[snarks_when_bored]

SEC Votes to Limit Shareholder Rights

It's hard to believe, but Republicans continue to do their damnedest to live up to every crappy stereotype that Democrats try to hang around their necks come campaign seasons. It's as if the Republican SEC members were overheard whispering to each other:

"Yeah, let's further limit the ability of mom-and-pop public company shareholders to influence the make-up of boards of directors! These folks are clueless as regards corporate governance and they should just keep their yaps shut and let the professional board members steal their millions in peace Enronize the companies without impediment run the companies as they see fit."

Who will be the next SEC member to be rewarded with a highly remunerative sinecure on Wall Street? We'll hear soon enough, I expect.

[BohDaThone]

When you buy shares, you buy the rules of the company you are buying. Some have rules that allow anybody to put something on a ballot (not many -- remember, if one shareholder has the "right", so do the other 1 million shareholders, so you could have 1 million propositions.

Or, the rules may say "you have to have 1% (or 2 or 5 or 10) to get on a ballot." If the corporate charter and rules say that, those rules govern, the SEC isn't taking anything away.

What the headline means is that the SEC is limiting HOW MUCH IT (IT) will override company rules that you agreed to when you bought the stock.

Puts a little different perspective on it, no?