Norway Aims to Ban Tobacco From Its Investment Portfolio and companies worst in climate change

[The Straight Story]

Norway Aims to Ban Tobacco From Its Investment Portfolio

OSLO -- Norway intends to expand ethical rules for investing its vast surplus wealth to include bans on owning shares in tobacco companies and in the worst contributors to climate change, the wealthy oil-exporter's finance minister said Friday.

Norway's Government Pension Fund -- Global, often called the oil fund, is one of the world's largest sovereign-wealth funds, valued at about 2.3 trillion Norwegian kroner, or about $350 billion. The Nordic nation of 4.8 million people invests its surplus oil and gas wealth abroad to avoid disrupting its domestic economy. Second in size only to the United Arab Emirates' fund, the oil fund is Europe's largest investor, holding 1.33% of European stocks and 0.77% of global stocks in December.

A national Council of Ethics reviews the fund's holdings in more than 7,000 companies based on strict guidelines imposed in 2004. It reports ethical breaches to the government, which can then decide to sell off shares in companies because of concerns about their records in such areas as arms production, the environment and human rights.

"We have tried to...further clarify the fund's role as a responsible investor," said Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen as she presented a white paper on her review of the guidelines to parliament. "We are planning to introduce more tools and new measures, at the same time as we are maintaining the existing instruments."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123897759640091393.html

Hell, I am a smoker and I think this is a damned good idea. Can we get some of those Norway folks to come over here and help wall street?

[sam sarrha]

1. it does kill 1200 people a day in the USA alone, and is dependant on addicting children to stay in

business.. once people get 18-20's all their money is allocated to rent and getting layed.. cant afford an expensive stinking filthy addiction that'll kill them

[The Straight Story]

2. Not sure I fully agree with that

If someone smokes and then dies folks tend to list that info as though it was the cause. My mom smoked her whole life but died of an infection (and, imho, bad care at the hospital). I am sure someone, somewhere, linked her death to smoking.

No, it is not healthy, but as I mentioned in a thread of mine I have seen a man who killed himself by breathing in fumes from his exhaust - and there are tons of cars on the road putting that poison in the air.

How we link deaths is important to me, because if we blame X when it is Y we spend more money and resources on X instead of the real problem Y. Millions who smoke don't get cancer. Some do. Why? Cancer is something we can get it seems from many things, no matter how healthy one lives.

People shouldn't smoke to be sure (even though I do), but we also shouldn't blame everything we can on it when there are obviously many more factors. It just seems intellectually lazy to me.

[sam sarrha]

3. th data is based on disease caused by Tobacco, they arent make'n up shit.. like my father got cancer

of the Esophagus, commonly caused by Tobacco, it ate into his Aorta.. i held him as he died, he vomited all the blood in his body on me in about a minute... his heart pumped it out, it wasn't pretty. with my mother, brother, his wife and her mother all screaming and crying.

Tobacco kills a lot more, a shit load more than they say it does, you are confused by the talking points used to confuse you... forget x and y, it kills people over a thousand a day.. hamburger contaminated by E-coli kills "ONE PERSON' AND THEY DUMP HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF THEIR PRODUCTS.. not one cigarette has been recalled, snuff can cause cancer in less than 7 years.. one of my parolees as a JPO got cancer of the mouth at 16, after a few years use. they took half his jaw and grafted a piece of rib in its place.. didn't stop him from 'dipping'.

tobacco is more addictive than Crack or Heroin.. and its F'n Sacred to you guys.