Ah ok thanks for the input. As I said I don’t buy Bitcoin myself; however as I said above I think the abbot I mentioned would probably have warned his ex-monk if it’s not right livelihood.
Yes, I remember a remark by Proust that some minds only want to busy themselves with what they consider to be ‘lofty’ subjects…
But leaving aside the fact that money (as a means of exchange, store of value and unity of accounting - you might find the discussion of this subject in Mankiw’s Macroeconomics of interest) is necessary for the working of every modern society (unless one wants to go back to a barter economy), I find of particular interest the discussion on money and the doctrine of individual freedom and responsibility, and thus of karma, by Prof Gombrich. In his book ‘What the Buddha thought’, quoting Richard Seaford’s book 'Money and the Early Greek Mind ', Gombrich writes: I
find his book fascinating, and hope I can discuss its wider implications
for early Indian thought elsewhere. Here let me just quote the
passages which I find most relevant to the Buddha’s karma theory.
The ‘metaphysics of money’ involves 'the belief that we are primarily
individual agents and only secondarily (if at all) members of a larger
[social] entity .The individual with money, although he may find useful and
desirable the personal relations of kinship and friendship
(reciprocity) as well as participation in collective sacrifices
(redistribution), can frequently do without them, relying
instead on the impersonal power of money … The power
of money can increase human independence even from
deity; . . .This fits Buddhist karma perfectly. (from What the Buddha thought, pages 24-25)
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Should we not respect the wishes of each member of the community with regard to participation in a particular topic? It encourages us to recognize when we might be taking personally something not meant to be so, and allows us to bow out of a heated exchange gracefully.
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I don’t have disdain for money. Money is an essential tool in modern economies for acquring and husbanding the requisites for life. But I do have some disdain for spending a lot of time thinking about how to get more of it, and how to get more of the material and sensual comforts it purchases.
It is said that the Buddhist texts contain much wisdom on the proper conduct of economic and household life. But in fact, seen in the context of the whole body of the suttas, the words devoted to such matters are a miniscule fragment of the teachings. The few passages of worldly guidance that are there are probably more well known than their actual importance merits, because the masses of worldly lay Buddhist devotees have desperately sought guidance from their fundamentally renunciant religious tradition that might be relevant to their everyday, non-renunciant lives. So they cling to small, stray bits of moralism.
Ricahard Gombrich seems to see the Buddha as analogous to a classical “moral philosopher” with a comprehensive vision of the proper conduct of life in all of its phases and social aspects. He also seems to see the Buddha as the prophet of a kind of ancient Indian bourgeois revolution associated with the second urbanization, and is drawn to those parts of the teachings stressing individualism, personal moral responsibility, kammic order, and self-reliance. I think this is also likely a distortion of what was most important to the Buddha, and builds much more of a social philosophy out of Buddhism than the Buddha was actually interested in promulgating. But, Gombrich is a great scholar.
The overwhelming preponderance of the Buddha’s teachings deal not with the proper ordering of worldly life, but with the path of escape from it, and from the pains inherent in it. Nobody can doubt that he saw the life led by his wandering company of beggars as vastly superior to the lives of herdsman, plantation owners, merchant householders, their wives, menial laborers, soldiers or kings. Since he was kind and skilled, then rather than lecturing and denouncing such people, he tended to try to help them take the first baby steps out of the samsaric traps in which they were ensnared, and away from their sad worldly lives of acquiring, killing, taking, lying, lusting, adorning and son-making.
I think it’s futile to try to find in the Buddha’s teaching any sustained or serious defense of either capitalism or socialism, libertarianism or communitarianism. These are all different conceptions of the way in which the worldly network of farms, fields, towns and murdering armies and kingdoms might be knit together. But the Buddha saw that World as ultimately sad, mindlessly repetitive and as meaningless as the labors of Sisyphus.
Back on topic:
Stef, do you mostly do index funds, or do you do other things like commodities at all? I know you said you don’t do bitcoin (I don’t either).
I’m not totally sure of commodities being a decent investment so I have stayed away from it. I have stayed away from those funds because some of them involve a very significant allocation in agriculture and thus animal flesh. Physical metals may be another option. I own some gold but I’m not sure why.
Hi Stef,
I think it’s valid to ask these questions as we all want to try and live ethically in the world, minimising harm as much as possible. Thanks for starting this interesting thread. 
I do want to just make a comment about the following:
It is possible that this Abbot is showing unconditional kindness and acceptance of this person; but not necessarily of his particular engagements with the world. Because how could he know all the ins and outs of what bitcoin is? Particularly in his position. It is important we don’t confuse his kindness and support for this person with an endorsement of what this person does - which may or may not be good (I’m not commenting on that as I don’t know anything about bitcoin.)
