There was a time when companies had a Chairman and a President. The Chairman’s main responsibility was to represent the share holds and monitor the President’s performance. One day the game changed and Presidents, who had collected sufficiently friendly Boards, started having themselves elected Chairman AND President.
You might think that the shareholders can vote him out if his salary gets way out of line and he buys a company plane and takes a fact finding trip around the world (much like a Congressman), but they can’t. The Chairman & President (Chairman & CEO) selects the candidates for Board membership and mails out proxies to all the shareholders suggesting they vote for his choice. Most shareholders either don’t vote or vote for the company’s recommended candidate. – No one is watching. Unless a Karl Icahn decides to take a stake in the company and puts some people on the Board that actually represent the shareholders, nobody is watching.
I never thought I’d hear myself say this, I’ve been Chairman of six companies, CEO of four, and President of three and, worse yet, Chairman & CEO of two. I’ve worked with some great Boards but when I see absolutely awful CEO’s leaving good companies in ruins and leaving with enough money in their pocket to buy a third world country,
I am reminded of our political process and the upcoming election.
I guess you get to vote in the primary but who decided who runs in the Primary? The Party decides and in the case of the Democrats they even have a system to overrule the primary process. With either party, you have little say once they are in. We all just keep supporting our good ole Congressman and our good ole Party and one day there will be only one Party and you will be spared the inconvenience of voting at all.
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