Would you like your vote counted?  Proxy voting is the method by which we as shareholders, who cannot physically attend the corporation’s annual meeting, instruct how to vote our shares.

In addition to electing board members, recent issues on corporate proxy ballots include executive pay, corporate lobbying, human rights and climate change reporting.  The first is less of an issue for us, because I don’t invest in companies that pay their managements outrageously.

​A stunning event occurred in May for Exxon’s management.  A majority of shareholders voted for the company to report on the impact of climate change and how regulations restricting carbon emissions would affect the company’s business in the future.

Larry Fink, CEO of the world’s largest investment group BlackRock, in his annual letter this year to global CEOs wrote that managing investments according to non-financial concerns can provide “essential insights into management effectiveness and thus a company’s long-term prospects.”  BlackRock now operates an entire division aptly named Impact, joining almost $9 trillion in the U.S. managed according to at least one factor of corporate responsibility.

​The big names have moved into a field pioneered by smaller independents, yours truly included.

We all can do our part.  To improve the behavior of corporations, write your elected representatives, pen letters to the editor, respond to government’s requests for public comment, demonstrate in the public square, shop as an informed consumer and vote your values.  I’ll continue to vote those proxies.

President Trump fails to grasp that governing requires more than a committed base.  The ultimatums he’s issued and controversies he’s sparked have been deeply disruptive, with so far little progress to show for it all.

Trump is an excellent winner, a poor loser.  He’s declared bankruptcy four times, admittedly not a mark of shame in our dynamic economy.  The only public company he’s led, Trump Hotels and Casino, he pillaged as chairman and CEO, receiving $44 million in salaries and bonuses, enjoying the good life on the company’s dollars, and engaging in sweetheart deals to enrich his private business empire, until finally wiping out shareholders in 2005.

Trump declared that even as chairman in this instance: “I wasn’t representing anybody but myself.”  No wonder many banks on Wall Street would no longer lend or do business with him. His business actions were inexcusable, in this sole instance in which he managed a public enterprise, before 2017.

Are you familiar with the child’s game Ker Plunk, 1967, or the somewhat similar Jenga, introduced in 1983, where pulling out the sticks and planks would eventually lead to the collapse of all the marbles?

As Wall Street likes to rhyme, the rally to the upside in the stock market since election day has become known as the Trump Bump.  US stocks gained +12% from the election to the end of winter, without really much of any decline on a single day.  It’s been all blue skies and sunny days.
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Times have a way of changing.  At the risk of being a conspiracy theorist, check out Louise Mensch, especially if you’re a Twitter user.  Perhaps only weeks away from change at the top, do you think the page will turn over on this era?  Of course it will.

Mark Baumer, 33, was a librarian, a writer, poet, a former high school baseball star, noted for his kindness.  Last October he set out on a walk across America to call attention to climate change.  He posted his video and stories on the internet.

Following the inauguration, he walked with bitterness.  He picked arguments with people he passed.  On Saturday, he was struck by a driver, who had departed her lane, entered the shoulder and that was that.  Charges are pending.  Mark's chronicles survive him and are well worth watching and reading.

I write this not to point out a senseless tragedy, or the futility that comes out of frustration.  It's more a hope that engaging in civic debate and demonstration would continue to remain within the realm of what it is to be an American.

I've voted for Democrats, some Republicans, also third party candidates.  I wrote a thesis on the racist hatreds in our history that have fueled antagonisms against immigrants, of German-Americans specifically.  As a park ranger a couple of decades ago, at Gettysburg and Philadelphia, I led tours that paid tribute to military sacrifice, the tug of war in our politics and the blessings (and the flaws) of our Constitution.

And yet, here we are again. Trump, volatile, aggressive, dividing.  He's our president. Wall Street, admittedly skewing wealthy and anti-regulation, has rallied the stock market higher and sympathizes with the new president's tax & small government initiatives, while disagreeing on trade & social policies.
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The country seems to have moved into a cycle of protest and counter-protest, likely increasingly tumultuous over the months ahead. This represents only the beginning of a process singled out by Trump, in his inaugural address, of giving power "back to you, the American People."  It's supposed to renew our spirit.