3 ms·

> It's the responsibility of capital holders to employ their capital intelligently, not to hand it off to some faceless corporation and hope it gets invested we

> It's the responsibility of capital holders to employ their capital intelligently, not to hand it off to some faceless corporation and hope it gets invested well. Would this mean that billionaires would have to manually manage their portfolios themselves? I assume not because they could hire a non-"faceless" firm. Ultimately, this feels like an objection to BlackRock that would prevent the average person from having a chance but do nothing to stop the problem of large companies and already powerful individuals gaining more power.

FredPret 3y ago
I'm saying lots of "powerless" individuals actually have quite a bit of power, they just choose to let others take the wheel. If all of middle and upper-middle class America skimmed their annual reports and voted their shares, things would change a lot. Boardrooms right now are full of people that somehow get in and stay in automatically. CEO's tend to dominate proceedings, when really they should dance to the tune set by the board, the composition of which should reflect the shareholders, which for a big corp is probably about half of the USA.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  My 5 shares out of the companies 100,000,000 give me little power and is a huge investment of my time to vote intelligently with, and I have little way to coordinate my decisions with hundreds of thousands of other minor share owners. It would end up with the retail investors going with the path of least resistance or it'd be democratic noise. I also don't care to use that power - my only goal is to retire one day by investing in the market as a whole through broad market ETFs. I have no interest in individual companies or how they vote. I, and the majority of other retail investors, are simply interested in financial security. Are we wrong to have that goal? Why do we need to start playing boardroom games that we can't and don't care to win?
  - FredPret 3y ago
    Because they are not games. Correct decisions are crucial to the running of the company, and thus your financial stake in it.
    - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
      Yes. Why you would expect a bunch of retail investors who have no interest in running a company to make the correct or best decision for the company is beyond me. Do you want those investors to lose their chance at a retirement?

FredPret 3y ago

I'm saying lots of "powerless" individuals actually have quite a bit of power, they just choose to let others take the wheel. If all of middle and upper-middle class America skimmed their annual reports and voted their shares, things would change a lot. Boardrooms right now are full of people that somehow get in and stay in automatically. CEO's tend to dominate proceedings, when really they should dance to the tune set by the board, the composition of which should reflect the shareholders, which for a big corp is probably about half of the USA.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
My 5 shares out of the companies 100,000,000 give me little power and is a huge investment of my time to vote intelligently with, and I have little way to coordinate my decisions with hundreds of thousands of other minor share owners. It would end up with the retail investors going with the path of least resistance or it'd be democratic noise. I also don't care to use that power - my only goal is to retire one day by investing in the market as a whole through broad market ETFs. I have no interest in individual companies or how they vote. I, and the majority of other retail investors, are simply interested in financial security. Are we wrong to have that goal? Why do we need to start playing boardroom games that we can't and don't care to win?
- FredPret 3y ago
  Because they are not games. Correct decisions are crucial to the running of the company, and thus your financial stake in it.
  - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
    Yes. Why you would expect a bunch of retail investors who have no interest in running a company to make the correct or best decision for the company is beyond me. Do you want those investors to lose their chance at a retirement?