And I call bullshit on you. There have been lots of cases where small shareholders have banded together to move the direction of a corporation. Unions have used the shareholder status of their employees as a block to pressure management. There have been shareholder revolts. The fact is, you own part of the company. Every shareholder can vote, and you get year end statements and the like.
This vote is every bit as valid as your vote in the upcoming election. Except that your vote will mean more in the corporation.
Can’t we get back to talking about that idiot Moore, his lunatic movie, and why it’s so joyous to see it regulated by laws created by the same sort of people that enjoy the movie? Please?
Campaign finance reform was a wonderful idea until it started to supress the speach of those liberals whom you actually agree with, eh? Who could have forseen that once you start controlling what people are allowed to say that it might actually have a negative consequence in a way that mattered to you?
(Brush definition / disclaimer: My comment is directed at any of those on the left who supported campaign finance reform.)
CFR is a poorly trained but vicious attack dog. It was obtained to go after the conservatives, and it has. The NRA and others have bite marks all over their asses. Congratulations on your victory.
But, wait. The dog is still hungry, and it keeps looking back at you…
Don’t forget the most important power the shareholder has. If they don’t like the way that things are heading they can sell the stock. That has a lot more affect on a company than voting or any other action they can take. This is what gives the shareholder real power.
Yeah! You tell 'em! Like the shareholders at Enron, they could express thier displeasure at being butt-fucked by selling thier shares at one-tenth what they paid for it! That’ll show’em! Take that! And when your living on Beefaroni and near-beer, and you see one of thier limos go by, you can scowl! Scowl real, real hard. Ooooh, I can just imagine how they’ll cringe!
I have no sympathy for the employee shareholders of Enron. Their beef was that they couldn’t sell the stock during a blackout period when they knew it was overvalued, during which time corporate bigwigs sold their shares. They’re just bitching about not being let in on the fraud.
And anybody who’se eating beefaroni after that crash had too much of their 401(k) tied up in Enron stock. It exposed their portfolio to way too much risk, which any sane individual avoids. But these folks were looking for the big payday, and got burned.
I hate to sound heartless, but they made bad decisions to get where they are. Other ordinary employees landed on their feet just fine after Enron went broke.
Corporate corruption is eee-vil. Union corruption is, well, er -
You see, corporations are made up of people acting on behalf of the shareholders, who pay money to acquire shares. Unions, on the other hand, are made up of people acting on behalf of their members, who pay dues to acquire membership. So one group is acting in concert and motivated by the desire to better their own situation, whereas the other is, um…
Try this again. One is an organization, a legal entity. The other is, well, ahem…
Corporations are like mini-democracies. You vote by a couple different methods. Take part in corporate governance processes or buy/sell the stock. The problem with both corporations and democratic governments in general is shareholder/voter apathy and ignorance. Leaving the guys like Ken Lay to buttfuck California and their shareholders. Find a particular corporation to be run by a bunch of assholes determined to run roughshod over anyone standing between them and profit? Educate the public on their assholery. Start a website about the company’s bad practices. Buy a couple shares of stock and take part in the next shareholder meeting. These are inherent self-correcting features of these social constructs known as corporations. Apathy and ignorance is a good way to fuck up damn near everything. The world is not shrink-wrapped for your protection. Sometimes you gotta get up and clench your sphincter if you don’t want anal invaders from the planet CEO. To re-structure the economic and social fabric of our society to prevent fuckwipes like Mr Lay from turdburgling would probably mean taking on a lot of extra burden in regulations and beauracracy to enforce them. If you believe this is the lesser of two evils then that’s fine and good, but some of us would prefer a more educated/active voter/shareholder over a Big Brother.
That sounds pretty heartless. The lines of demarcation are fairly clearly drawn by the SEC. Enron Execs(like Worldcom and it seems far too many other execs) went outside the rules. The employees could have mitigated their damages more, but the simple fact is their practices would not have resulted in nearly as much financial harm if the execs hadn’t thrown the rulebook out the window. I’ve used the analogy before and I think it may be appropriate here. If you throw a brick at my head the fact that I could have dodged and avoided the damage doesn’t mean you can’t, or shouldn’t, be charged with assault. Especially if we had a business agreement(which a sale of stock represents) which said you wouldn’t throw bricks at my head.
A shareholder bears no burden of taking extraordinary measures to protect themselves from financial ruin caused by fraud. Smart financial planners protect themselves from foreseeable market fluctuations/circumstances but with the underlying assumption of good-faith participation within the regulatory framework by the company. The executives of the company acting in bad faith to fuck over the shareholders is not something even a good financial planner should be expected to take into account.