The initiatives are, in my opinion, very disturbing. One is the attempt to block retirement plans from offering ESG funds in their platforms. ESG stands for environmental, social and governance. These are funds that exclude funds that are bad for the environment, social issues and have below average governance practices. They also overweight companies that show good practices for the environment, social issues and have good governance of their corporation. The reason cited for not allowing ESG funds in platforms is that they can’t prove that they are going to do as well as funds that do bad things.

In the same month, the Labor Department announced it would allow retirement plans to invest in private equity funds. Private equity funds invest in startup businesses or other privately held businesses to give them much needed capital. They are known to produce huge profits for some, huge losses for others. They are considered very high risk and usually only allowed for investing by professional investors or “accredited investors” which is another word for someone who can afford to lose a lot of money. Now retirement plans can have them even though private equity firms certainly cannot prove that they can beat a basic S&P 500 Index.

There is nothing about these actions that make sense but I want to focus on one common denominator. Corporate America has decided that profit equals money. You may say that is obvious but it wasn’t always that way. It used to be that in order to obtain corporate status a company had to prove that they were needed and that their existence benefited their community. That isn’t true anymore. Profit has become simply, “How much money can I make.”

If you look up the word profit in the dictionary, the first definition as a noun is, “A valuable return.” The first definition as a verb is, “To be of service or advantage.” There is a movement to get back to the old days of judging the value of a company not only by the amount of money they make, but also the amount of good that they do. I think it is a great aspiration.

One of the Department of Labor’s jobs is to protect retirement plan participants. The owners of business are not allowed to do things that may benefit themselves over the participants in a plan. Such things as a bank buying their own CDs in their plan or a timber company having their retirement plan buy tracks of land at a big profit from their own company. You must do what is in the best interest of the participants.

The Department of Labor has decided that it is not in the best interest of participants to buy funds that are doing good things. You may not make as much money trying to save the world and make it a better place than you would by buying funds that don’t care. That is amazingly short-sighted in my view. I would agree that ESG funds shouldn’t be the only thing offered in a plan, but give participants the choice. They may view profit differently than the Department of Labor.

This issue illuminates the much bigger issue that money is the only thing that matters in corporate America. That sentiment is what caused the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Rampant greed has never been a successful long-term strategy. It is time to get our priorities right. Profit = to be of service. Be careful out there.