Voting with your dollars?

By on October 18, 2008 in politics

GoodGuide.com is an interesting site for checking on products you want to buy to see if they align with your social conscience. Now they’ve put together a guide to see what political party the companies contribute to. http://www.goodguide.com/contributions

4 Responses to Voting with your dollars?

  1. Da Mayor October 20, 2008 at 5:06 pm #

    I have mixed feelings about excluding businesses or people simply because they don’t vote like me.

    Sure, I’ll stay away from businesses that donate to extreme groups I disagree with, but if my corner store gives a few bucks to a Republican, that’s OK. Otherwise, I’d narrow my consumer choices by 50 percent.

    The former owner of Domino’s used to donate to radical anti-abortion groups – but damnit, that’s some good pizza!

    Reply
  2. baron October 20, 2008 at 6:10 pm #

    They should have an Obama pizza and a McCain pizza and see which one gets ordered more, I’m guessing the Obama one would be topped with ham & pineapple while McCains would be stuffed crust.

    Yeah, right or left leaning companies don’t sway how I shop. I’ve owned both a Dell and Apple computer and they’re on both sides. I use GoodGuide more for the other info, like if the products I use are carcinogenic or something like that.

    I must say, I don’t really go for those Hawaiian pizzas with ham and pineapple, I would have to order the maverick meat lovers with the stuffed crust.

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  3. Melinda October 28, 2008 at 10:22 pm #

    I’m not seeing where I can choose something as simple as “carcinogenic.” Is there a different link that’s not strictly political?

    Reply
  4. baron October 28, 2008 at 10:52 pm #

    You just plug in the product you want info on by going to http://www.goodguide.com Mostly it knocks products upon the product/company’s social, health and environmental scores. If you hit the link for “Highest Rated” it will usually bring-up a page with a link to “Lowest Rated” for products.

    I think I may start to buy more Tom’s products. But then again you have a highly rated company like Tom’s of Maine who is owned by Colgate-Palmolive. So things aren’t always so simple.

    One product, a men’s deodorant, is rated super low, 2 out of 10 for score. The site states:

    Gives this product an overall score based on the safety and toxicity of its ingredients, based on research by the Environmental Working Group. The EWG bases its score on data from more than 50 toxicity and regulatory databases and takes into account the product’s potential cancer hazards, development and reproductive hazards, violations, restrictions, warnings, allergy and immunotoxicity concerns, and a range of other concerns such as neurotoxicity and hormone disruption.

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