Divestment

With the passage of the bill, which diverts resources from normal folks to the very rich and ICE, I believe it's time to divest any accounts we have direct or indirect control of out of government bonds.

This bill drives up government debt massively rather than finding a way to make this work with tax dollars. That means the government will be borrowing a LOT of money in the coming years to build "detention centers," fly planes full of our neighbors to places they may never return from without due process, detain other people in-country on false pretenses, and send more masked people into our streets to inflict terror in our name. I believe their primary mechanism to fund all this will be offering bonds to private investors (you?), banks, organizations, etc. In light of this, a few things for consideration:

• If you have a personal investment account, you can choose not to buy US government bonds
• If you have an employer-sponsored investment account, you may still have options to fully or partially divest from govt. bonds. You can look into it.
• You can put pressure to divest on any organization you are associated with, be it your employer, university, church, or what have you. Many organizations have investments and are motivated to reflect the values of their membership and/or protect their reputation.
• If you have been more focused on protesting to this point, consider that this bill opens up the admin's options to violently suppress protests. Even if they don't use ICE directly, they can be a tool to inflame a situation to the point that they have a pretense to send in troops ala LA. This wouldn't be the first time such a shift has occurred; it just means the resistance needs to adapt. One of those adaptations is to redirect energy into coordinated economic action.
• Divestment doesn't have to be a personal financial sacrifice. I get it if you are coming up on retirement and are uncomfortable taking one of the more traditional investment vehicles off the table for yourself. However, there are other investments that scale with interest rates, such as CDs. Banks typically fund individual and business investments with the money you give them for these in exchange for a stable rate of return for you. If you're really worried about it, don't listen to me; talk to a proper advisor with a fiduciary duty to you and tell them your goals. Also, in the long run, the economy will be better if we don't lose our country to authoritarian idiocy.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has a better idea of what effect it could have if many people and organizations divested from govt. bonds. It can't help them, that's for sure. For my part, I don't want to fund this govt. beyond what I'm legally required to do via taxes.

Also, I'd love to hear where I've mixed anything up here, if we have financial experts in the house.

In solidarity,