We are Co-Conspirators

Lately, the daily financial news is enough to give any investor the blues. Some folks think that because I am a financial advisor, and I am tuned into the market constantly, that its all just news. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, Merrill Lynch’s Thain and his $35,000 commode, the $50 million Citigroup plane, the subprime mortgage meltdown, and the government bailout are examples of an industry that has lost sight of its fundamental purpose. Consequently, the entire investment industry is headed for more regulation. For those of us who haven’t broken the law, we’ll have more i’s to dot and t’s to cross thanks to those who conspire to defraud us.

Ethics is an inside job and unfortunately, regulation does not change that.
The financial crisis has been very challenging for me. Billions of dollars of wealth have disappeared overnight, creating hardship on retirees and those anticipating retirement. People have lost and are still in the process of losing their homes and their jobs. It has become my practice to find the good in all things. But how could I possibly find any good in this mess?

I began to look deeper and found a very interesting similarity with those who have perpetrated the financial meltdown…and the way most of us make our everyday financial decisions. The Madoffs’ and subprime mortgage brokers of the world lost sight of values and ethics in their work. They lost sight of anyone other than themselves. They lacked a perspective of the greater good.

In a word, greed was their driving force, at the expense of ethics and integrity.
How it this similar to everyday actions of everyday people? How are we energetically aligned with the perpetrators of the financial crisis?

For most of us, our investing decisions are motivated by one objective: profit. When we choose a stock, bond or mutual fund, we want to know that our investment will do better than other alternatives for our investment dollars. Makes sense…if you think like Bernie Madoff.

Knowing most of my investment clients as well as I do, I don’t suspect that any would knowingly invest in companies that use slaves or child labor sweat shops to create high returns. But on the holistic continuum of investment opportunities, where are you willing to put your money?

Where is your ‘balance point’ between what is good for Earth, those with whom you share Earth, and your desire for returns that will bring financial freedom to you and those that you love? Are you willing to achieve financial freedom while in support of, or at the expense of, those living things with which you share this planet?

What we must consider, as those of us who are engaged in socially responsible investing are well aware, is the ethical consequences of our investments. For example, a company’s position on green initiatives, how a company treats its rank and file employees, reasonable executive compensation, diversity of board members, and the environmental effects of its manufacturing processes, just to name a few factors that may influence our decision as to who gets to use our investment money.

Too often, when we make an investment decision, we turn a blind eye to the practices, ethics and policies of a company and focus solely on their financial bottom line, which directly affects our financial return on our financial investment. If the means by which they arrive at a healthy bottom line can be shielded from our vision, and it s not in our backyard, we don’t consider the means to the end.

So…aside from practicing it on a smaller scale, how it this different than Bernie Madoff’s scheme? How is this different than subprime mortgage lenders? How is this different than John Thain, the ex- CEO of Merrill Lynch who spent $1.2 million renovating his office? In all these cases, there was one focus: what is in it for me in terms of money? Personal profit and self-gratification to the exclusion of everything else.

Albert Einstein, in 1954, said (paraphrased): "A human being is part of the whole universe. (But) We experience ourselves as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires. Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive."

When we invest solely on financial results, we are experiencing ourselves as “separate.” Like Bernie madoff, we too are turning a blind eye to so many other things that truly matter. Things like sustainability, work place equity, and transparent governance, things that impact our greater world deeply every day. More importantly these practices are molding the world we are leaving the generations that follow.

So where is the “good” in the financial crisis? The “good” is the loud and undeniable wake up call. Its effect is universal, and no one is immune from its reach. If we use this crisis to answer Einstein’s call to consciousness, and recognize how our actions affect “all living creatures”, and integrate that truth in our every day decisions relative to money, it will truly be the most revolutionary and positive change of our time.

If instead we choose to point fingers, to see the crisis as something someone else has done, that has nothing to do with us, and our behaviors do not change, then we will miss out on the gift of this crisis.

Will we begin to add personal values and ethics to the criteria for decision making relative to how we earn, spend and invest our money? A new world awaits. We need only choose it.

May prosperity be yours,
Mackey McNeill, CPA/PFS IAR
President and CEO
Mackey Advisors
www.CultivatingProsperity.com
859-331-7755
Mackey@CultivatingProsperity.com