I’m standing in front of an advertising column right now with a huge poster – a black billboard ad – and on it, in yellow, or rather orange, and white, it says: “Your money needs a shift change too. Our investment fund for interest and dividends relies on a balanced combination of stocks and bonds.”
And what springs to mind right away is: guys, hey – this isn’t about our money and a shift change, what we need is a system change! This ad, too, is classic classism: because who today can even afford interest and dividends, stocks and bonds anymore? And above all, all these stocks and bonds come at the expense of the ecosystems that actually belong to all of us together. You’re betting on the fossil bonanza – you’re betting that, above all, the cheap oil keeps on gushing.
And that immediately brings me back to Nate Hagens and “The Great Simplification” – his term “The Carbon Pulse” springs to mind right away. Nate Hagens describes exactly what’s happening on Wall Street and other stock exchanges: that people keep betting on cheap oil helping a few corporations to wealth and power, and that people who still have some “Kohle” left over – as we say in German, “coal” being slang for cash – put their money into some stocks and bonds or other without checking which people, above all in the Global South, are suffering because of it. Although by now it’s long been not only people in the Global South who are suffering, but people worldwide.
I find it irresponsible that nobody here questions at all where exactly, and into which projects, this money and these stocks actually flow. Of course, that defensive reflex kicks in immediately, that typical defensive reaction: “Well, but we’re sustainable, this is a green stock” and so on. Immediately the greenwashing starts – which, hopefully, will hardly work anymore in the future, especially with Gen Z. I’d really like to know, anyway, what percentage of Gen Z can even afford to “invest” in stocks or bonds today. And “invest” has to go in quotation marks here: because it’s not a real investment in the future, it’s the plundering of our natural resources.
Actually, we shouldn’t be stopping this slowly, but as soon as possible, and set clear rules so that something like this no longer works – because these financial advisory firms and online brokers simply have no reason to exist anymore. Because either these financial advisers and the stock market bonanza carry on – or our planet does. The two are no longer compatible.
What do you take away from this thought?
Thank you. Every answer fits – take it with you into your day. Would you like to share something yourself?
