F. George McDuffee wrote:


Whose financial house is in better order -- yours or General
Motors? As a percentage of gross income, who had a higher
percentage of "retained earnings" -- you or Ford? Who would you
rather have managing your 401k -- you or the "blue ribbon" board
of directors at Enron?

The stockholders are the owners of the company [at least in
theory] If you read what I said about the Dividend Reinvestment
Program [DRIP] you would see that this allows the individual
owners [stock holders] to decide what to do with *THEIR* money.

The record shows that corporations are becoming increasingly
reckless in their fiduciary duties, with "management"
increasingly regarding any profit generated as theirs, skimming
increasing amounts off the top for grossly excessive salary and
bonuses for [dubious] performance and failing to invest in the
core business.


Unka George
(George McDuffee)


I did read what you said about DRIPS, but the idea still sucks. It
forces the company to give the money to the stock holders and therefore
have income which the government taxes. So if the company makes say
$10 / share and pays out half, then there are taxes paid on that half.
And the taxes come out of the shareholders pocket. Even if every
shareholder participated in the DRIP program, taxes on the dividends
would reduce the amount of money available for the company to use to
grow. So as I see it your plan lets the government decide that the
company should pay taxes on the profits, and then the stockholders
should pay taxes on top of that on at least half of the profits. Good
for the government, tends to suck for the stockholders.

I might not want Enron managing my investments, but I do want Nucor and
Carpenter Tech managing some of my investments. So If I don't want
Enron, I just don't buy Enron stock. Simple, no government involvement
with a one size fits all solution.

Don't like paying excessive salaries, try looking up the Nucor Web Site
and tell me if the salaries are excessive. When you do this go
somewhere like yahoo finance and look at the performance of Nucor
stock. Nucor did not pay dividends for years, instead investing the
profits back into the business. They went from producing no steel in
1960 to being one of the largest american steel companies now.

Dan