Time and effort

The banks are back in the news today, with anger over proposed bonuses. This week I also received a mail from Amnesty International asking me whether I knew if my bank was funding producers of cluster bombs. And this week’s article on George Monbiot’s blog highlights one bank’s support for Canadian tar-sands oil production.

I’m pretty comfortable that my money isn’t going to fund any of these activities as I took the time and effort to understand my bank’s position on the issues that I care about. Jane talked about Primark last week and (jokingly,I’m sure) invited them to sue her. I’d be if surprised they had the time – War on Want have a full-on campaign highlighting high street retailers’ stance on poor labour conditions, and calling for improvement. These things all influence the decisions I make every time I hand over my money.

They say that the vote of the pound in our pocket is every bit as powerful as the vote we put into the ballot box. I'm not 100% convinced that that's true, but it's certainly true that what we do with our money, as much as what we do with our ballot paper, can have profound consequences. And it can sometimes be very difficult to tease apart all the threads of the tangled web that is our modern globalised world, but it's absolutely worth taking the time and effort to do so.

Something to think about when you're doing your Christmas shopping.