January 13, 2013
Securities and Exchange Comm.
Dear Securities and Exchange Comm.,
I’m writing to urge the commission’s prompt approval of rules requiring public disclosure of political spending by publicly-held companies. Disclosure is vital to the SEC’s responsibility to ensure that investors have the information they need to make sound decisions about when and where to put their money. Shareholders also have a right to know how companies in their investment portfolios are investing that money, particularly when the spending falls outside the company’s normal business activity.
“The top one percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top one percent eventually do learn. Too late.”
- Joseph Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics (in Vanity Fair Magazine, May, 2011)
Thank you for considering my comment.
Sincerely,
John A. Michal, M.D.