>It appears you're conflating two things. I probably am :) I'm definitely guilty of playing loose with my words. I was thinking of all of the various pensions

>It appears you're conflating two things. I probably am :) I'm definitely guilty of playing loose with my words. I was thinking of all of the various pensions. But as far as unfunded liabilities go, I was thinking of public employee pensions, where the amount they get out is not at all what they've paid in, and many (most?) of the various public pension programs are paying into the pensions to cover shortfalls from their investment portfolios. Many of them are looking at large amounts of financial liability in the future they don't currently have a budget for paying as I understand it. >Either way, a shareholder owning a comparatively tiny amount of stock has neither a duty nor the impetus to align their interests with that of the corporation in which they hold stock. I make no argument about what anyone should or shouldn't do. My point is that I think a lot of people picture four or five guys leering at each other around a table when they talk about shareholders, but in reality there are a lot of small fish with a vested interest in companies getting them the best return they can on their investment because they're relying on those returns to pay their expenses during the fixed income period of their life.