So now that I can focus on stuff besides school, I have to face the reality of investing and saving for retirement and other major purchases for the future (such as land and a house).
Right now, I have some stock in a company I believe in because of their long term plans and goals, and their cash flow statement looked good to me. However, retirement in general is based on investment. Investments assumes growth, usually more than inflation. So there is all this advice about picking the right mix of stocks and bonds and mutual funds and what not. But what if I have a problem with this system? What if I don’t believe that this system of growth is going to continue for the remainder of my lifetime?
I spend alot of time thinking about issues such as peak oil, environmental damage, various externalized costs that will eventually catch up with society and I wonder how in the world am I supposed to make long term financial plans with this sort of news. The concept of pension is no longer a reality…at least for my generation of individuals living in America. Now I have to accept the fact that this growth market that has come to be taken as the norm may not be sustainable any more. I don’t know how much more resources are available to be exploited, but the growth of the American economy was in a large part based on such exploitation. Even if such resources were available, I can’t in good faith put my money into an industry knowing that someone somewhere is paying the price in terms of their ill health or lack of access to something basic as clean water or security.
Of course I could stick my money in “green” funds or “green” companies. But the entire business sector is based on this concept of growth. During my last semester in business school, I just couldn’t swallow that idea anymore. All the graphs we looked at and studied and emulated assumed constant growth. There was no concept of stagnation or a levelling off…a flat line parallel to the x axis. If there was such as line, that was seen as bad. If there was a dip in the graph, the goal was to get it going upward again. And to me, that upward trend started to represent everything I dislike about our consumerist society.
But, I still should plan and save and invest somewhat. I may live an entire life without having to witness any sort of terrible disaster (economically, environmentally, politically). So I have decided to live a life accommodating both views. One view where things are not going to go downhill, thus I should put money in mutual funds I like and buy stocks in companies whose values I agree with. And the other view is, I will reuse bath water to flush the toilet and eat locally and try to get off the grid eventually so I don’t have to be entirely dependent on a system that could come apart at any time. Obviously, time will tell how my plan will work out…if it will work out at all. But still, for someone who dislikes change and uncertainty as much as me, this is very frustrating.
