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As we are busy blaming “BP” for messing up the Gulf of mexico I would suggest a solution for oil barriers along the beautiful beaches there and in fact all along our coastlines. First I will direct you to search floating “debris in the gulf of Mexico”.

There are enough objects floating there that if gathered and strung along the beaches could cover all the coastlines of our country I believe. It is floating so we would not have to buy new floating barriers, all we need is nets, which could be made from shredding more of the junk out in the ocean. “BP” didn’t put it there, it came from the cities along the waterways that feed into the gulf.

Though much of it is oil byproducts washed out from storm drains, a lot came from the “Beautiful” beaches and those “Valuable tourists” that are so afraid of getting a tar ball on their tootsies visited and left behind. They should come back and volunteer to help clean it if they really care!

I also propose instead of dredging sand that will destroy animal habitat we build berms of the garbage that came from those beaches in the first place. It may be ugly, to say the least, but it would do more for the fish and birds in the region that get trapped in it than any other thing I can think of, just cover it with a small portion of sand from the tourist beaches.

The wild life doesn’t want it and it’s only fare that the people that made it take it back and recycle it or something. They need to pay for every bit of the pollution just like “BP”, all of us who let that junk float out to sea should pay for it to be cleaned up!

If an honest look at what is in the ocean was taken “BP” would look like small potatoes or in this case oil  byproduct pollution.

Well, book one is officially available everywhere. Book two is written, being edited, and the chapter illustrations are done.

So what am I missing?

Yep, a cover.

I did one a while back, but honestly it didn't quite sit right. The characters didn't work for me, and honestly it didn't capture the absolutely bonkers, surprise the poop out of you, and leave you shaking your head in disbelief nature of of the second book.

So I've started over.



I like this new version. I like it a lot in fact. Granted, it's still in the early stages, but I think it'll capture the intensity of book two much better. Things get much darker, much crazier, and much more unpredictable. I need the to make sure the cover reflects that.

If you haven't yet ordered a copy of "Fathers and Sons" I'm not exactly sure what you're waiting for.

What else are you going to do with your money? Pay bills? Save for retirement?

You're smarter than that.

Spend it needlessly on things you don't need.

Come on, all the cool kids are doing it.

Steve

P.S. Please ignore the messy desk - you know, because I'm messy.

Chris Mallin is Professor of Corporate Governance and Finance & Director of the Centre for Corporate Governance Research at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of Corporate Governance and she blogs with fellow OUP author Bob Tricker at Corporate Governance. The below post is an adapted version of one found on that blog, and is about the calls for wider adoption of a ’say on pay’ in the US. Her previous OUP post can be found here.

Widespread concern at the high levels of executive director remuneration has led to calls for wider adoption of a ‘say on pay’ in the US. Investors in the UK and Australia have, for many years, had the right to vote on the remuneration committee report of the companies in which they invest. The vote on the remuneration committee report is an advisory one meaning that it is not binding on the company. However in practice institutional investors have tended not to vote against the remuneration committee reports and on the – until recently – relatively rare occasions on which the remuneration committee report was voted against, it was seen as a strong signal of disapproval about some aspect of executive remuneration and one which the directors would be unwise to ignore.

Royal Bank of Scotland
It was no surprise to anyone that the Royal Bank of Scotland shareholders overwhelmingly rejected the banks remuneration committee report at the companies Annual General Meeting on 3rd April. Jane Croft and Andrew Bolger in their article ‘Thumbs down for RBS pay report’ stated that some 90.42% of votes cast rejected the report. UK Financial Investments Ltd (UKFI) the Government owned company which manages the taxpayers’ shareholding in RBS, and controls 58% of the RBS shares, voted against the report. Manifest, the proxy voting agency, stated that ‘the resolution on the remuneration report at Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc represents the highest ever “Total Dissent” vote on the remuneration report since the introduction of the requirement for the report to be put forward to a non-binding vote’.

Remuneration (compensation) committees
Remuneration committees have previously been criticised for having a ratcheting effect on executive directors’ remuneration. The composition of such committees is usually independent non-executive (outside) directors but nonetheless this has not stopped the increasing levels of executive remuneration. This is probably in part attributable to the fact that remuneration committees would tend to recommend remuneration for executive directors in the upper quartile of their peer group hence the ratcheting effect over time. The Corporate Library points out that, in the US, chief executives pay rose 24 percent in 2007 giving a median remuneration of $8.8 million.

Trade Unions Involvement
An interesting development is for trade unions calling for more worker involvement in setting top executive pay. Brian Groom in his article ‘TUC leader urges staff input over chiefs’ pay’ highlights that Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), stated ‘there was “massive anger” among workers at paying the price for a recession made in the boardroom, not on the shop floor’. The directors of FTSE 100 companies came in for criticism as well as the directors of banks, with Mr Barber arguing for ‘workforce representation involved in remuneration committees of major companies’. The idea of representation of the workforce on the board or board committees has traditionally not been given much consideration by UK boards but maybe that might change in the future.

Shareholder proposals/resolutions
Another are where we may see change is in relation to shareholder proposals or resolutions. Although it is possible in the UK for shareholders to put forward shareholder proposals or resolutions, it is not that easy to do and hence dialogue has been the most frequently used tool of corporate governance with shareholder proposals maybe numbering just five or six a year.

In the US it is much easier to put forward a shareholder proposal and so we can see 800 or 900 of these each year in US companies. It is likely that in the future more of these shareholder proposals will be relating to executive remuneration and that they will achieve strong support from institutional investors who are increasingly being criticised for not having taken more action to help limit executive remuneration. Francesco Guerrera and Deborah Brewster in their article ‘Mutual funds helped to drive up executive pay’ highlight that mutual funds have tended to vote in favour of companies compensation plans and this has effectively sanctioned these spiralling executive remuneration packages. Kristin Gribben in ‘Pay proposals to dominate proxy season’ puts forward the view that, in future, mutual funds in the US will be more likely to support remuneration (compensation) related resolutions filed by shareholders.

Back-door pay
There is concern that some companies may seek to remuneration executive directors via the ‘back-door’ if, for example, bonus schemes do not pay out. Pauline Skypala in ‘Warning over “back-door” pay’ highlights that this is a concern to some investors including Co-operative Asset Management whose corporate governance manager, Paul Wade, states ‘If a company fails to create value for its shareholders, it is totally inappropriate to grant rewards to management that are disproportionate to shareholder returns’.

Future developments
With the continuing focus on executive directors’ remuneration packages, the forthcoming AGMs promise to give rise to many interesting debates, much emotive discussion, more shareholder proposals, and many more instances where ‘say on pay’ will result in an emphatic ‘no’ to excessive remuneration or remuneration which does not have appropriately stretching performance links.