Shareholders are increasingly asking for more disclosure of political spending and lobbying by their

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post

Shareholders are increasingly asking for more disclosure of political spending and lobbying by their companies.
By Tom Hamburger and Brady Dennis, Updated: Monday, May 21, 6:15 PM

One of the most polarizing fights over money in politics has been unfolding this spring at annual corporate meetings, where shareholders are mounting an intensifying effort to push companies to disclose the money they spend on lobbying and political campaigns.

The transparency push, playing out at shareholders meetings from coast to coast this spring, has received cheers from campaign finance reformers and some corporate governance experts. It has drawn ridicule from critics such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who see the effort as an attempt by liberal groups to squelch the voice of the business world.

“This is all about intimidation,” Tom Donohue, longtime president of the Chamber, told reporters during a breakfast event Monday.
He noted that some proposals ask companies to stop spending on politics altogether.

“That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard,” said Donohue, whose business-funded organization plans to spend a record $50 million on political campaigns this year.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/more-shareholders-call-on-companies-to-disclose-their-political-spending/2012/05/21/gIQAjRxVgU_story.html

[jerseyjack]

1. Because of long range effects, this is more important than the upcoming election.

[sofa king]

2. Politics is a TERRIBLE investment.

Of course shareholders want to know if their money is being wasted on politics. I once undid the other sides' weeks of lobbying and tens of thousands in labor with a post-it note written to myself. Haley Barbour undid years of my own meticulous work with a single phone call to Karl Rove.

Part of what has kept America reasonably strong after thirty years of unrelenting assault by the forces of greed is the hidden ability of almost anyone to grind a political process to a complete standstill. It's easy: the people with the money absolutely cannot stand to wait, and the bureaucratic process is all about waiting.

So now you have to ask yourself what all that money is going to do now that they've backed a party and a Presidential candidate that can barely win against itself.

[AngryAmish]

4. Ask Brown and Root if it was a bad investment

(or by what they are know as now, Halibuton)

[sofa king]

5. The Dow-Jones lost 25% of its value in Bush's first 18 months.

Halliburton got ahead, but almost nobody else did. One example I personally saw was the chemical industry, which was wrecked by deliberate lack of oversight on natural gas prices, because the Bush coup was fellating the petroleum industry at the expense of everyone else.

The chemical industry had backed George Bush just as much as any other corporate entity did. The industry and the individuals who ran it all took a bath as a result--and lost far more money than KBR made.

Expand that disaster to every single corporate board room in America, and that's what investors got for backing George Bush. That, and a break on the capital gains they were no longer realizing.

[AngryAmish]

3. I have been reading this article for thirty years

Must have come up on the tickler file. Easy story to write. Just get some quotes for activist shareholders (there always are a couple, better yet get a nun!) then someone from some right wing group...get a few quotes..boom, you have filled some pixels.