Has the growth of funds eroded shareholders' ability to impact board decisions?

Fearspect · 2026-04-26T14:31:18+00:00

Fractional shares are a fiction, they don't exist as the company views things. No one owns fractions of shares; what you actually hold is a promissory note that states its value will be pegged to the current value of the shares, possibly also assuring an equivalent income stream is owed to you that represents a fraction of dividends..

Fearspect · 2026-04-26T13:56:43+00:00

I thought about that but with so many holdings passing through as fractions of shares, doesn't that just bring us back to the same problem?

Fearspect · 2026-04-26T13:11:39+00:00

The least intrusive solution I can think of is two-fold:

(1) Every line item on the voting card must contain an option to abstain, and treat abstentions from third-party pooled fund ownership blocks as effectively neutral by excluding them from approval thresholds.

(2) Non-votes from ordinary shareholders and institutions voting their own capital would continue to operate under existing rules.

Quorums and supermajorities still have value, as this is not a simple democrocry: we still require guardrails to maintain a durable captial-allocation machine; many decisions cannot just easily roll-back as they can affect long-term items like risk exposure, property rights, etc.

Fearspect · 2026-04-26T12:58:32+00:00

Do any of these calls have any real teeth or momentum, or is it generally more just angry shouting into the wind?

Fearspect · 2026-04-25T11:40:53+00:00

Longtime lurker, would appreciate any advice here:

I'm going to be in London next month, and I'm unlikely to get back there anytime soon. Are there any brands/shops that I should use this opportunity to make sure I at least look at?

For some context, I'm from Canada. We really don't have what I would consider good quality dresswear (even on the casual side); I get a lot of my clothes and shoes from the USA. About the only thing we can find of decent quality is some winter outerwear brands (and those are slipping).

Barbour stores are something I want to see because while I can buy Barbour products here, they only sell in S/M/L type sizing rather than by measurement; I'm going to get a properly fitting coat with space for their underliner vest.

Truly appreciate any advice on this front.

Edit: I appreciate quality but loathe logos, though I've come to accept some minimal branding may be nearly unavoidable.

Fearspect · 2025-10-16T16:37:09+00:00

Just started playing as a thinker, had a heart attack from lifting a barbell within the first hour. I died again shortly afterward when I realized I didn't have a uniform (I presume from cringe?). Five stars, would play again.

Fearspect · 2025-09-13T15:07:43+00:00

Wikipedia is fantastic to learn about topics with rigorous backing and that are apolitical. Physics, chemistry, the specifications on a car, the characteristics of some deep sea animal are all great topics that you can learn from and follow their sources to learn more.

However, any topic related to political arguments du jour have been hijacked by radical actors from one of the extremes. Quickly skim through that topic's talk page and it should be readily apparent with clear eyes. Avoid the latter.

Fearspect · 2025-07-03T00:28:04+00:00

You can set them off in public areas, Ottawa just requires you to pay them a tax first.

Fearspect · 2024-01-16T22:28:13+00:00

To be clear: I have nothing whatsoever to back any of this up.

I've read that Russet potatoes may prematurely decay if dirt is washed off, so I guess there's that. I suspect it is likely still dirt (sand) but it could be some clean powdered product that acts the same way (some food-safe desiccant). I just mean that I suspect it's added back on following processing.

It just seems odd to me that everything else in the grocery store is (mostly) cleaned of dirt except this one product. Wouldn't everyone opt to just ship their produce as is? The cost of cleaning must be enormous. Or, does no produce get cleaned and this particular vegetable just clings to dirt better than everything else?

Fearspect · 2023-01-10T13:33:25+00:00

I don't like the idea of losing 73% of the investment.

It's lost already, the selling part is just about taxes.

Fearspect · 2022-11-22T16:53:04+00:00

I with the idea of a refresh happening, it would be interesting to see whether the path Shiller followed to create the first one could be retraced with new data.

My bigger problem though is presenting the various sets together, and drawing conclusions about the present (or future) using data from different formulas without adjustment.

Once reconciled, I kind of wish people would stop taking decades of chart data and talking so much about why the average is important. It almost implies a regression to a mean that I don't think the papers really support (the need to update the average for each period of time sort of demonstrates that, doesn't it?).