I suspect this Abbot is showing understanding and compassion for this person’s journey, where he is at and what he needs to do. I suspect he is showing non-judgement, measureless and non-controlling metta, with the understanding that this kind of support is what people need to figure things out for themselves; to find their own path into harmlessness. Because, it is always a personal journey and it always has to be. Further, he may have an understanding of this person’s intentions and also an understanding of the difficulties we all face in living purely within our livelihoods in the lay life…nobody can be perfect but we can all try to do our best.
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I just want to contribute a few recent opinions from financial experts on the ponzi/pyramid nature of bitcoin.
Hi dharmacorps sorry for my late reply; I have taken some time off to meditate during the holidays so I hardly ever connected to the web 
Yes I have invested in index funds (though I had the doubt I mentioned above about right livelihood); concerning gold, I read in a footnote by Jason Zweig to Ben Graham’s Intelligent investor that it’s worth to have a tiny fraction of one’s portfolio in gold (perhaps 2-3%) or gold funds because of its rebalancing benefits.
With metta
Hi sorry for my late reply I’ve taken time off to meditate. Also sorry in case the tone of my previous messages might have seemed confrontational - I was a bit stressed and this was probably reflected in my style of writing. Yes I read Howard Mark’s opinion on bitcoin though I think in a later letter he wrote positively of the technology behind it. With metta Stef
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Yes, I agree the blockchain technology is an important new technology. But I think some bitcoin investors have been confused in thinking that by investing in bitcoin they are investing in blockchain somehow. Bitcoin just uses a blockchain architecture, but anything else could use it.
Metta here too!
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I’m resurrecting this thread as my questions pertain to it.
In MN 117, we have a passage with the bolded part being of interest…
Venerable @Sujato :
And what is wrong livelihood? Deception, flattery, hinting, and belittling, and using material possessions to pursue other material possessions. This is wrong livelihood.
Venerable Bodhi:
And what, bhikkhus, is wrong livelihood? Scheming, talking, hinting, belittling, pursuing gain with gain: this is wrong livelihood.
~
Is there a commentarial gloss on this specifically or on this subject generally? What do you think the Buddha meant by this? How do you interpret it and what falls under this category? What forms of investment? How about real estate? Loans charging interest? Usury? Where would you draw the line here?
I look forward to opinions and discussion.
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Hi Mkoll,
I am indeed inclined to interpret this as any interest-charging loans (i.e. usury as understood originally).
On the scale of society, the practice of interest charging-loans combined with a fractional reserve system is the source of our present-day economic problems and incoming crises. The encouragement of controlled inflation (a hidden tax on people), growth, consumerism and debt (e.g. all the ads for credit cards, mortgages etc) are a result of this because without a constant and exponential increase of credit money this house of cards will come to an end. And all this have detrimental effects on people (‘debt-slaves’, stress etc) and the planet (pollution etc). Moreover, on the scale of society, these activities make rich people richer solely on account of their wealth and not on account of their action and effort.
But what’s more interesting is why should a livelihood based on making interest-charging loans be considered as ‘wrong’ by the Blessed One on a personal level. If I put myself in the shoes of someone lending money, then one thing that I would feel particularly uncomfortable about is if someone would not pay me back even after gentle reminders. In that case, most lenders would either use intimidation (through letters etc) or use the legal system and violence to either get some assets from that person or send that person to jail. And all these actions cannot be done with a mind of metta and compassion, this is just impossible! So lending money will force the lenders to have unwholesome states of mind and speech at the minimum (and possible unwholesome actions as well), hence it would be a wrong livelihood.
I’m sure there is more to it but here are some thoughts.
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I feel that part of what the Dhamma calls us to is to examine questions like this, and make skillful decisions for ourselves that promote merit, and avoid cultivating attachment and greed.
There are good advisors that can provide sensible advice to people about investing in a responsible way. One need not even consider Bitcoin, or speculating with options or other risky investments. One the other hand, if you leave your earnings in a zero percent account with a bank, you are really only lending money to that bank for free. I am not sure that making free loans to a bank is skillful as well.
As has been pointed out, money is a tool, a vehicle. How we use it is part of our practice. I work and accumulate money to help my kids and to help others. For example, I have given away my “estate” to my kids already, subscribing to the idea from a conversation with a friend, Dinesh, who is a Jain and told me years ago about the Jain system of the 4 phases of a life well lived:
In the context of orthodox traditions, the “progressively realised” goal of the ascetic life can be understood more fully through an understanding of the asrama system. Essentially, there are four stages of life through which the individual passes under the asrama system: student (brahmacarin), householder(grhastha), hermit (vanaprasthin) and ascetic (sannyasin).
