Green Options

As ‘nationalization’ appears to be the U.S. government’s answer to saving the banking industry, the banks themselves are doing all that they can to boost shareholder confidence.

The latest news from Citibank is that they have approached the US government to agree on a new capital injection that would increase their stake in the troubled bank to about 40 per cent but prevent an outright nationalization.

Under Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) of the U.S. Treasury, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs received $25 billion each and Bank of America received $10 billion in federal bailout funds.  It has been argued that much of the the global economic meltdown was brought on by the country’s largest financial institutions.  In response to the recent bailouts, Harrington Investments, Inc., a socially responsible investment (SRI) advisory firm, announced that they have submitted binding bylaw amendments at Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs that would create Board Committees on U.S. Economic Security.

The bylaw states that the board should consider the impact of bank policies on U.S. economic security as part of their fiduciary duty:

U.S. Economic Security’ impacted by bank policy may include, among other things 1) the long term health of the economy of the U.S., 2) the economic well-being of U.S. citizens, as reflected in indicators such as levels of employment, wages, consumer installment debt and home ownership, 3) levels of domestic and foreign control, and holdings of securities and debt, of companies incorporated or headquartered in the U.S. and 4) the extent to which our company holds securities of foreign companies or has employees or representatives holding positions on the boards of directors of foreign companies.

The shareholder statement argues that taxpayer efforts to stabilize the U.S. economic system were precipitated by “years of irresponsible lending and business practices. Unregulated trading in speculative derivatives and a general lack of management and board oversight at major U.S. financial institutions has brought the global economy to the brink of disaster.”

It’s official, according to the New York Times, the bailout proposition has been rejected by the House of Representatives. The Dow Jones just plunged more than 400 points and America is standing up for itself as the bastion of free market economics!

According to the New York Times, “supporters of the bailout proposal had argued that it was necessary to avoid a collapse of the economic system, a calamity that would drag down not just Wall Street investment houses but possibly [...]

Spurred by looming federal policy on CO2 emissions, many banks are exploring how to mitigate their financial risk as much as possible. This week, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan announced guidelines to help them determine whether to lend money to projects that emit a lot of carbon dioxide (CO2) - like coal-fired power plants.

The Principles are:

• Energy efficiency: Encourage clients to invest in efficiency measures, taking into consideration the value of avoided

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