Redstate

Usually when you do that you only buy 100 shares and you only buy them in one account. You see a lot of bogus shareholder resolutions sent in to companies like Exxon and Altria by obviously hostile groups with 100 shares.

WMT has a yield of 1.5% at today's price.

"I know as much about Wal-Mart as I do about blogging."

You can't demagogue companies while still making money off their obvious profitability?  Takes the fun right out of it I tell you.

profits WalMart makes from all that foreign junk they sell.  And it does supplement the trust funds nicely.

he would have used his stock ownership to attend the annual meeting and make his position on WM's business practices known.  Perhaps even offer an alternative slate of directors.

I'm reminded of Charlton Heston, who owned shares of Time/Warner attending their annual meeting, as with most companies it's a media show with no substance, standing during the question and answer period and reading the lyrics of the song "Cop Killer".  The song had been published by a unit of T/W that produced rap "music" and had caused quite a flap.  The T/W executives had pleaded first amendment.

Heston read the lyrics in their entirety and asked why T/W felt it needed to publish such things.  There was silence in the meeting room and finally some mumbling from the CEO.  Within six months T/W had divested the rap unit.

That's effective stock ownership of a company whose policies you disagree with.  Is Lamont as smart as Heston?

No.

...spin those Wal-Mart shares into Air America shares.  It will put a crater-sized dent in the old trust fund, but I'm sure little Neddy Jr. will understand the importance of sticking it to the man.

He probably was unaware of where his money is invested.   His fortune is most likely managed by an investment firm.  He probably just gets a quarterly report and files it away.  I highly doubt it was a conscious choice to buy Wal-Mart stock.  

Mr. Lamont and his wife jointly own two accounts containing as much as $16,000 in Wal-Mart stock. Their Wal-Mart holdings spin off as much as $3,500 in annual dividends.

I had no idea that Wal-Mart paid a 20% dividend.

I think Jesse Jackson even does that too. But Ned is not as smart as Jesse I guess.

And hecant reall spin this in retrospect saying he was "planning" on doing so...or with the MSM, maybe he can.

"But it looks like the nutroots spent as much energy choosing their candidate as he did in choosing his supporters."

THAT'S good...

Even an unsavvy Joe Shmoe could probably tell you that when you enter a race you probably want to look at your holdings to see if what you own will get you in trouble.

I could understand if one of his mutual funds had .0000001% invested in Wal-Mart, but it sounds like he owns direct shares of it. IF that is the case then it is a no brainer. Unless he honestly didnt think that candidates for office get more scrutiny than the shlub next door.

that makes it alright. Most candidates don't prefer to use ignorance as a defense.

how do you reconcile that claim with

But Mr. Lamont and his family are part owners of the company, according to financial disclosure records he filed earlier this year with the secretary of the Senate.

Are you going to claim he can't read either?

I am guessing he owns an S&P index fund, and the $3500 dividend reflects the entire index position.

Not forgiving him, any twit should know WM is in almost every large cap index, and a tiny amount of work could have led him to a "socially responsible" index w/out all of the "evil" companies.

 that criticism of corporations from which the criticizer owns stock is "hypocrisy" isn't a very serious argument. A lot of people own stock from Google, Microsoft, GM yet routinely criticize what they perceive (correctly or incorrectly) as bad behaviour in China, poor quality control in Windows and poor engineering in vehicles.

 You'd create a lot more light if you actually took whatever Lamont said and debunked the substance of his Wal-Mart criticisms, showing him to be incorrect either in premise or conclusion. I suspect it wouldn't be too difficult, and although I don't think your primary aim was defending Wal-Mart, actually refuting his comments about them would have gone a lot farther in making a noteworthy point about whether Lamont was being rational or demogogic.

 mbecker908's point is well taken insofar as describing a more sensible and effective mechanism for stockholders to criticize a corporation in order to enact change. In that sense his reply certainly helps draw a distinction as to whether Lamont was trying to improve Wal-Mart for Wal-Mart's sake (and through his stock ownership, his own sake) or, in all likelyhood, merely rallying his base.

when you list a mutual fund on your financial disclosure forms it doesn't itemize the stocks the fund owns because of the number of stocks in a typical fund and because the stocks the fund owns changes.

The article clearly says they listed ownership of WalMart stock.

the ability to write a diary. Of course that would require work and it is much easier to kibbitz.

Look, you don't like what I write, don't read it. If I want editorial direction I'll consult my editor.

This goes to the "Do As I Say Not As I Do" mantra coming from the left. As Peter Schweizer illustrates in his book of that name. some more examples of liberal hypocrisy:

"I don't own a single share of stock," Michael Moore declares. No, his tax returns show he has owned hundreds of thousands -- profiting from some of the very companies (like Halliburton and Boeing) he viciously denounces

How Moore's working-class, "regular guy" pose is contradicted by his lavish lifestyle and prima donna behavior -- such as traveling the country in a private jet accompanied by a fleet of private SUVs and bodyguards

Moore also relentlessly exposes those who fail to meet his standards of racial fairness and equality. So, of the 134 producers, editors, cinematographers, composers, and production coordinators Moore he hired to work on his many movies, how many do you think were black?

