ShmoopTube

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finance a la shmoop what is disinvestment? all right you got a couple

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of choices disinvestment dat-investment and but disinvestment refers to the [Man walks through door]

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process of a well a kind of whiny financial boycott like you think it

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comes out of Yale or something it's a common thing among university students [Boy studying in library]

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who are high on intellectual horsepower and low on self-awareness or how the

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world actually works like the little rich kid who complains to Daddy about

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the underpaid workers in his shirt factory as the kid drives away that [Boy driving sports car]

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shiny new convertible BMW with the you know souped-up stereo set yeah that's

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kind of what it's like well students often protest universities investing in

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things like tobacco and oil and types of technology companies and that's really

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kind of funny and sad because you know students late teenagers really have tons

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of professional investment experience and life experiences and they've seen

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lots of market cycles and they really know what they're doing when it comes to

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the long cycles of the stock market and or they're advised by professors who [Woman working on laptop]

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really have risked their own capital to build a big oh wait there none of that

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so yeah that's the funny part and the sad part is that well for better or

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worse over time those industries that they want to boycott for their school's

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endowment which then pays for scholarships for underprivileged kids

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have traditionally been really good industries to invest in like they've had

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good investment returns yeah like technology come on give me a break just

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goes up right so when the students push the university to sell its point zero

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zero zero one percent ownership of their stake in whatever company well then the

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university loses those good investment gains and that endowment money that was [Money vanishes from vault]

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supposed to be earmarked for scholarships for the underprivileged not

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the children of rich daddies in you know BMWs while that money just isn't there

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just goes away so who did all that disinvestment hurt well students five

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ten twenty years later who actually needed the scholarship money and didn't

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get it but at least the boycott really affected how Chevron drilled for oil there

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right [Chevron drills hole into sea bed]

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