A cleareyed case for socially conscious investment, of much interest to those who want their dollars to do good.
Investment adviser Simon outlines the concept of impact investment, “the practice of investing not just for profit, but also for social benefit.”
In some ways, impact investment aligns with Bangladeshi financier Muhammad Yunus’ experiments in microfinance and what he is now calling “social business,” giving would-be entrepreneurs in developing countries opportunities to enter the marketplace. Simon holds that some of Yunus’ programs, however, have not scaled well in the marketplace and may have worked backward; the first step, she suggests, is to “identify a good idea that has a mix of qualitative and quantitative, micro and macro approaches to addressing poverty and structural inequality”—and always with an eye to profitability. In her understanding of impact investment, a great deal of due diligence is involved to assure not only that investors’ money is well placed in projects that do good in the world, but also that communities are well served. To this end, Simon offers a series of operating principles—e.g., the call to “add more value than you extract,” again with an eye to such things as providing long-term, well-paying jobs to help break the cycle of poverty. Throughout, Simon insists on some of the basic tenets of capitalism, including the notion that the value added should yield return on investment. Even so, she counsels that investors take steps that, en masse, would shake Wall Street to the ground, such as the thought that the conscious impact investor should “break up with your bank” and look to community banks and other institutions that are better inclined to social justice. Simon also suggests that investors realign their portfolios so that they know, as the adage has it, where their money spends the night, investing in funds that provide small loans to entrepreneurs, funding for sustainable agriculture projects and water systems, and the like.
A cleareyed case for socially conscious investment, of much interest to those who want their dollars to do good.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-56858-980-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Nation Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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