stranger danger

STRANGER DANGER

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com

January 8, 2012

I believe that nearest and dearest adults pose far greater danger of rape, torture and homicide to our children and to women than strangers. Here stranger danger is a lie.

I also find stranger danger to be human investment strategy’s greatest global danger to my species’ survival. In my country’s law, it is social pressure to buy shares and hence “own” the right to maximize legitimized financial/wealth return on investment firewalled from personal commitment. If a company I’ve invested in packs up and moves out of Wichita on short notice and company share prices rise, I win the game of living well in retirement…that’s the promise. Any publicly listed stock in a for-profit corporation invites me to bet my old-age security on their guaranteeing profit through hard times when the corporation—no hard feelings—does its corporate duty to the strangers who “own” it, closes shop, and moves on.

I’m finding that around me the good news lies in local/personal investment. Families, partners, friends… The fiscally conservative investor in me is betting that distributing whatever “disposable wealth” I might have toward my nearest and dearest rather than to corporate stock is the surest antidote I have to the dangers we adults pose most of all to “our own” women and children. I am wary of the danger of investing with strangers. Love and peace--hal