Be One Bring One

Chatham Marketplace is to be a new coop grocery store in Pittsboro. Tami is part of a core group of volunteers who are striving to make it happen.

They’ve been selling memberships and lining up loans and looking at real estate for over a year now.

And they have been picking up investment dollars.

Tonight they are holding a dinner at Celebrity Dairy which they have called Be One/Bring One. Presumably half the crowd will already have invested, and the other half are about to.

The dinner for around 50 is to be made, served, and bussed by the Board of Directors.

I’ve been asked to give a five minute spiel on “Why I Am an Investor.”

I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to go something like this:

I was asked to speak tonight about why Tami and I are investors in Chatham Marketplace, and that’s a good exercise, since it has got me thinking about investment in general.

We have always wanted our money to be placed in ethical investments. We’ve never been interested in profiting from companies which pollute, or use child labor, or reap profits from “off-balance sheet” deals through lying and deception.

I’m not sure its possible to insist that your money “do good in the world,” but we would prefer it if at a minimum it would do no harm.

And frankly, we’ve found that to be hard to do.

One source of guidance we have used for our investments has been our children. We’ve consulted with them, and we generally find that they like to invest in stuff they like.

Take Kaitlin, for instance. She’s thirteen, and she eats a lot of candy. So let’s invest in candy. The candy sector has actually done very well over the past five years. Candy stocks are up there with pharmaceuticals in terms of return.

We went out and found Hershey’s. Kaitlin likes their Kisses. Hershey’s Chocolate is run by a foundation whose primary charge is to run an orphanage in Pennsylvania. Perfect.

About a year after we had taken a position in Hershey’s, we find out that the cocoa they use is harvested by slaves taken from Ivory Coast.

Drat. We struck out on Hershey’s.

Our boys who are working here tonight are partial to Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels are made by Mattel. Let’s invest in toys. After investing in Mattel we learn they are vacating the computer market. Did you know Mattel made a Barbie computer? It didn’t sell well, and was discontinued. We had an opportunity to buy all of the Barbie computers in Canada, to recycle them into other machines, but Mattel decided instead to landfill their inventory.

Mattel places their precious brand above planet earth.

Drat. I don’t think it is a surprise to learn that Mattel’s stock has performed very badly over the past eighteen months.

My daughter Jessalyn likes a hot Krispy Kreme Doughnut. She is not alone in that. It is an article of faith in our family, that if our travels take us past a Krispy Kreme factory, when the Hot Light is on, we will stop and gorge ourselves.

Our investment in Krispy Kreme has tumbled as we learn of overstated earnings and deflated debt ratios and as we watch management turnover. It turns out Krispy Kreme knew they were being slaughtered by the Low Carb trend, but simply lied to regulators and investors about their prospects.

Drat. Another bad investment.

My point is that it is hard to make ethical investments.

Which is why Chatham Marketplace is an excellent startpoint for your money. In preparing for this talk, I thought about enumerating the Market’s pluses. The local economy, superior food, food security, and community development all came to mind.
But you’ve heard all of that already.

But forget about having your money “do good in the world.” Let’s lower the bar some, and simply try to “do no harm.”

That made me think about who will be hurt by the existence of a local coop grocery store in Pittsboro. And I thought of a few.

Exxon might feel the pinch when we no longer have to drive to Chapel Hill for good produce.

California’s vast agricultural output might be dinged when we all start eating that which is in season—because we have a new source for locally grown food.

And Monsanto might not be impressed by another whole food outlet which is not enthusiastic about its genetically modified crops.

But when I plug these into the investment equation, I don’t find my ethics violated at all. Some would say we have a moral responsibility to reduce the profits of Exxon and Monsanto.

Which makes investment in Chatham Marketplace a sound idea.

That’s why my family is in. We don’t want our money to do harm.

Before you leave tonight, perhaps after Melissa’s Marvelous Triple Layer German Chocolate Cake, but before Gretchen’s Gracious Homemade Fresh Fruit Ice Cream, reach for your checkbook and invest in this project.

You might be surprised. Your money might even do some good in the world.

Posted by Lyle at September 11, 2004 12:03 PM