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Outside/In

In search of an ethical 401k

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.71.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2024

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

To save for retirement, common knowledge says to “diversify your portfolio.” Give your cash to a company so they can invest it into hundreds of other companies on the stock market. But unless you’ve gone out of your way to change it, your portfolio probably has little to do with your values.  For example, there are climate activists invested in fossil fuel companies. Staunch vegans putting some of their hard-earned income into Tyson Foods. On the flip side, there are climate deniers with money in Tesla! So is there a way to save for retirement that’s both good for your pocketbook… and good for the planet? Featuring: Timothy Yee, Clara Vondrich, Kelly Shue   SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.  Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!). Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.   LINKS Divestment helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the coal industry, according to this white paper from the Harvard Business School. However, divestment can also backfire, according to this study from Yale.  Got a lot of time to kill? You can watch the recent SEC commissioner meeting where they voted to pass a weakened version of the climate disclosure rule.    CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi Mixed by Nate Hegyi and Taylor Quimby Editing by Taylor Quimby Our staff includes Justine Paradis and Felix Poon  Executive producer: Taylor Quimby Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio Music by Blue Dot Sessions Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I hate to break it to you buddy but we are both fast approaching middle age.

0:07.0

How are you feeling these days? Do you have any like new pains?

0:10.0

My lower back is always hurting me and anytime I try to take up any new hobby

0:16.2

it's like I immediately get injured so I'm starting to try to take up Tai Chi and

0:21.7

pickleball. Pickleball, really?

0:24.0

I'm leaning into my later decades of life. Another thing that worries me as we're getting older is retirement.

0:39.2

I do not have a lot saved.

0:41.6

How are you doing on that front?

0:43.0

Felix. I mean I kind of ignored it completely during my 20s and 30s.

0:47.0

I'm in the same boat, like I online to take a look at my retirement portfolio and I was

1:00.3

surprised at the sheer number of companies that an HPR's retirement firm had invested my money in.

1:07.0

I have dollars in Hennessy?

1:10.0

Hennessy? Hennessy? What?

1:11.0

Costco?

1:12.0

Cosco? I guess these are things like that are like in your everyday life that you don't really think about as being on the stock market. Right, including gasoline because I have money invested in some of the biggest polluters in the world.

1:24.4

ExxonMobil, Chevron.

1:26.6

Do you notice that when you looked at yours?

1:28.0

I just assumed that I'm funding fossil fuel companies.

1:33.0

Right, because that's the way retirement works.

1:35.0

Our money is spread out over hundreds of different bonds and companies on the stock market.

1:40.0

History says that's the safest way to build our savings and make sure we don't run out of cash after we stop working.

1:47.5

But it's also kind of weird, right?

...

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