-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sunday 19 October 2003 09:24 am, Curtis Sloan wrote: > What I gathered from the slashdot postings was that the most recent > "investments" amount to stock market shorts on SCOX. I can see how any > business might want to play the "Death Spiral" angle on SCOX with the > potential returns on those kind of figures. In fact, in that light it's > kind of a honoring "investment" to anti-SCO folks -- "we're so sure you're > going to die, we'd just like to legally short you before you go down." > I'm sorry, but I just can't applaud the Royal Bank for this. They may be acknowledging that SCO is going to die, but in the interim the money they invested is being used to pay crooked lawyers and a crooked CEO. It's like if you lent me $100 to buy drugs, which I turned around and sold for a profit and gave you back $110, then I got shot dead. That you got your money back is not the point, that I'm dead and gone and can't sell drugs anymore is not the point, that those drugs got out on the street and are harming people is. If it was Microsoft that really was doing it, I wouldn't be surprised, but I would also care less because I've chosen already not to do business with them, a position I'm sure many people on this list are also in. But this is my (soon to be former) bank, and possibly others on this list. I have a choice to make whether I endorse this, and I say I don't.
> Yes, I'm personally disgusted that RB did it (at least publicly), but then > again, the RB that "invested" in SCOX probably isn't the bank you deposit > your money at either -- RB is a very large and diversified business, and > not _just_ a bank. > Some people don't buy Nike products because Nike supposedly uses child labour to make their shoes in Vietnam. Does not buying a Nike shirt made in India do anything to change the situation for the shoemakers in Vietnam? No. Different business unit. But if no one buys their shirts anymore, do you think maybe the head office might get the message? Business units are a financial and legal way to shield parts of businesses from each other, but it does not absolve one unit from responsibility for its actions and their affect on the whole of the company. I plan to show the Royal Bank though my actions that what every part of their company does is important to me, and not just my local branch. (It won't be a big show, I don't have a lot of money, but it's what I can do). Ian -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/ktR1SiY+RXI7JS4RAhfqAJ9lbF1t2czQQCEVWNz4Pbxy7qjemQCgiOlO v8sx9E6pFa28oXuBX0ZnI7s= =6tpX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
