Chamber of Horrors: US Chamber of Commerce must be stopped: Eliot Spitzer

[Guest guest]

The US Chamber of Commerce, along with the Manhattan Institute, paid to

have the oft times debunked American College of Occupational and

Environmental Medicine's Mold Guidance for physicians translated into " easy

speak " so

it could be distributed to the insurance, banking, construction, and other

stakeholder industries so they could defend themselves against mold

illnesses and claims....but you already know this.

Mulvey son

****************************************************************************

********************************

the best policy

Chamber of Horrors

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce must be stopped. Here's how to do it.

By Eliot Spitzer

Updated Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009, at 1:23 AM ET

____________________________________

The _U.S. Chamber of Commerce_ (http://www.uschamber.com/default) —the

self-proclaimed voice of business in Washington—has been wrong on virtually

every major public-policy issue of the past decade: financial deregulation,

tax and fiscal policy, global warming and environmental enforcement,

consumer protection, health care reform …

The chamber remains an unabashed voice for the libertarian worldview that

caused the most catastrophic economic meltdown since the Great Depression.

And the chamber's view of social justice would warm Scrooge's heart. It is

the chamber's right to be wrong, and its right to argue its preposterous

ideas aggressively, as it does through vast expenditures on lobbyists and

litigation. Last year alone, the chamber spent more than $91 million on

lobbying, and, according to lobby tracker Opensecrets.org, it has spent more

than

_twice as much on lobbying_

(http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=a & indexType=s) during the

past 12 years as any other corporation or

group.

The problem is, the chamber is doing all this with our money. The chamber

survives financially on the dues and support of its members, which are most

of America's major corporations listed on the stock exchange. The chamber

derives its political clout from the fact that its membership includes these

corporations. Yet we—you and I—own the companies that support the chamber

and permit it to propagate its views. Our passive, permissive attitude

toward the management of the companies we own has enabled the chamber to be

one of the primary impediments to the reform of markets, health care, energy

policy, and politics that we have all been calling for. It is time for that

to change.

How, you might ask, do we own these companies? Public pension funds and

mutual funds are the largest owners of equities in the market. They are the

institutional shareholders that have the capacity to push management—and the

boards of the corporations. Yet the mutual funds and pension funds have

failed to do so. They have failed to control the management of the companies

they own because the actual owners of those mutual funds and pension funds—

you and I—have failed to raise our voices. We haven't even asked questions.

Mutual funds, until recently, didn't even disclose how they voted the

proxies of shares they owned. When asked why not at a forum I was part of

several years ago, the general counsel of one of the largest mutual fund

companies tried to explain that it would be too expensive to make such

disclosure.

The answer was patently ridiculous, and it hid the much more important

reason for nondisclosure: Mutual funds rarely if ever want to vote in

opposition to management because mutual funds want to be included among the

list of

401(k) options the company chooses for its employees. Mutual funds make

money by increasing the size of the portfolios they manage, and if management

knocks them off the 401(k) list, they will lose that revenue stream. This

basic conflict of interest has neutered mutual funds. They are not

meaningful checks on corporate mismanagement.

The comptrollers and treasurers who run public pension funds (often elected

officials), have also failed to flex their political muscles. The

passivity of the publicly elected officials who have the capacity to raise

these

issues has been a bit surprising.

So what should be done? The issue of passive institutional ownership is one

of the most vexing and serious problems in American business. Expecting

CEOs and boards to run companies properly without our input is a prescription

for failure. But at least on the one issue of corporations playing

politics with our money through support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, there

is

an easy answer.

The elected comptrollers and treasurers who agree—as a vast majority will—

that the Chamber of Commerce has a distorted view of both economic and

political policy should demand that each company in which they own stock drop

its membership in the chamber. If the CEO doesn't agree, the public pension

funds should pressure the board to drop the chamber membership. If one

activist state comptroller begins to build this coalition, the other state

pension funds will follow.

In recent weeks, Apple and two energy companies—PG & E and Exelon—have

defected from the chamber, objecting to its environmental policies. The _Wall

Street Journal editorial page_

(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574469521188829810.html)

of course views this bit of wisdom as

heresy and counter to shareholder interest.

If elected comptrollers and treasurers do take a stand against the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce, expect a hue and cry from the typical voices. They will

complain that elected comptrollers and treasurers are injecting politics

into corporate management. To which the answer should be: No, they are trying

to take politics out of it! It is corporate leadership, through its support

of the chamber, that has injected politics into the corporations that we

own. We are reminding corporate leaders that they are our fiduciaries. As

long as the chamber and the CEOs who are supposed to be our representatives

are using our money to be overtly political, it is our duty to respond. If

we are passive, we permit the chamber to hijack our funds and companies to

support positions antithetical to our own views. Waking pension funds and

mutual funds from their slumber on this relatively easy issue might finally

begin the necessary process of fixing mismanaged corporations.Eliot Spitzer

is the former governor of the state of New York.

Article URL: _http://www.slate.com/id/2232441/_

(http://www.slate.com/id/2232441/)

Copyright 2009 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

[Guest guest]

Ah... the Chamber! Wonderful people very concerned about the " public good " .