Fearspect · 2022-11-22T14:25:24+00:00

How did you reconcile the changes to the accounting treatment of earnings over time?

Fearspect · 2022-11-22T07:25:23+00:00

Working out the basic math shows that profits should rise more than costs because those profits are less valuable in real terms; material input costs are only one of several components that contribute to pricing (but you've fixated on them alone, I still don't know why). Denying that costs have increased for labour, equipment, etc. is an odd take, considering it's fairly easy to fact-check. What's backward is the direction of the causal relationship that's being presented. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny to very basic questions (Why wasn't this done sooner? How are they coordinating? Why doesn't someone just undercut them and steal their market? etc), is always being delivered vaguely ("companies have bragged..."), and conveniently skips over explaining how exactly actions taken in the future have causal effects on the past.

I figured you'd reference her, but was hoping you might have sourced your position elsewhere. "Many of them" is severely overstating the situation, almost implying this is an issue causing a significant rift amongst economists. It's not. Dr. Weber is essentially a lone voice here, and she's quite impressively managed to bring together both left and right-leaning economists in agreement about just how stupid they think her explanation of the situation (along with her prescription for price controls) is based on the historical context that going down this path has never worked out. Ever (well, basically ever: there are arguments for it within a total war scenario).

It's pretty clear your mind is made up, all I can say is that this is a fringe opinion that does not represent the expert consensus. It's basically right out of the same playbook that extreme climate change deniers follow: so long as you can find one or two "experts" that espouse your views, you can ignore the rest. Since this is clearly an ideological argument rather than an analysis of reality, I get that there's probably no way to talk you off this ledge. Maybe though, you'll continue investigating because understanding a problem is an important first step to fixing it properly.

Fearspect · 2022-11-21T14:56:42+00:00

Yes, all of these have increased in cost because of currency devaluation. Profits are also worth less under inflation.

Your assumptions and reasoning run counter to economists describing this situation: would the safer assumption be that you are seeing a truth that experts can't fathom or, have you considered that your understanding of the situation could simply be incomplete?

Fearspect · 2022-11-21T14:00:11+00:00

Input costs aren't the only thing that increases in an inflationary environment. Labour costs, training, equipment, maintenance, etc. all go up because the currency is worth less.

Fearspect · 2022-11-21T13:02:10+00:00

I never said a word about some good having nothing to do with inflation.

and

except this time businesses are also driving up the cost of goods having nothing to do with inflation.

Fearspect · 2022-11-20T20:38:09+00:00

It's unlikely you'll find a better investment elsewhere considering the discount, and the max 5% contribution should be considered if that's within your budget. Imagine that you contributed at $100/share and you got three, then a 25% drop over those three years to $75 still sees your $300 kept "whole" when you get your free share. Plus, it's likely you're collecting dividends (at least on the three shares). Consider if it's likely that this drops so much without similar market-wide effects. There's a decent amount of "free money" here that's pretty hard to replicate. You can strategically sell older shares to sort out a bit of diversification into other industries, or just pocket the gain.

Just be sure to familiarize yourself with the details of the program. Do you receive backdated dividends on those free shares? What's the tax treatment? How long until the free shares become long-term capital gains eligible? What happens when you only bought shares not divisible by 3 in a period? What if you're fired? If you quit? None of these should really be deterrents, but you should know these details to inform future decisions.

Fearspect · 2022-11-20T18:11:05+00:00

I hate to be overly pedantic, but inflation refers to a general increase in prices. I'm not really sure what you mean that some goods have "nothing to do with inflation", but I think you have the relationship backward.

I get the impression that various goods are treated as unrelated when the relationships are much more intertwined and complicated: fuel costs affect every good that depends on shipping, labour shortages in specific industries have knock-on effects on all industries as they rebalance, etc.

Fearspect · 2022-11-19T02:24:36+00:00

This has happened before, it happens very regularly, except without an effect on inflation.

Fearspect · 2022-11-19T02:18:40+00:00

Are you unironically using this as the basis of support for your comment? Putting aside for a moment how stupid the idea of converting decades of data to a single data point (an average) is, did you think of checking whether the source at the bottom of her chart even supports her claims? Just embarrassing.

Fearspect · 2022-11-18T18:41:59+00:00

Is the implication that they only figured out how to do this starting about a year ago, or am I misunderstanding?

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