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Muck, brass and spleen
污泥，黄铜还有怨气

May 21st 2009
From The Economist print edition

An oil giant’s shareholders flex their muscles
石油巨头的股东们大显身手

      MOST firms’ annual general meetings (AGMs) owe more to North Korea than ancient Greece. By long-standing tradition, bosses make platitudinous speeches, listen to lone dissidents with the air of psychiatric nurses towards patients and wait for their own proposals to be rubber-stamped by the proxy votes of obedient institutional investors. According to Manifest, a shareholder-advice firm, 97% of votes cast across Europe last year backed management.

      大多数公司的年度大会(AGMs)相比起古希腊更应该感谢朝鲜。依据长期以来的传统，在大会上，老板做着乏善可陈的讲演，带着精神科护士对待病人的神态 任凭反对者孤军奋战，只等着逆来顺受的投资者在自己的提案上盖章。像股东决策公司Manifest，去年在欧洲就以97%的选票将决策权归还给了管理层。

      So should corporate democrats be cheered by the rebellion over pay at Royal Dutch Shell? At the oil giant’s AGM on May 19th, 59% of voting shareholders sided against pay packages for top executives. In particular they disliked