Let us not forget -- our dear friend, Rep. ®, from CA, teamed

up with them and did a press conference slamming personal property damage

and injuries caused by mold. Birds of a feather....

Hell isn't big enough to house these people.

M

In a message dated 10/28/2009 8:12:55 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, MLMJ75

writes:

The US Chamber of Commerce, along with the Manhattan Institute, paid to

have the oft times debunked American College of Occupational and

Environmental Medicine's Mold Guidance for physicians translated into " easy

speak " so

it could be distributed to the insurance, banking, construction, and other

stakeholder industries so they could defend themselves against mold

illnesses and claims....but you already know this.

Mulvey son

****************************************************************************

********************************

the best policy

Chamber of Horrors

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce must be stopped. Here's how to do it.

By Eliot Spitzer

Updated Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009, at 1:23 AM ET

____________________________________

The _U.S. Chamber of Commerce_ (http://www.uschamber.com/default) —the

self-proclaimed voice of business in Washington—has been wrong on virtually

every major public-policy issue of the past decade: financial deregulation,

tax and fiscal policy, global warming and environmental enforcement,

consumer protection, health care reform …

The chamber remains an unabashed voice for the libertarian worldview that

caused the most catastrophic economic meltdown since the Great Depression.

And the chamber's view of social justice would warm Scrooge's heart. It is

the chamber's right to be wrong, and its right to argue its preposterous

ideas aggressively, as it does through vast expenditures on lobbyists and

litigation. Last year alone, the chamber spent more than $91 million on

lobbying, and, according to lobby tracker Opensecrets.org, it has spent more

than

_twice as much on lobbying_

(http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=a & indexType=s) during the

past 12 years as any other corporation or

group.

The problem is, the chamber is doing all this with our money. The chamber

survives financially on the dues and support of its members, which are most

of America's major corporations listed on the stock exchange. The chamber

derives its political clout from the fact that its membership includes these

corporations. Yet we—you and I—own the companies that support the chamber

and permit it to propagate its views. Our passive, permissive attitude

toward the management of the companies we own has enabled the chamber to be

one of the primary impediments to the reform of markets, health care, energy

policy, and politics that we have all been calling for. It is time for that

to change.

How, you might ask, do we own these companies? Public pension funds and

mutual funds are the largest owners of equities in the market. They are the

institutional shareholders that have the capacity to push management—and the

boards of the corporations. Yet the mutual funds and pension funds have

failed to do so. They have failed to control the management of the companies

they own because the actual owners of those mutual funds and pension funds—

you and I—have failed to raise our voices. We haven't even asked questions.

Mutual funds, until recently, didn't even disclose how they voted the

proxies of shares they owned. When asked why not at a forum I was part of

several years ago, the general counsel of one of the largest mutual fund

companies tried to explain that it would be too expensive to make such

disclosure.

The answer was patently ridiculous, and it hid the much more important

reason for nondisclosure: Mutual funds rarely if ever want to vote in

opposition to management because mutual funds want to be included among the

list of

401(k) options the company chooses for its employees. Mutual funds make

money by increasing the size of the portfolios they manage, and if management

knocks them off the 401(k) list, they will lose that revenue stream. This

basic conflict of interest has neutered mutual funds. They are not

meaningful checks on corporate mismanagement.

The comptrollers and treasurers who run public pension funds (often elected

officials), have also failed to flex their political muscles. The

passivity of the publicly elected officials who have the capacity to raise

these

issues has been a bit surprising.

So what should be done? The issue of passive institutional ownership is one

of the most vexing and serious problems in American business. Expecting

CEOs and boards to run companies properly without our input is a prescription

for failure. But at least on the one issue of corporations playing

politics with our money through support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, there

is

an easy answer.

The elected comptrollers and treasurers who agree—as a vast majority will—

that the Chamber of Commerce has a distorted view of both economic and

political policy should demand that each company in which they own stock drop

its membership in the chamber. If the CEO doesn't agree, the public pension

funds should pressure the board to drop the chamber membership. If one

activist state comptroller begins to build this coalition, the other state

pension funds will follow.

In recent weeks, Apple and two energy companies—PG & E and Exelon—have

defected from the chamber, objecting to its environmental policies. The _Wall

Street Journal editorial page_

(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574469521188829810.html)

of course views this bit of wisdom as

heresy and counter to shareholder interest.

If elected comptrollers and treasurers do take a stand against the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce, expect a hue and cry from the typical voices. They will

complain that elected comptrollers and treasurers are injecting politics

into corporate management. To which the answer should be: No, they are trying

to take politics out of it! It is corporate leadership, through its support

of the chamber, that has injected politics into the corporations that we

own. We are reminding corporate leaders that they are our fiduciaries. As

long as the chamber and the CEOs who are supposed to be our representatives

are using our money to be overtly political, it is our duty to respond. If

we are passive, we permit the chamber to hijack our funds and companies to

support positions antithetical to our own views. Waking pension funds and

mutual funds from their slumber on this relatively easy issue might finally

begin the necessary process of fixing mismanaged corporations.Eliot Spitzer

is the former governor of the state of New York.

Article URL: _http://www.slate.com/id/2232441/_

(http://www.slate.com/id/2232441/)

Copyright 2009 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC