Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (2301)	10/4/2006 5:29:54 PM
From: JBTFD	Respond to of 10087

Thanks for the honest answer. I am kind of a non consumer type, so none of you questions apply to me. I don't drink coffee, I'm a vegetarian so I don't eat eggs and I don't get the morning paper. Nonetheless I understand your point and agree that we all make compromises somewhere or other.

To: Ilaine who wrote (2301)	10/5/2006 2:21:28 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

Did your coffee beans come from exploited peasants? Were the hens who laid your eggs contented or mistreated? Was your morning newspaper printed on paper made from renewable resources or nonrenewable resources, with soy based ink? At some point, it just gets too much. Not only is there the "too much" problem, but also there is the fact that it can be hard to nail down what was produced by methods you don't like or in association with people, organizations, corporations, or governments you have a problem with. And even if you can figure out the facts, and you can find an alternate source (or forgo use of a particular type of product), and you don't think its "too much", you have to consider that the actual consequences of a boycott might not be so positive. You don't buy products of sweatshop labor so the young girl who made the clothes you (and like minded people) used to buy either gets an even worse job, or starves, or gets forced in to prostitution. You don't by the coffee beans from "exploited" peasants so the peasants suffer along with their employers as sales drop. Maybe the land gets used for drug production. Maybe the peasant joins some violent guerrilla group.... Add these concerns together and you get the reason while I don't normally bother with boycotts.