March/April 1985 RAIN Page 11 ACCESS: Social Investing Insight: The Advisory Letter for Concerned Investors, quarterly newsletter, quarterly profiles on specific industries, monthly market updates, monthly profiles of selected companies, $40/year (individual), $80/year · (institution), from: Franklin Research and Development Corporation 222 Lewis Wharf Boston, MA 02110 Insight's "Quarterly Advisory Letter" offers good regular features. In the two issues I've seen, the guest column was excellent, offering incisive analysis of social investing issues, and the "Focus on Useful Books" column was well done, too. Both issues had a column called "Alternative Investments," the first attempting to define that broad concept, and the second covering the Industrial Cooperativ<;__Association's Revolving Loan Fund for worker cooperatives. Finally, the newsletter's "Company Comparison" column-while not covering companies oli. the cut~ing edge of societal transformation-was useful in helping the reader develop criteria. Insight's own criteria, however, in "Equity Briefs," its monthly analyses of individual companies, seemed to me to lack backbone and a thoroughgoing commitment to social as well as financial concerns. Witness the recommendation of Houghton Mifflin after detailing a poor employee relations history (including several class action suits alleging sex and age discrimination). However, for readers interested in companies traded on the , New York Stock Exchange, the briefs do provide valuable information, if one takes the author's recommendations with a grain of salt. -Mary Vogel Ethical Investing: How to Make Profitable Investments Without Sacrificing Your Principles, by Amy L. Domini and Peter D. Kinder, 1985, 288 pp., $17.95 from: Addison-Wesley Publishing Reading, MA 01867 , This book seems to take for granted that investing in the stock and bond market is the most effective and desirable path toward achieving socially responsible use for your surplus money. It never questions the tenets of Wall Street. In fact, it even seems to go the other direction when it espouses an anti-Communist position that seems unhealthy to me. The book does have its good points, , too. For anyone considering getting into the stock market, this book is one of the best, most easily read introductions to the MOVING? complex workings of Wall Street that I've seen. Facts and suggestions are given without the veneer of greed and fear that investing books are usually glossed with. The authors explain not only the basks about many types of irivestmentsstocks, bonds, blue chips, mutual funds, money market funds, and retirement funds-but look at their advantages and disadvantages for a few different viewpoints and lifestyles. The chapter called "Managing Your Money Every Day" makes.good suggestions for choosing a bank, one of those being "smaller is usually better." It. describes some int~resting banks that are truly community-oriente~, and also gives a list of black- and women-owned banks. While Domini and Kinder cover tax shelters in some depth, they never once question the impact of these shelters on the American economy as a whole. A~tivists in the housing movement, for example, have called real estate tax shelters "the most expensive, least effective way we could find to get affordable housing built." Typically, the authors tell you hqw to use the system as it exists to your own short-term advantage, but not how to begin to change it for the long-range good of us all. -Mary Vogel Mary Vogel is a teacher/writer on "investing fdr a sustainablefuture," a dealer for earth -sheltered dome housing, and a frequent contributor to RAIN. If you're moving, please let us know. With a month's notice we can make sure you get each issue of RAIN. But if you don't let us know, you may miss out. The U.S. Postal · Service doesn't usually forward RAIN's class.of mail. · Attach your address label here (or copy it careflllly): NAME--------------------- ADDRESS ____________________ CITY--------STATE ----ZIP---- EFFECTIVE'DATE _________________ New address: ADDRESS ____________________ CITY-------- STATE ____ ZIP ____ Mail to: RAIN, 31.16 North Williams, Portland, OR 97227
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