I just got some voting slips for participant proposals for the TIAA-CREF accounts that I have. I assume many readers of this blog have similar accounts, which is why this might be interesting.
One of the proposals was to stop investing in all companies that support gun control. It almost goes without saying that this is a Very Bad Idea, and one that I’d strongly recommend people vote against. I doubt the proposal has much chance, but just in case a few gun-lovers with college jobs get behind it, it is worth taking the time to vote it down.
The accompanying documentation to the vote included a mealy-mouthed pro forma objection to the proposal from the board, that basically just said “We’re Friedmanites about business ethics, so we don’t think we should care what the companies say or do as long as they make a lot of money.” (Obviously they did not put it quite like that.) I’m not a Friedmanite so I think this is a lousy argument. But I still think there are plenty of reasons to vote against the proposal.
1. Gun control is a Good Thing, so we should be supporting companies that support it, not opposing them.
2. It’s inappropriate to choose which companies to invest in on the basis of their political views.
3. Based on recent NFL results, it seems that groups that support gun control are likely to exceed expectations, and hence should be supported. [1]
I should say a little more about 2. I think it is appropriate to choose which companies to invest in on the basis of their social practices. Indeed, I think shareholder activism, backed by a willingness to move funds, is sometimes a better way to promote social goods than political agitation. To that end, I have most of my investments in so-called socially responsible investment funds. (This isn’t entirely by choice - my other investments took a pretty bad hit in the crash, but the touchy-feely ones held up pretty well. The way they seemed to do so well in bad times might be another proof that there is a God.)
But I think we should distinguish here between which political platitudes a company mouths and what actions it does. The latter may be grounds for taking dramatic actions like removing all institutional funds from them, but the former are not. I wouldn’t sell off my shares in a company because it lends its name to anti-abortion petitions. (Though I would obviously vote against supporting such petitions.) I would be much more tempted to sell them off if the company restructured its health care policies to ensure that its employees could not be covered for abortions.
The current proposal, apart from being on the Wrong Side of the political debate, seeks to punish companies for what they say, not what they do. And I don’t think that’s appropriate, especially for a large investment house.
Having said that, I was quite offended by the way the various proposals were laid out. As well as the “More Money for Gun-Lovers” proposal, the ballot included various proposals put forward to reform various aspects of the fund governance, some other social policy oriented proposals, and the re-election of two trustees. The board approves the re-election, but not the proposals.
So the dead-tree ballot paper is split into two columns, with the one thing supported by the board in one column headed “The Board of Trustees recommends a vote FOR item 1” and the others in a column headed “The Board of Trustees recommends a vote AGAINST the following items.” Subtle, eh? Then when I went to vote online, there’s a single check-box for those who want to vote exactly as the board recommends. Needless to say, there was no such check-box for those wanting to vote against the board’s recommendation in every case.
If the fund is going to have this kind of ‘participant involvement’ it should not be stacking the deck in favour of the status quo this way. It’s entirely proper for the Board to investigate proposals and report on their consequences before they go to a vote. It’s not permissible to draw the ballot paper up on the basis of those reports. This is about as ridiculous as ordering candidates on a ballot paper by the number of votes people from their party got in the most recent election.
[1] The NRA Blacklist includes the Kansas City Chiefs, who, before an unfortunate stumble last weekend, were tearing up the league. They still look like having a pretty good season, and should give the Pats quite a scare in the AFC title game. If this is the kind of organisation that supports gun control, I want shares in them!
Glenn Reynolds is trying to influence TIAA-CREF policy now?
Well, you can read a report on the 2003 CREF Annual Meeting at http://crefwatch.home.att.net if you like. The big news turned out not to be that there was over an hour of discussion of Socially Responsible Investing. Rather, it was that the meeting had to be rescheduled, the proxies resent (at our expense, of course), and this avoided a challenge to the November ballots being printed in the wrong order!
The news for 2004 is that a rescheduling of the meeting to June, 2004 was stealthily announced on your Oct-Dec 2003 Statement of Account. That means the deadline for submitting pesky proposals passed on February 12, 2004. Now there’s a rumor it will be moved to Charlotte, NC to further reduce attendance. Does shareholder (i.e. Participant) democracy look so bad now?
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review