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> With the popularity of ETFs and mutual funds, any American with a retirement fund has voting rights in the 500, and probably more public companies.

You do not receive voting rights when you hold index funds, ETF or otherwise. You only get to cast your own votes if you are an individual shareholder. Your index fund votes get voted by the fund runner.




That's why I said voting rights. If the if index fund managers find themselves on the hook for stocks they used to hold they'll take a much bigger interest in the CEO and Boards shenanigans.


Ahh, fair point.

Still, I'm skeptical that most shareholders have the ability to affect whether or not a company decides to commit criminal actions.


I agree, particularly in the case of companies where institutions own a majority of the shares (which is more than you’d expect, TWTR had something like 70-80% institutional ownership before going private)




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