Filed under: Politics, Presidential elections

The Republican Party is supposed to be looking out for the interests of investors. But after Bush-appointed SEC Chairman Christopher Cox supported a new rule that insulates entrenched management from dissident shareholders, we may have to look elsewhere.

John Edwards seems like an unlikely friend of the small investor, but his editorial in today’s (subscription required) Wall Street Journal suggests otherwise:

…Our companies should be run for the benefit of workers and shareholders as well as insiders. Today, too many companies in America are putting far too much of their earnings into excessive CEO and executive pay, when this money could be going to increased worker salaries, better benefits and investments in plants and equipment.

As president, I will immediately cap untaxed deferred compensation for executives. I will also give shareholders new rights and responsibilities so that they can call shareholder meetings, remove directors who aren’t acting responsibly, and have a say on executive pay.

Regardless of how you feel about putting a cap on untaxed, deferred compensation — I myself wonder whether that would really do anything to curb excessive pay, and think it might actually exacerbate the problem — it’s nice to see a candidate who wants to talk about what many of us see as one of the greatest threats to capitalism: lack of accountability for corporate executives and directors.

Edwards may not be the right guy to fix the problem, but this is definitely an issue that deserves a lot more discussion.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 6:15 am and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.