How Your Vote Impacts Social Change - Expert Edition Episode 43 (Classic Episode)
In another hard-hitting episode, we're diving deep into how to invest and be socially responsible. Marie shares how you can making an impact, regardless of your financial situation. Voting is the easiest and most impactful way to drive sustainability and change, especially at the local level. We discuss the importance of understanding your local initiatives, the power of your vote in shaping policies, and addressing the challenges faced by those who feel disenfranchised. We explore how voting can be your most potent tool for creating meaningful, long-term change.
About Our Guest:
Marie Thomasson, CFP® is a financial advisor for progressive women. Marie started her journey with a prestigious internship in asset management after studying Applied Mathematics at UCLA. It turned into 13 long years, overseeing over six billion dollars in bonds for pension funds, institutions, and banks. The experience left her with a deep skillset, and a deeper longing to be free of an industry saturated in privilege, misogyny, and self-interest.
https://modernassetsla.com/
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Naseema McElroy: All right, nurses on fire. We are back with Marie Thompson, and we are going to be talking about how to invest the easy way to be socially responsible. And this one might throw you for a little bit of a loop, but what is the easy way to invest? Marie?
[00:00:20] Marie Thomasson: Well, the easy way. Doesn't take a dollar. It just takes a little bit of your time.
And so, going through all of this, I've always tried to find the easy way that no matter how much or how little money you have, you can still have an impact. And the easiest way to invest in sustainability without having the funds to do it is. To vote, is to use the power of your vote.
That is 100 percent the easiest way and by far it's honestly the most impactful way that you can affect change in terms of sustainability.
[00:01:00] Naseema McElroy: Yeah, especially at the local level when it comes to initiatives that you want to get put in place. I don't know. Here we have a whole bunch of school bonds and all this things that we're voting on how we use water.
So it's pretty important to get your voice out at the local level.
[00:01:19] Marie Thomasson: Yeah. Yeah. And, everything kind of, I'm sure there's a saying, but everything kind of flows uphill. Right. So the things that you do on a local level, they, there, there's a ripple effect. And if you just take the time and I, I think that it's hard actually, like there's so much misinformation out there and it's very much about who has the biggest ad spend.
Those are usually the propositions that are most likely to get passed, but taking the time to actually read up on these initiatives and educate yourself, on public housing initiatives, anything that has to do. Local elections generally, right? As instead of waiting to, to get to the polling place and actually making sure you get there, like taking the time beforehand to learn what does the D.
A. actually do? What does the school board actually do?
[00:02:09] Naseema McElroy: That's funny that you brought up the D. A. because that was the thing I was really going to talk about, the people, the DAs, the judges, I think those are super important things to vote on because of course, especially in our community, my community, the school to prison pipeline is It's crazy, and knowing who's basically in charge or making the decisions about who's going to jail and why it's super important because our kids are becoming commodities instead of, looked at as our future.
So it's, it's pretty, yeah, interesting, but you do have a say in that and you need to know what agenda these DAs have, or these judges have and see if you can shake things up.
[00:02:55] Marie Thomasson: Yeah, I totally agree. We can spend all day trying to invest in funds that don't invest in private prisons, but come on, it's, it's way, way easier to use your vote that costs you absolutely nothing to vote and invest your time in researching judges who don't just Yeah.
Have the, what did you call it? The school to prison pipeline. Yes. Right. Start right there. Like it's easy and I get it, it's hard, there is absolutely, disenfranchisement, within voting and, and there's, if you have the ability to vote, if you have the luxury of being able to vote, then you do it.
And that's how we make like really kind of like long term, meaningful changes. What about
[00:03:42] Naseema McElroy: people who have been even like mentally disenfranchised or just really feel like they are. Their voice doesn't matter even at the local level when it comes to voting or just feel like Why bother because it's a challenge for them Like maybe they have physical challenges or I mean like they've been strongly discouraged not to vote
[00:04:05] Marie Thomasson: Yeah, and I I think that this is something that is It's also local, right?
