Tag Archives | Main Street Investors

Restore Shareholder Proposal Rights

Restore Shareholder Proposal Rights

Restore shareholder proposal rights to the pre-Trump era level. That is the objective of the complaint (pdf 2021 06 15 ICCR Complaint) filed this morning in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC’s) recent amendments to the rule governing the filing of shareholder proposals. The revised […]

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Gary Gensler SEC Chairman?

Gary Gensler SEC Chairman: Predictions and Advice

Gary Gensler, a former financial regulator, and Goldman Sachs banker, now at MIT, is rumored Biden’s choice to head the SEC. As head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), he helped uncover interest-rate rigging on Libor, which underpins $300T in loans. Banks had to cough up $9B in fines. He pushed for transparency around derivative trading and […]

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N-PX Data Tagging

N-PX Data Tagging: Critical to Our Future

N-PX Data Tagging? Yes, that might be the most important rulemaking the SEC could undertake to move our economy in a positive direction. SEC Commissioner Allison Herron Lee gives voice to this small change that could have a dramatic impact on how America invests (about 7 minutes into the video below). Read the text.  Structuring […]

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Faking It SEC

Faking It

Faking It. Remember those allegedly fake letters from retail investors supporting the US SEC’s controversial proxy advisor rule? [And the rules to “modernize” shareholder proposals, SEC Trampled Shareholder Rights.] Global Proxy Watch [GPW] remembers. They published the following yesterday [reproduced below with a little reformatting and my two cents in brackets]: (more…)

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Millennial Socialists

Millennial Socialists Bolstered by SEC

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” […]

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Modernization of Shareholder Proposal Rules - Trust Us

Modernization of Shareholder Proposal Rules

Modernization of Shareholder Proposal Rules Protect Entrenched Boards The SEC’s so-called modernization of shareholder proposal rules would significantly reduce the spread of long-term focus and best practices generated by proposals submitted by “gadflies” like myself to make corporations more democratic. Chairman Clayton seems to believe we file unpopular costly proposals. (more…)

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SEC Proposal to Improve Proxy Voting

SEC Proposal to Improve Proxy Voting Advice

SEC Proposal to Improve Proxy Voting to Have Opposite Effect SEC proposal to improve proxy voting advice would raise the cost of proxy voting analysis, reduce the number of customers and ultimately reduce shareholders ability to hold public companies accountable. If enacted, control of capital will be further removed from Main Street investors [Mr. and […]

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Gadfly Importance Key - McRitchie

Gadfly Importance Key to Democratic CorpGov

Gadfly importance to democratic corporate governance is often underrated. We are currently under attack by the Business Roundtable (BRT) and others seeking to substantially raise the ownership threshold for submitting and resubmitting proposals. BRT, for example, contends proposals from small shareholder divert “significant time and resources to issues that, at best, have an attenuated connection to the […]

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Mutual Fund Wars

Mutual Fund Wars Over Fees AND Proxy Votes

Mutual fund wars are fierce around pricing. What if competition was also fierce around proxy voting? Could that change the world? I certainly think so. My petition to the SEC could generate mutual fund wars around ensuring proxy votes align with investor values. (Rulemaking Petition for Real-Time Disclosure of Proxy Votes, SEC File 4-748, Jul. […]

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Normalized Deception

Normalized Deception: Spectrem Group

Normalized deception in the world of politics has spread to proxy voting controversies. A recent white(wash) paper by the Spectrem Group purports to be “providing a voice to retail investors on the proxy advisory industry” by employing a ham-handed survey, which seeks to “educate” respondents through leading questions. The report’s catchy title is Exile of […]

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Main Street Investors

Main Street Investors: Battle Coming

The battle over Main Street Investors could determine the future of the American economy for decades to come. According to Cydney Posner of Cooley PubCo, on one side are those who believe investors must focus on maximizing financial return and management knows best. On the other side are those who want to broaden the focus […]

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A nation of small shareholders - Traflet

A Nation of Small Shareholders: Review Essay

A Nation of Small Shareholders: Marketing Wall Street after World War II (Studies in Industry and Society) by Janice M. Traflet  (link to buy) explains how an ad campaign began to transform American finance. With all the current focus on Main Street investors, A Nation of Small Shareholders could be revisited and transformed to include […]

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