2 ms·

Seems dubious. Most wealth is held by wealthy interests that prioritize staying wealthy. The collective will of small investors is negligible. And it’s not wort

Seems dubious. Most wealth is held by wealthy interests that prioritize staying wealthy. The collective will of small investors is negligible. And it’s not worth your time to invest in individual companies vs just doing an index fund. It would be nice if there were index funds that promised to vote for socially positive issues on votes. That may be more impactful than social good indices.

FredPret 3y ago
According to this [0], 51% of stocks are held by the 1%. So you are correct that the rich control corporations. But 49% voting power is far from negligible. Even a small minority of voters who care about an issue and raise a stink about it can swing a big change. Most shareholders, including rich ones, are happily coasting along on autopilot. If someone with even a single share stands up in an annual meeting and makes a good point, I would pay attention. The parent comment I replied to originally said that return to office is pushed at regular by a fund (Blackrock) that owns office space as well as shares in companies like say Apple or Google, even if that is a suboptimal choice for Apple and Google. If there's a bloc of even 5% of ownership arguing against this at an annual meeting, it would be a major improvement in the state of affairs. Corporate America runs the world. We can't just relegate all important decisions to big owners by default - at the very least give them hell! [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/upshot/stocks-pandemic-inequality.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/upshot/stocks-pandemic-in...
- robjan 3y ago
  You're talking about activist investing [0]. It's possible but you still need a significant holding to actually have any leverage. Joe Blogs who owns 100 of 10000000 shares is not going to be allowed to talk at the AGM [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activist_shareholder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activist_shareholder
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Why would it make a difference if 5% spoke up?

FredPret 3y ago

According to this [0], 51% of stocks are held by the 1%. So you are correct that the rich control corporations. But 49% voting power is far from negligible. Even a small minority of voters who care about an issue and raise a stink about it can swing a big change. Most shareholders, including rich ones, are happily coasting along on autopilot. If someone with even a single share stands up in an annual meeting and makes a good point, I would pay attention. The parent comment I replied to originally said that return to office is pushed at regular by a fund (Blackrock) that owns office space as well as shares in companies like say Apple or Google, even if that is a suboptimal choice for Apple and Google. If there's a bloc of even 5% of ownership arguing against this at an annual meeting, it would be a major improvement in the state of affairs. Corporate America runs the world. We can't just relegate all important decisions to big owners by default - at the very least give them hell! [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/upshot/stocks-pandemic-inequality.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/upshot/stocks-pandemic-in...

robjan 3y ago
You're talking about activist investing [0]. It's possible but you still need a significant holding to actually have any leverage. Joe Blogs who owns 100 of 10000000 shares is not going to be allowed to talk at the AGM [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activist_shareholder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activist_shareholder
jncfhnb 3y ago
Why would it make a difference if 5% spoke up?