Depending on where you are, there's going to be services that will just go out of their way to support you to make sure that you can vote and other places like, it's going to be. Every, like the deck is stacked against you. And so it's really hard. I don't think that you can really generalize the advice.
What you can do is certainly, if you live in a county or a state where voting is really simple, basically Oregon, everybody gets a mail in vote. ballot, right? California, there's a lot of, states and counties where voting is pretty straightforward and there's going to be resources.
And then there's going to be counties and states where, it's a lot harder where you have to make sure your signature matches and you have to make sure that, you dot the X and, or sorry, not dot the I and cross the T, like just right. And in those instances, taking the time to educate yourself, I think, as much as possible in advance, just going and looking for official voter information services and asking for help up front is, is kind of like the, the best that we can do, and it's the most that I can offer in terms of what do you do?
Because I'm I don't know. I, I don't think it's easy, so
[00:05:25] Naseema McElroy: no, no, I mean, people not having the full capabilities to vote is something that's real. It hasn't ever been part of my reality, but I know for a lot of people, it has been and so for those people, this might not be the easy button. I just wanted to acknowledge that.
And so not saying that, but for the majority of, yeah. It is something that we can do to easily affect change, like you said, we can try to invest and put our dollars or take away our dollars from organizations that fund private prisons, but if we're. Not voting against those people or not voting for people who can replace those judges and DAs that are putting our kids into these prisons, I feel like that's so much more impactful.
That's something that we can really do to impact change. Yeah, I totally agree with you on that. Like I said earlier, I hope that it trickles up. I just. This presidential election was just such a mess. I mean, the last one was messy too. I'm not going to say that this one is probably any different, but it's just, it just seems so ugh, like I can see how it could be discouraging and people not really feeling that they have the power to make change.
And so know that you do and it just takes a little bit of time to educate yourself, but it's not a dollar investment, so. Yeah.
[00:06:52] Marie Thomasson: Yeah. And, the impact is honestly huge because, everything from your local elections that affects things like public transit and water, as you said, who, who and how, our communities are policed, affordable housing, do you get a bus line down residential streets or not?
These are all things that people vote on. Yeah. And so if you don't take the time to actually read about it and vote on it and you go sign up for a feel good ESG portfolio sorry to say, you've got your priorities wrong. And, you can have a cotton tote and, by all organic and you've got your priorities wrong, that's really what it is at the end of the day, because, a lot of this stuff is, it's almost like virtue signaling, like it makes you feel good, to be, like composting or, Oh, I've got like an impact fund and all that, kind of great stuff.
At least it seems like on the surface, but really like If we want to affect real change, then, and I know it's like a stupid example, but it's like going from incandescent light bulbs to energy efficient LEDs, like that's gonna save way more, electricity and have far greater efficiency than your, cotton.
Tote, that you take to the grocery store because it's when it's legislation that forces, like big change and if, and legislation forces companies to adapt and evolve, right? If there was no legislation and. And, being in California, there's a lot of legislation in California and I'm, I am not saying that all legislation is good, but just the simple fact that auto manufacturers, even after the Trump administration rolled back all these emission standards, auto manufacturers ended up just keeping the stricter standards because California Is such a big market.
They're not going to retool their entire, like lines to California and then the rest of the country. And so that legislation in action and having greater efficiency, like fuel efficiency, never a bad thing. And because, California is such a big economy, a big state, it kind of forced that to happen.
Like that, that matters a whole lot more than, like jumping out of the shower when you're not quite clean. Right. Nobody needs smelly armpits, like just, just vote. That's all you got to do.
[00:09:28] Naseema McElroy: I love it. I love it. Yes. So. Spare your nurse too. Anytime it comes to make sure you take a shower first. That's my public service announcement.
[00:09:38] Marie Thomasson: Yeah,
we waste a little water. Right.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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