The Gambling Vice

　　 Anita Green, the director of social research at Pax World Fund, the third-largest social responsibility mutual fund, recently referred to gambling as "a vice that inflicts crushing social costs on American society". Noting that seven of the largest 20 mutual funds in the U . S. hold one or more gambling stocks, she suggests that investors pick a fund that has sworn to avoid them――namely, her own.

　　 Gambling, which Green opposes so strongly, is to me a pleasurable activity. I go to the racetrack, watch the pageantry of the horses, jockeys and silks, and enjoy the spectacle more because I have a $ 2 or $ bet on the outcome. I enjoy spending a day or two in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. But I go only once every year or two, and set myself a limit of $ 50 or $ 100 a day. When that's gone, I walk around and see the sights.

　　 For better or worse, it appears that America is still moving in the direction of more gambling. So I think that casino and lottery stocks――issues like Scientific Games Holdings Corp., Mirage Resorts Inc. and Mandalay Resort Group――are good bets.

　　 The impulse to invest ethically is praiseworthy, but I'm skeptical of "one size fits all" approaches to it. And I think anyone attempting to invest ethically should have respect for the complexity and difficulty of the task

　　Gap's problem

　　 For example, Pax World Fund, based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, says it invests only in companies "that treat their employees, their environment, and their communities with respect". I'm sure it makes every effort to do so, but in an imperfect world, these decisions get mighty tricky.

　　 Pax World's largest stockholding is Gap Inc. Friday, Gap (along with some other retailers) lost in its attempt to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of selling clothes made under sweatshop conditions in the U.S. territory of Saipan. In August, four other defendants in that suit, including Nordstrom Inc. and J. Crew Group Inc., agreed to settle the claims against them by establishing a $ 1.25 million fund to monitor working conditions of their Saipan workplaces.

　　 None of this necessarily means that Gap is a bad company, or culpable in the Saipan case. But it does illustrate the difficulty in making ethical investing decisions.

　　賭博惡習：

　　阿妮塔?格林是第三大社會保障共同基金――派克斯世界基金――的社會研究經理，最近她指責博彩業是“一種讓美國社會付出毀滅性代價的惡疾”。她注意到美國最大的20個共同基金中的7個擁有1個或多個此類股票，于是呼吁投資者選擇那些發誓不買博彩股的基金――也就是她自己所任職的基金。

　　格林如此激烈反對的博彩對我來說是一種令人快樂的活動。我到賽場去，觀看馬匹、騎手以及騎手們穿戴的彩色綢制賽馬服組成的盛大華麗的場面，并享受著這樣的壯觀景象，更多的是因為我對結果投了2塊或5塊錢的注。我喜歡在拉斯維加斯或大西洋城花上一兩天的時間。但我一兩年才去一次，并把自己一天的花費限制在50或100美元。錢一花完，我就四處溜達，看看風景。

　　不管好壞吧，似乎博彩業在美國仍有發展之勢。所以我想博彩類股票――如科學博奕持股公司、夢幻旅游勝地公司和曼達雷旅游勝地公司所發行的――是值得一賭的。

　　促進合乎道義的投資是值得贊賞的，但我懷疑這種“一刀切”的做法能否行得通。我認為任何打算進行合乎道義的投資的人應該考慮到它的復雜性和困難程度。

　　蓋普公司的問題：

　　舉個例子，派克斯世界基金，總部設在新罕布什爾州的樸次茅斯，說它只投資于那些“尊重員工，尊重環保，尊重社區”的公司。相信它是盡力這樣做的，但在一個不完美的社會里，這些決策是非常困難的。 派克斯世界基金所持有的最多的股票是蓋普公司的股票。周五，蓋普（及其他一些零售商）輸了一場官司，他們本想駁回被指控銷售美國西潘地區血汗工廠生產的衣物伽訴訟案。8月，包括諾德斯道姆公司、J．克魯集團公司在內的其他四個被告同意出資125萬美元設立基金來監督西潘工廠的工作條件，以此解決向他們提出的索賠要求。

　　這都不意味著蓋普是個差勁的公司，或者在西潘事件中是有罪的。但它確實說明了在作出道德性投資決策方面存在的困難。

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