipelines, and the occupation of Palestine,” Shank added.

The decision could have significant consequences for the city’s finances.

Portland has $539 million invested in corporations this year, City Treasurer Jennifer Cooperman told local journalists soon after the vote. Cooperman also said the divestment would cost the city over $4.5 million in 2017 “and even more the following year,” The Oregonian reported.

“This is a win,” Hyung Nam, then a member of the SRIC, told The Oregonian. “The city is actually willing to lose money to their budget because they want to get out of these big corporate nightmares,” Nam said.

“This is a historic vote that makes Portland a national leader in recognizing the interconnectedness of the harm that is done to our communities by corporations in the name of the bottom line,” said Maxine Fookson, a member of the group Jewish Voice for Peace, following the vote.

But it’s certainly not a win for the city’s efforts to help its citizens, nor is it a vote that pays much heed to the harm that will be done to the Portland community in the name of virtue signaling.

Mayor Tad Wheeler — who, though he voted yes in order to support his colleagues and constituents, disagrees personally with the blanket divestment [emphasis added] — estimated that the revenue that will be lost in the move could pay for 285 affordable housing units, 85 wheelchair-accessible curb ramps, or over 600 new beds for the city’s homeless shelters.

"When I was elected, what people told me they wanted to do was address affordability, address the homeless crisis, improve the policing structure, and fill the dang potholes," Wheeler told Oregon Public Broadcasting. "For me, I can't overlook that."

Moreover, it's "not divestment that changes a company's behavior. It's the bottom line. Are we still buying the product?" said Wheeler.
 
Posts: 6061 | Location: FL | Registered: March 09, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
chickenshit
Picture of rsbolo
posted Hide Post
Hey, never mind all the practical good that could be done with your symbolic flushing of money...

Portland residents get to feel good about themselves. They get to FEEL GOOD.


____________________________
Yes, Para does appreciate humor.
 
Posts: 8000 | Location: East Central FL | Registered: January 05, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
posted Hide Post
How about they invest in municipal bonds?

How about they pay off all theirs?

Why does a city have $539 million laying around?




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
I was so happy to move to seattle in 2002, Then in jan 2011 I was so happy to move to Norwalk CT, In 2014 I was stoked to beat cheeks out of CT to Virginia.

Every state I have lived in, Montana, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, and even Virginia falls prey to liberal bullshit ideologies.
 
Posts: 6633 | Location: Virginia | Registered: December 23, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Knows too little
about too much
Picture of rduckwor
posted Hide Post
Possibly the completion of the move to "Portlandifornia".

Let's just cut the left coast and be done with them.

RMD




TL Davis: “The Second Amendment is special, not because it protects guns, but because its violation signals a government with the intention to oppress its people…”
Remember: After the first one, the rest are free.
 
Posts: 20303 | Location: L.A. - Lower Alabama | Registered: April 06, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of sigcrazy7
posted Hide Post
quote:
... cost the city over $4.5 million in 2017 “and even more the following year,” The Oregonian reported.

...could pay for 285 affordable housing units, 85 wheelchair-accessible curb ramps, or over 600 new beds for the city’s homeless shelters.


85 wheelchair ramps cost 4.5 million? That's $53,000 each! That's some expensive sidewalk.



Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus
 
Posts: 8202 | Location: Utah | Registered: December 18, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
186,000 miles per second.
It's the law.




posted Hide Post
WTF?

Does that include LLCs?

What the hell else can they invest in??

Cannabis operations?

Gold? Oops cant do that. Don't know where that came from and if slave labor was used to mine it thousands of years ago.

Carbon credits perhaps?
 
Posts: 3248 | Registered: August 19, 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Not really from Vienna
Picture of arfmel
posted Hide Post
Probably invest in little shoppes that manufacture couture clothing made from magical, virgin, mountain-grown hemp. And hand carved wooden solar powered mopeds.

Should work out well for them.
 
Posts: 26852 | Location: Jerkwater, Texas | Registered: January 30, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Oh stewardess,
I speak jive.
Picture of 46and2
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
quote:
... cost the city over $4.5 million in 2017 “and even more the following year,” The Oregonian reported.

...could pay for 285 affordable housing units, 85 wheelchair-accessible curb ramps, or over 600 new beds for the city’s homeless shelters.


85 wheelchair ramps cost 4.5 million? That's $53,000 each! That's some expensive sidewalk.

Well, like most municipal projects - there's one dude working and eleven watching. That shit gets expensive... all those specialists and studies and supervisor types. (eye roll)
 
Posts: 25613 | Registered: March 12, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
The Main Thing Is
Not To Get Excited
Picture of wishfull thinker
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by arfmel:
Probably invest in ...And hand carved wooden solar powered mopeds.

Should work out well for them.


Eek And take a cutting edge to the flesh of what was once a living being/thing? You beast


_______________________

 
Posts: 6354 | Location: Washington | Registered: November 06, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata  
 

SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    Portland Oregon divests from corporations

© SIGforum 2024