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I agree, voting with your wallet is most important.

• beerandt 7y ago
  Owning stock has nothing to do with voting with your wallet. Boycotts make sense; divestments are idiotic.
  • chiefalchemist 7y ago
    Boycotts say, "You won't get my money." How exactly are divestment any different? What _exactly_ makes them idiotic?
    • beerandt 7y ago
      Boycotts prevent money transfer to a company (or other entity). Which can be successful, depending on market forces. A divestment (almost universally) does not; it's just a transfer of ownership to people with a bigger priority on making money vs whatever moral objection you might have. In the case of public stock, "cashing out" doesn't require the company to return the investment dollars to you. There is no money coming out of their pocket, only someone else purchasing your shares. (Except stock buybacks, which are voluntary, and in those instances, beneficial to the company.) Done on a large scale, it artificially deflates the stock price of a company below it's true market value, enabling people who have less philosophical opposition to obtain stock that's essentially subsidized by the divesting parties. (There are a few very obscure exceptions, that might initially look like divestment kills a company, but it still ends up only being an ownership transfer, just to more powerful stakeholders.) If anything, these orgs should be doing the opposite. Becoming more invested buys you more say in how a company is run. Encouraging divestment is like telling those "divestors" not to vote. If your really hate something enough, you would buy (enough of) it in order to destroy (or at least change) it.