The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel: ultra-left class warrior, defender of the inheritance tax -- and trust-fund heiress who fought the IRS all the way to the Supreme Court to avoid paying $2 million in estate taxes

Princeton "ethics" professor Peter Singer crusades for euthanasia for the severely disabled and terminally ill. But when it comes to his own mother, he operates according to more humane principles (fortunately for her)

During the 2004 campaign, John Kerry complained that the "super-rich" don't pay their fair share in taxes. Care to guess what percentage of their income Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry -- who are worth over $700 million -- are paying in taxes?

Noam Chomsky opposes private property and calls the Pentagon "the most vile institution on the face of the earth" -- yet he has made millions in contract work for the Pentagon, owns two luxurious homes, and set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam

Ted Kennedy favors racial set-asides on federal contracts -- but when it came to his own investment in an entire city block of Washington, DC, he got his political friends to help him waive an affirmative action set-aside

Another of Kennedy's great causes has been support of the estate or inheritance tax. But, he has repeatedly benefited from an intricate web of trusts and private foundations that have kept most of the family pie from ever ending up in the hands of the IRS

Kennedy has introduced dozens of pieces of legislation over the years to encourage alternative energy sources. But he helped block the Cape Wind Project -- an effort to provide clean energy for thousands of homes on Cape Cod -- because the project would be built in one of the family's favorite sailing and yachting areas

Al Franken habitually calls conservatives "liars" and "mean and nasty" -- yet as a writer for Saturday Night Live he penned jokes and skits so mean-spirited they appalled even his colleagues, and he uses brazen lies for his bestselling books all the time

Hillary Clinton supports the right of thirteen-year-old girls to have abortions without parental consent -- yet she forbade thirteen-year-old Chelsea to pierce her ears and enrolled her in a school that would not distribute condoms to minors

How Hillary, despite her pose as independent feminist and anti-corporate crusader, used her husband's position as Arkansas Attorney General to launch her corporate law career - then rode his political coattails into politics

Ralph Nader: how he speculates in the stocks of companies that might be influenced by his political activism. How he conceals enormous wealth and a lavish lifestyle behind a façade of pretended frugality

Nancy Pelosi has made supporting labor unions a cornerstone of her public career. Yet the vineyards and hotels that comprise her $35 million fortune have one thing in common: they don't use union labor

Barbra Streisand: how, on the three causes with which she seems most concerned -- poverty, environmentalism and feminism -- she engages in the very behaviors she says she deplores

I'll have to look into Wal-Mart stock myself.

As far as I can make out, $31K worth of WMT comes out to about 700 shares, with an annual dividend out about $350. Did they get the decimal point in the wrong place?

700 shares of WMT is peanuts. Lamont probably doesn't even know he owns them.

$16000 of WMT (forgot the T before) is less than 400 shares.  In my years in the biz, I have not known many millionaires to actively purchase lots like that.  And any reporter with a calculator could see a disclosure of an index fund, determine the weight of the underlying equities, and come up with the portion invested in WMT.  I would have done it if I had thought about it first.  

Once again, my point is not to give him a pass, but to point out the sloppiness.  He could have easily buttoned it up.

Investors criticize the corporations they have holdings in all the time.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/31/AR200605310
2050_pf.html

http://news.com.com/2100-1030-1003838.html

Sometimes they call it an 'Annual Stockholders Meeting'.

Yes, I know it's my second post, therefore I am incapable of expressing an opinion contrary to one of the exalted founders.

Thanks for bringing your superior intellect to our site. It's simply amazing the way you used said intellect to comment on a fact that has little relevance to the argument!

"exalted founders" great way to start out here!

just not the ability to express an intelligent opinion.

You probably didn't notice as you probably didn't read them, but neither of those links mention 1) Ned Lamont or 2) WalMart.

Feeling charitable I'm offering you a one time opportunity to provide a link to proof that Ned Lamont has criticized WalMart at a shareholder's meeting. What you do with the opportunity is up to you.

is no more likely to own an index stock in which a weight assigned to WalMart is $16,000 than he is to own the shares outright.

So are we making the case that he's just dumb?

i'm going to go ahead and claim that he doesn't bother to read his quarterly reports.  I'm not defending him or his comments, i'm just saying that a man worth $200 million probably doesn't know all the nooks and crannies his money is stuffed into.

What's your point if you aren't defending him? A claim of ignorance doesn't exactly help his situation. It just goes to show how out of touch he is. Should we really be electing people who live in their own parallel universes, completely out of touch with real life, to represent us in Washington? I know I don't have any trouble keeping track of $500, much less $31,000.

Anyone who has tens of thousands of dollars floating around that they can't keep track of should focus on getting their finances in order instead of running for office.

Reminds me of a wonderful interview with Tony Blair during his first year in office.  The Labour Party had accepted a donation from Richard Desmond, publisher of a range of pornographic titles.

Jeremy Paxman (BBC) rattled off a list of the titles and then said "do you know what these magazines contain?"

Blair got that rabbit in the headlights look and opted for the slightly safer "No".  It made him look like a fool, but if he had said yes the clip would have been on every comedy programme in the world.

With hindsight, a smile and "I think I have a pretty good idea" might have worked, but I can't honestly say I would have thought of that under pressure.

ignorant?

Well, he pleaded ignorance by claiming he didn't know what was in the magazines.  I think he feared not so much the hypocrisy charge as . . . well, I was thinking of an anglo-saxon word unsuitable for a family website.