Perhaps you don't know many shareholders or understand why many people invest in shares. The ones I know are far more interested in steady, reliable dividends than in rollercoaster share prices, which are the preserve of the risk-takers. Long-term investors prefer realistic share prices, as it enables them to take up share offers and increase their portfolio. My mother did this for decades, starting from a very low base and died a self-funded retiree who had never asked the government for a cent. The share price of her portfolio stocks wasn't even of particular interest to her beneficiaries, as they had no intention of selling.

The fly in the ointment here would seem to me to be the fact that when you talk about shareholders, you ignore the basic fact that there are two types. The "mum and dad", small investor, and the "corporate" ones.
The small investor often has quite strong feelings about the direction, style, and ethics of the company, yet has no means of affecting anything. The large corporate shareholder is governed by the same crew who are awarding themselves the obscene packages, and won't resist them because they will be reciprocated in their turn, a vested interest.
The small investor will always be out-voted by the larger, even in organised groups, because of the sheer size of the holdings of the corporates. Until we can change the laws regarding "corporate citizenship", making those decision makers responsible for their decisions, it will not change. I find it incredible that a small group or individual can make a bad or self-serving decision, and then escape responsibility by claiming it wasn't them, it was "the company".

Mirko writes

'Shareholders and corporate executives are cut from the same cloth. They share a fundamental desire to make money for the sake of it. They differ not in nature, but simply in the extent to which their activities can enrich them. '

Really it is a bit rich coming from a lawyer. Why do lawyers support the likes of OJ Simpson or those they know are guilty of horrendous crimes. Could money and fame have anything to do with it. Isn't labeling all shareholders and executives the same a bit rich. If we applied the same measure to lawyers you don't look to good Mirko.

The fact is that all men are corrupted from birth. Different environments bring it out. The stock market and courts are two of those places. You could also argue that religions also bring that corrupt nature out. Humanism by far brings out the most self righteousness from people. Greed and corruption in communist and socialist countries is even not surpassed by the Vatican.

Ordinary mum and dad shareholders hold no real power - their votes have no power even when it comes to executive salaries. Their shares can be sold from under their feet when a buying company purchases 90% of all other shares - and this theft is legal and sanctioned by government under the Corporations Act.

The real power is with the executive - always has been and always will be unless laws are established to increase ordinary shareholder voting power.

The whole system would work better without shareholders (corporate or otherwise) - being indebted to shareholders is part of the problem of our excesses and excuses as to why services are continually reduced while costs increase or remain the same. "We must keep the shareholders happy" is really shorthand for we must keep the executive/board happy and our salaries fattened and the whole greed cycle continues.

I think Mirko has missed a lot about this issue. As a shareholder I've frequently been incensed by executive salaries, but you have no way of doing anything about them. They are determined by the directors and not subject to shareholder ratification. It's only when profits turn down that you can get boards, and governments, to listen.

I don't think it is supply and demand that determines executive salaries so much as social expectations. If you are running BHP, for instance, you want your CEO to be better remunerated than other CEOs for the status of your company.

And those social expectations are set by people who themselves hope to earn that sort of money, or used to.

There was also some inflation of exec salaries because every company wanted to pay above average, with predictable results.

And then there is the problem of looking someone in the eye who you've got quite pally with and telling them that they won't get that bonus because the share price went down.

It must be social factors, because exec salaries in countries like Japan are actually much lower than in the Anglophone world.

Mirco needs a navman stapled to his forehead ....he's lost .

The CEO's of the Banks should all be in goal , if their worth to their Company (Bank) is fair to Mirco , he has lost the plot , they , the Banks didn't know who they were lending the money to did they .

If I go into my Bank the only thing they don't check out is my teeth .

How come , 15mill mugs must go to water when they see a big building with gilded doors .

Any fool would check the integrity of the borrower !

It seems to me that Mirko has his wires crossed here. What most
mum and dad shareholders want is to stop their money beaing eaten
away by inflation, plus a small, regular return, with comparative
safety, so that they have in income in their old age and don't
need to depend on Govt.

For this reason alot of people invested in REITs, assuming that
property was reasonably safe, but of course they were mistaken.

Where was the problem? Not greedy shareholders, but greedy super
fund managers, who commonly are paid on performance, so they
compete with one another for more impressive looking figures.

IIRC super fund managers control about 1 trillion $, which is
enough to buy the whole ASX. CEOs who don't borrow to the max,
are accused of having "lazy balance sheets". CEOs who don't
perform can be easily ousted by super fund managers, who whom
they are answerable.

Too much borrowing is what has caused companies to get into
trouble yet again.

By what I've read, super fund managers seem to take the view that
they don't care what CEOs are paid, as long as their figures are
impressive.

Greedy super fund managers are not shareholders, they are employees
of the owners of those shares, ie Australian worker