http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070420/ap_on_go_co/congress_executive_pay

From the article:

 "The House voted Friday to give shareholders at public corporations a voice in executive pay packages that typically equal 500 times the salaries of workers at those companies. "

Last I heard, shareholders already have a Voice in what goes on in public corporations in the form of the various voting for corporate officials that is mandated by the SEC.  You elect board members and such that you feel represent your interests.  Oddly enough this is also our system of goverment.  I do think both executive pay and our public servants' performance and subsequent patterns of perpetual  re-election are disconnected from reality.  We keep putting people in public office who sell us down the river and we manage to forget this and put the same Senator/Governor/House Rep back in office the next time we have a chance.  Many executives pay are out of touch with their company performance: when an airline is going under and people's pensions are tossed overboard I don't see any reason to authorize "emergency bonuses" for key executives.  I understand the notion that you don't want these high level powerplayers who drove the company into the ground to suddenly quit but something about this doesn't sit right.  Many executives absolutely deserve what they have and I often point out Bill Gates or Warren Buffet as examples of leaders who are, well, leading.

The specifics of the bill are not in the AP article, but I wonder what this is actually going to accomplish?  Will I be forced to stop signing Proxy documents and go to shareholder meetings or cast remote ballots?  Direct Democracy, anyone?  The government is already placing a number of insane and costly requirements on public companies, we don't need any more nonsense.

We have all the tools we need to improve our nation: freely available information, access to our own bank accounts, and the right to vote are some of the more important ones.  We just repeatedly choose not to use these tools.