Employee ownership has a huge potential to improve firm performance, reduce layoffs, improve employee compensation and benefits, boost median household wealth, foster longer median job tenure, and reduce racial and gender wealth gaps. It also has a long history of bipartisan support. The benefits of employee ownership are wasted when too […]
Musings Missed Musings; not all of mine got mentioned at the Forum. I had the distinct pleasure of being a panelist at the Public Funds Forum 2022 with Maine’s Treasurer Henry Beck and David Wescoe, Executive Director of the Texas Municipal Retirement System. Our topic was Best Practices in Fund Governance. I thought of several […]
Leo Strine (Leo E. Strine, Jr.) is one of history’s most prolific legal scholars, especially on issues of corporate accountability. I have seen and heard him in many venues. Much like a rock star, he often comes out, blows our minds, and quickly exits the stage. On Monday (3/14/22), he will be our guest on […]
Meta Platforms should address inequality by helping to establish an ownership culture where all Americans are shareholders with a voice in corporate activity, especially at corporations where they are employed. Voting in favor of the shareholder proposal outlined below will send a message not only to Mark Zuckerberg but to all those who currently control […]
Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Timeliness In the spirit of Kuhn, this book eviscerates modern portfolio theory, arguing for a more systemic approach centered around human values and intentionality. I had similar nascent thoughts in 1967 when I concluded economics, based on “rational” actor assumptions of homo economicus, was not grounded in science. Lukomnik and Hawley aptly […]
Predatory Value Extraction: How the Looting of the Business Corporation Became the US Norm and How Sustainable Prosperity Can Be Restored (Kindle/Hardcover), by William Lazonick and Jang-Sup Shin, chronicles how agency theory and ‘maximizing shareholder value’ (MSV) led to looting of publicly traded companies. As many of us sit home waiting out the COVID-19 pandemic, […]
Kokkinis and Sergakis – A Flexible Model for Efficient Employee Participation in UK Companies by Andreas Kokkinis & Konstantinos Sergakis, 17 Feb 2020 (download), provides several insights that may be helpful in guiding US efforts as well. As mentioned in my coverage of the recent SHARE Summit, #SHARE2020, I am investing in public companies with employee ownership. […]
Millennial socialists have not been overtly embraced by the SEC, but the Commission’s recent proposals to disempower proxy advisors and shareholders below the level of multi-millionaire’s plays into the hands of those advocating a socialist economy. The Commission’s proposed rules would further concentrate the power of corporate elites and reduce their accountability to “Main Street” […]
McRitchie 2019 proxy season results are not something I normally report. It feels too much like bragging. I do my work to drive better, more accountable corporate governance. However, the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance is “considering recommending that the Commission propose rule amendments regarding the thresholds for shareholder proposals under Rule 14a-8.” It is […]
Tepper begins his book (with Hearn) by recounting United Airlines forcibly removing paying passenger Dr. David Dao, a Vietnamese-American pulmonologist, from an overbooked plane. The video of him going unconscious and bloody went viral. United’s CEO initially blamed the passenger for resisting but later settled. Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hearn fail to mention Dr. Dao suffered a broken nose, loss […]
Participation by every American family in the market and in corporate governance is needed to address growing inequality, sense of powerlessness and slowing growth rate. As long as 84% of corporate stock is owned and controlled by 10% of Americans, corporations will not be trusted; nor should they be. (more…)
Compensation: The Difference it Makes Compensation. Most Americans think CEOs of the 500 largest publicly traded corporations are overpaid, even though they think CEOs made less than a tenth of what they actually earn. The Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University conducted a nationwide survey of 1,202 individuals — representative by gender, race, […]
Part 4 28th Annual SRI Conference in San Diego. Search #AllinForImpact on Twitter to see more posts. See Parts 1, 2, and 3. Yes, I know, this conference was held months ago but I’m still digesting… maybe until the next one. I could spend a productive year just exploring links to the work of the speakers. Mark […]
How Shared Ownership Reforms Can Address Popular Anger about an Unequal Economy In May 2017, U.S. Senators Sanders, Leahy, Gillibrand, and Hassan introduced legislation intended to help workers become owners. Their bill calls for a national employee ownership bank and helps states develop employee ownership centers. This comes after a dozen major cities and nearly […]
Peter Georgescu’s Capitalists Arise!: End Economic Inequality, Grow the Middle Class, Heal the Nation correctly identifies short-termism and a focus on stock price as a problem contributing to growing wealth inequality. His solutions depend on enlightened managers and boards to transform how America does business by taking all stakeholders into account, not just shareholders. I say, don’t […]
CEO Pay Ratios: Mandated Reporting Approaches Starting fiscal years beginning in January, companies must disclose CEO pay ratios to the median compensation of their employees. Companies have flexibility with regard to sampling and other methodologies, according to how the SEC has interpreted the Dodd-Frank Act. In preparation, PayScale and Equilar surveyed employee sentiment on CEO pay […]
On 5-7-2014, CtW Investment Group filed a notice of exempt solicitation, urging shareholders to vote against company’s say-on-pay proposal at the 2014 annual meeting. CtW said that the compensation committee failed to modify its executive pay practices. Instead, its practices provided elevated pay even when performance declined. CtW is also concerned about declining financial and […]
From Moyers & Company The median pay for the top 100 highest-paid CEOs at America’s publicly traded companies was a handsome $13.9 million in 2013. That’s a 9 percent increase from the previous year, according to a new Equilar pay study for The New York Times. Will the rise of a new oligarchy mean the […]
From a CSES Lecture Series event held on February 6th, 2014 at Cornell University. Gerald (Jerry) Davis presented his research “The Coming Collapse of the American Corporation (and What Comes Next)?” Shareholder-owned corporations were the central pillars of the US economy in the twentieth century. Due to the success of the shareholder value movement and […]
Robert Reich makes the case for higher taxes on the wealthy in two minutes and 30 seconds. Notice the overlap between “class warfare” and “common sense.” Also recommended, Inequality for All. download the discussion guide and find additional resources that accompany the film as well as the list of organizations and partners that made this […]
From a friend: He came to the SEC a month ago and gave such an awesome talk about his new book, The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future … incredible talk. This guy is serious, Nobel Prize in economics and whatnot. He’s talking about industry entrenchment, the finance industry, manipulation of government, […]
A roundup of just a few of many relevant news items worth reading. (more…)
US companies face a “logistical nightmare” from a new rule forcing them to disclose the ratio between their chief executive’s pay package and that of the typical employee, lawyers have warned. Yes, the disclosure required by section 953(b) of Dodd-Frank “will provide ammunition for activists seeking to target perceived examples of excessive pay and perks.” […]