The idea as Dinesh explained it is that you absorb from your parents and others wisdom and education, then move into householder life, and work to support and earn well, so that later in life, you can then turn over what you have gained to your children, and then proceed into a more ascetic lifer, ending your life phase with ordination, if you wish.
To me, investing is simply a question of how one puts money to work, in an ethical and appropriate way, so that you’re not benefiting faceless corporations by making free loans to banks, nor harming others by speculating or gaining from the hardships of others. There are money market accounts that can provide some simple interest on money for the short or long term (these being generally safe and not overly complicated; probably the most “ethical”), and balanced bond and equity funds that keep money working in a balanced and reasonable way. These funds rise and fall with the markets; there are risks but the risk is commensurate with the general risk in the market.
Then, if you have earnings or investment gains, put them to use helping others, and keeping one’s own life simple, frugal, and renunciation oriented.
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Many basic mutual fund companies offer “ethical” investment funds. The funds are guaranteed not to include things oil companies and often include things like green electricity companies.
Once someone has built a nestegg that doesn’t need to be grown that much they can move the funds into something stable like bonds, CDs etc.
Any competent investment firm can help you with these things.
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Thank you @UpasakaMichael. It may also be skillful to consider how the bank does its lending, given that money you put into savings or checking accounts is used by the bank to lend. There are some banks like Amalgamated that make a point of lending ethically. They are part of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values. I actually learned about them from a dharma teacher of mine who had moved his accounts there from another bank. YMMV and I am not sure I’d want to use their non-FDIC insured products. 
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In the monastic context, essentially it means using the things that have been offered to you as a means of getting more things. That would include, for example, charging rent on monastery property, or selling off property for the sake of profit. It would also include selling or bartering goods.
Of course there are legitimate cases when these things may be done. If something belonging to the Sangha is useless, dangerous, or a burden, it may be sold off. But what this is talking about is profiteering off the back of offerings.
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Thank you for your feedback. Actually I know a bit about these things already. Concerning ESG investments, there are arguments that they might actually help some of those firms, because by pushing the price of those stocks down (through decreased demand), they allow those companies to buy back their own shares at a lower price.
The long term returns for investors in unethical companies is also expected to be higher (for the same reason, since they are now able to purchase those stocks at a lower price), see e.g.:
Concerning bonds and CDs, there is the ethical question raised by Yosoj on ‘interest charging loans’ (since bonds are precisely that); also if you want to provide for your children say in Italy, it’s not wise to put all your money in Italian bonds because of default risk; and US bonds have currency risk.
I find these ethical questions more and more complex and paralysing if you really take them seriously; on the other hand I have seen someone who had been a monk in a famous monastery for many years and then became a bitcoin trader doing affiliate marketing in bitcoin investment schemes (at least in 2017…) so perhaps I am overthinking this…
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thanks for these interesting points. They remind me of Aristotle’s discussion of chrematistics; I don’t have time to respond in detail now but hopefully will be able to do this later. With metta.
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Well, I guess the short piece of advice to Sigālaka from the well-known Sīgālovāda sutta (DN31) is also relevant:
One portion is to enjoy.
Two parts invest in work.
And the fourth should be kept
for times of trouble.
Though “invest in work” (Sujato) has also been rendered as “invested in business” (Kelly) or “should be put to work” (Walshe), so I guess the Pali itself is probably fairly open-ended and not too specific in meaning. I guess broad enough to be reasonably stretched to cover investing in suitable ethical businesses though?
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Exactly, as one considers these questions again and again, some answers become more and more apparent: imo, not possessing anything and not being involved in anything is the only way to be totally harmless… reflecting on these questions (and the associated frustration!) lead to detachment, a simplification of one’s life and switching from a quest for protection (insurances, savings, investments, pensions etc), which is illusory as life can take anything away in the blink of an eye, to a quest for lessening one’s needs and desires and trust in the Dhamma (i.e. Dhamma will help the selfless ethical person). And the eremitical life as described in the sutta is the epitomization of such a life.
This is a misconception I believe, most of the the money lent by bank is created by them at the time of underwriting the loan (their only limitation is that they have to hold a small fraction of the total money they create by lending). Plenty of documentation of these topics nowadays, here is an article:
The banks create most of the money supply (~97%), not governments. And this money is credit money which requires an ever-increasing amount of credit to be created to re-pay the previous loans and interests - a nonsensical system that starts to show its limitations.
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