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I insist that my 401K only invest in seaweed ventures and clamshell futures!
I have a dandy cranberry stock it's intials are BOGWASH!

All of my money is tied up in rose company stocks, even if they dont have stock. With the number of companies going out of business it wont belong before all of it is worth nothing more than a wiff of fragrance.

Lance

You haven't really lived until you've experienced the sheer joy of telling some "activist" that Exxon is over fifty percent owned by pension plans and less than one percent by "insiders."

Casts Exxon's record $37B profit in a whole new light, doesn't it?

You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?

MichaelAT

Investment Funds (in which your pension plan money is heavily invested) own so much stock in many of the Fortune 400 companies that they have a say on the Board of Directors. Since they only care about the bottom line (how much did you make this quarter), they advocate policies that run counter to the best long-term interests of the corporation (not to mention the corporation's employees and customers). The CEO's compensation is set by the Board. The Board ties the compensation of upper management to stock performance. Not surprisingly, management makes decisions based on what will help the stock this quarter, not what will help the corporation, its employees and customers in the long term.

When a company has hired a CEO to help it recover from mismanagement, you notice one of the first things they do is buy back a bunch of their stock. What they are doing is buying back control of the company so they can make the necessary decisions free from the bottom line this quarter pressure syndrom.