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Non-Tech : Banks--- Betting on the recovery

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Nov 3 9:30 AM EST

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From: David C. Burns	11/14/2011 12:59:22 AM
	2 Recommendations of 1428

Hit banks where it hurts if they damage society Financial Times This week marks the two-month anniversary of the launch of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. In that short time, the protests have spread to more than 900 cities worldwide and, one poll suggests, have won the support of a quarter of the US electorate. But while the effort has undeniably tapped into the zeitgeist, it remains a movement without a direction. While the rallies of these self-appointed representatives of “the other 99 per cent” have condemned the social inequality and irresponsible financial practices they blame for crises and hardship, the organisers have yet to translate their anger into specific demands. Absent such concrete goals, the group risks being written off as a social fad: tent city tantrum zones with roughly the shelf-life of a Kardashian marriage. . . . Anti-Wall Street protesters might therefore consider giving the banks and other corporate malefactors a taste of their own medicine. They could turn to the growing community of large institutional investors – including public funds, unions and sovereign wealth funds – that have embraced the idea of socially responsible investing (SRI) and push for a broadening of that concept to include banks whose practices are damaging to society. . . . Two of the PRI signatories are the big California public funds, Calpers and Calstrs. Calpers was an influential player in the movement to make socially responsible investment more mainstream. In 2000, both funds took money out of tobacco, an asset class they felt to be problematic, and redirected it to investments perceived to provide greater social benefit. While the move was controversial and hit the funds’ performance to a modest degree, the effort has endured. Calpers alone today runs assets of almost $400bn. That kind of clout would really occupy Wall Street’s attention, if banks that engaged in reckless or predatory practices were suddenly deemed by Calpers and/or other big investors to be socially irresponsible and thus off limits. ft.com

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