OK maybe not.

I was asked by an acquaintance about ethical investing (in my other career I was in finance) I give him options.  Another acquaintance overheard the conversation and complained about the return - it was less than the traditional investing he was advocating.

I had to ask him if he thought the extra 6% return of the traditional fund was worth the human misery caused.

If course like most he was not pleased with what our world has become but did not think he had options, after all he had college for two kids to plan for.

I replied - maybe that's the problem, we do not fully appreciate the power of our small actions and their ability to change the world.

Can you imagine what we can do if we all - together, take similar small steps of change

I remember a book by that title growing up, I need to go back and figure it out.

Are we really free through capitalism?

Or maybe the issue is not capitalism but rather ourselves.

We are not free internally so any political or economic system will just be an extention of our bondage.

How do we live our lives?

Our Airedale Terrier mix Kramer has been part of our household since he was found by my husband as a muddy mess of an abandoned puppy eleven years ago.
So I do not think it is an inaccurate assumption that his puppy days are (or at least should be behind him) - well not so.

He did not want to eat a few days ago, but did not seem unusually stressed.  So we went to the vet that afternoon - he was due to get his senior check up anyway.  Well the short version is - he ate a sock!  He has not done this kind of nonsense in years!

I will spare you to details - but the problem resolved itself with a 24 hour fast.

But it made me think this morning, Kramer is an intelligent creature but he acts on instinct at times.  We humans are classified as 'higher animals' but we too act on instinct.
We make assumptions and then build our lives around them, we then never revisit these assumptions, especially when they stop being a useful part of our lives.

I coaching client once told me she goes into every sales meeting SURE that a prospect will ask her a question that she will not have the answer for.  And as a result she is not having the success she desires since she is not making a sufficient number of these appointments due to this fear.
I asked her for an example, when a client asked her a question she could not answer - as I expected she could not give me one - because it never happened.

it took a bit to get to the root of this and to force her to revisit the core assumption foundations to this view. Lets just say it is a work in progress.

But a significant part of her life is being 'run' by the instinctive response that something bad will happened - a fear has no rational foundation.

Thanks to Kramer this phenomenon now has a name - eating the sock.

Today was another interesting day, found out that the Feds shut down my bank due to a high volume of defaulting mortgage loans - the bank did not have sufficient funds to cover these loans.
I will find out more on Monday, since all FDIC insured account holders and their assets were bought by another bank.
Once I calm down and focused on my breathing, I realized that I have limited ability to change this and for the most part I will be inconvenienced but that is all.  Others will not be that lucky, all the employees it this bank are without work, and most will not find this out until Monday.  (The Feds just came in and shut the bank down last thing on Friday without a notice, I am sure however that upper management knew the default loans would cause an issue but I doubt they gave warnings to employees.)

Many will have accounts that are not FDIC insured.

But going back to the cause of this problem -  Greed, the need to make an "easy buck" by allowing individuals with poor credit to borrow money then trying to sell the loan on the secondary market.

Free markets are only as good as our ability to walk away from the exploitation of others.

Do we go through our life attempting to do no harm, or do we just take part in the larger problem because we feel there are no other choices?

We do have choices!

A little beach on a San Juan Island kayaking/camping trip just off Seattle.  It was very cold morning, the sun had just begun to rise and the camp was quiet since most of my "trip mates" were still asleep in their tents.
I got some coffee going and took a cup down to the beach a few yards away since the sunlight (and warmth) was concentrated there.  I found a nice 'sun spot' and sat down to enjoy the quiet and beauty of the cove.
While I was getting warm, a seal came up out of the water walked up the beach and stopped about five feet away from me.  I did not have my camera and eveyone was still asleep but the seal and I sat there for about ten minutes then he/she went back into the water.