United States Proxy Exchange

On issues from sky-high executive compensation to big-bank bailouts, individual shareowners have unique credibility. We supposedly own the corporations and banks, but our authority to control them has been dismantled. We are working to fix that. Run by individual shareowners for individual shareowners, we are the United States Proxy Exchange. Join us.

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Site Directory

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  • Profile picture of site author James McRitchie
    Corporate Governance
    active 19 hours, 2 minutes ago
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    Latest Post: Stratasys Ltd $SSYS – Proxy Score 90
  • Profile picture of site author Krassimir Kostadinov
    My 2 cents tips
    active 1 day, 14 hours ago
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    Latest Post: Election System (in Bulgarian)
  • Profile picture of site author Marko Robinson
    Field Agent Atlanta
    active 2 months, 2 weeks ago
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    Latest Post: The Newly appointed commissioners of the Georgia Charter Schools Commission
  • Profile picture of site author James McRitchie
    PERSWatch
    active 3 months, 3 weeks ago
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    Latest Post: Americans Support Pensions for All
  • Profile picture of site author Steven Towns
    Active Investing
    active 5 months ago
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    Latest Post: Japan: one-trick ponies, exporters, yen, QE, EWJ, real estate, domestic demand; some sound conclusions
  • Profile picture of site author Glyn A. Holton
    The New Capitalist
    active 7 months ago
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    Latest Post: Broadridge Smokes Their Own Dope
  • Profile picture of site author Glyn A. Holton
    United States Proxy Exchange
    active 7 months, 3 weeks ago
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    Latest Post: Proxy Access: A New Version for 2013
  • Profile picture of site author James McRitchie
    Products for Democracy
    active 1 year, 3 months ago
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USPX Suspending Activities

by Glyn A. Holton

On October 16, 2012, the USPX board of directors decided to temporarily suspend our operations. The suspension may last eighteen months to two years. The immediate cause is my own time limitations. Volunteering as executive director has consumed more of my time than we ever anticipated, and my consulting practice has suffered. During the suspension, I will focus on building back my practice. This is a personal economic need for me, but economic concerns often highlight bigger issues, and there is a bigger issue here. Since 2008, our membership has successfully engaged with corporations and advocated for reforms. We have addressed issues such as lockout annual meetings, proxy plumbing and executive compensation. But we have failed at the bigger goal of growing a movement. We created a decentralized organization with a wonderful social website, but this attracted few new members. Why? During the suspension, we will try to answer that question. I think a big part of the answer will be the complexity of the issues we confront. While many Americans agree there are enormous problems with corporate governance and the financial system, that isn't enough to convince them to learn arcane topics such as Rule 14a-8 or proxy solicitation rules. Despite all our hard work and the social website, we haven't found a solution to the challenge of education. At the end of the suspension, we will prepare a new business plan for the movement. Early discussions among board members suggest this will be sweeping. I know that a big component will be education.

During the suspension, only our centralized activities will cease. Members will continue with their individual efforts — submitting shareowner proposals, attending annual meetings and blogging — as before. The social website will remain up, but it will not accept new membership accounts. Current members can continue to use the site as they like, blogging and networking. I will continue to perform essential "maintenance" duties. As always, I will be available to chat with members and supporters. I will love to hear from you.

Thanks to everyone for your hard work. We will be back with a new plan and vision once the suspension ends.

Corporations Control Your World. Control Them.

RSS uspx_blogs

  • Broadridge Fumbles a Virtual Meeting on Virtual Meetings. December 22, 2011
    A couple weeks ago, Elizabeth Mozley of Broadridge Financial Solutions (BR) invited me to join a working group to develop best practices for conducting virtual annual meetings. I was torn about participating. On one hand, Broadridge has a too-substantial financial interest in the outcome, as they have a near monopoly on the technology for conducting […]
  • Somebody Nudge the New York Times. November 14, 2011
    Kevin Roose of the New York Times just wrote a story, “Nuns Who Won’t Stop Nudging”, about the shareowner activism of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR). It is nice to see the religious organizations that coordinate through ICCR getting media attention for their hard work, but there are a few things missing. Maybe the […]
  • Abolishing Corporate Personhood: Be Careful What You Ask For. October 19, 2011
    Following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United, calls for the abolition of corporate personhood have multiplied. Noam Chomsky, Al Gore and Ralph Nader are advocates. Occupy Wall Street protesters mention it as a possible demand. Move to Amend is a coalition of organizations and individuals pursuing a constitutional amendment. Be careful w […]
  • This Is What Democracy Looks Like. October 8, 2011
    Yesterday, I headed over to Dewey Square for my first visit to Occupy Boston. I found more than I expected, and less. The closely spaced tents are a cacophony of colors, nestled among office buildings. To one corner is the venerable South Station, completed in 1899. The aluminum Federal Reserve building towers above, aging ungracefully. People […]
  • “The World’s Largest Hedge Fund Is A Fraud.” August 30, 2011
    I recently attended a screening of the new documentary Chasing Madoff about a financial analyst, Harry Markopolos, who uncovered Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and spent almost a decade trying to get the SEC to investigate. One of his filing with the SEC was entitled The World’s Largest Hedge Fund Is A Fraud, but that wasn’t enough […]
  • Hot Coffee and the Threat to Our Legal System May 4, 2011
    We have all heard the story of the woman who burned herself spilling McDonald’s coffee in her lap: she sued the company and won $160,000 in compensatory damages plus $2.7 million in punitive damages. The case became the butt of jokes on late night television and radio talk shows. It illustrated, for millions of Americans, […]
  • How To Steal a Corporate Election April 20, 2011
    There are plenty of ways to steal an election. Some require guns. Others depend on bribes. Perhaps the simplest involve misleading ballots. For its corporate election this year, American Tower Corporation (AMT) has produced a humdinger. Item 04 of their ballot (technically a VIF; I will explain this legal nicety some other time) gives shareowners […]
  • Insider Trading: A Window On Our Economy April 7, 2011
    Insider trading is making more headlines than we have seen since Ivan Boesky was fitted with handcuffs back in 1986. This morning’s newspapers report the arrests of Matthew Kluger and Garrett Bauer, a lawyer-trader pair who have apparently been at it for seventeen years. A third party in the scheme is cooperating with authorities. Yesterday, […]
  • CEO Pay at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac April 5, 2011
    The inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has released a devastating report on executive compensation at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the wake of the government's $153 billion bailout of those firms. […]
  • SEC Enforcement: Will They or Won’t They? March 31, 2011
    The SEC has a reputation of enforcing regulations against two-bit players in the financial arena while tiptoeing around the big boys. Back in December, Apache Corp. (APA) announced plans to flaunt US securities laws. The Commission’s response has been three months of unbroken silence. Apache’s CEO, G. Steven Farris, is waging a war against shareowner […]

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