Fair Trade Investing
Even the best professional investors find it very hard to beat the stock market when they're doing well. In fact, over 10-year periods, only a few percent of all money managers actually beat the market. And that market-beating includes investing in sin. That is, things like tobacco and oil and porn (Facebook, Google, Snap, etc.).
So when would-be do-gooders then layer on incremental friction in wanting those investors to only invest in "fair trade" companies, they are essentially donating investment returns to "fair trade" practices. That is, an unfair trade coffee picker pays market wages or whatever price it will take to get workers to show up, pick coffee beans, and load them in trucks. But fair trade coffee pickers are essentially an emerging market union where fair trade practices guarantee a kind of minimium wage to those workers.
Historically, fair trade companies perform a lot worse than those companies that ruthlessly seek profits. Treating people well is, of course, the right thing to do. But the question revolves around who should pay the extra money for fair trade investing v. just normal investing to win a profit.
Got any ideas? Tell us about it.
Related or Semi-related Video
Econ: What is The Firm?5 Views
And finance Allah shmoop What is the firm Shmoop economic
theory of the firm says that firms are firm about
one thing Profit maximization The big PM means getting revenues
as high as possible and costs as low as possible
And that whole rationale is the reason firms will keep
producing until their last unit of production is where marginal
costs equal marginal revenue if they produce less than this
amount while they're missing out on some profit if they
produce Mohr than this amount while they be losing money
In theory firms are incentivized to produce produce produce until
profit is maximized The yin and the yang of the
firm is consumers Consumers want to maximize their utility I'ii
get the most bang for their buck Firms and consumers
do the cha cha cha ching dance creating the economy
as we know it Yeah but what about philanthropic firms
firms that will care about more than maximizing profits with
the globe getting warmer and animal rights movements picking up
steam and environmental problems costing Well uh you know problems
and with the Internet and the media making everyone intensely
aware of these issues while suddenly people want firms to
do something about it Well In response some firms have
integrated these consumer demands into their marketing in products to
keep those profits rolling in buying just coffee No How
about Fair Trade Coffee Fair trade Coffee is an example
of the way in which firms differentiate themselves by differentiating
their products Some consumers would rather pay for this differentiated
do gooder product Mohr Expensive Fair trade Coffee over less
expensive normal coffee firms can capture their own market share
through product differentiation if consumers are willing to pay for
it And in this case they basically are using remote
union labor inside of emerging market countries and kind of
donating a dollar a pound or so so those workers
can what it called Oh yeah eat So with regulatory
policy or marketing or using quote philanthropy unquote to market
products Regardless normal firm's capital market capitalist firms are in
the game of maximizing profits The better consumers feel about
buying something well the more they will consume usually and
the more profits and given company will make But consumers
aren't the only ones making the decisions behind the scenes
The true kings and queens of firms are these shareholders
that common shareholders the people who own the stock and
elect the board of directors who then hires the CEO
who hires everyone else right The directors of firms are
the ones doing the managing but the shareholders are the
ones pulling the purse strings right They vote with their
dollars The shareholders at different firms have different privileges but
in general shareholders are considered Company owners leased the common
shareholders and they usually elect people to run the show
in the way they want it run which is almost
always to maximize dollars while firms were shaped by both
shareholders and consumer demand there also the interface between micro
economics and macro economics on the micro scale While we
look at how firms make decisions and why they make
the decisions they make what about hiring decisions and pricing
decisions Well on the macro scale economists are looking at
aggregate trends in firms such as unemployment rates turnover rates
investment you know things that all add up to impact
overall economic growth in or GDP yeah in the US
Those numbers affect monetary policy like think the Federal Reserve
and changing interest rates and fiscal policy think changes in
government spending in taxes via Congress and the press Will
firms are really just in the middle of it all
Profits consumer of shareholders governments and competing firms Regardless of
what Luda and Feral say the firms are the true 00:03:41.28 --> [endTime] moneymakers