Willful ignorance is not an excuse. If you buy into an ETF, you are delegating responsibility to the people who run the ETF (or the people who maintain the index that the ETF tracks), and you've decided you're ok with that, and are ok with whatever companies are in the index/ETF.
You can always decide to pick an ETF that doesn't invest in the companies you don't like, or invest in individual stocks if you have the time and stomach for it.
I'm saying it's how the world works. The majority of pension funds (public or private) and 401k plans are simply passive index funds with nearly no direct voting rights (and at best very limited, indirect voting rights).
> The majority of pension funds (public or private) and 401k plans are simply passive index funds
That’s completely wrong.
Most 401k plans have by far more active fund options than passive fund options. Notwithstanding, more and more dollars are tilting towards the passive index funds, i.e. through consumer choice.
More money is in passive now than active. On a dollar basis, there are fewer votes purchased dollar for dollar.
Even then, active funds don't always offer proxy vote services so I'm not sure wtf active has to do with my original point: that investors today don't seem to give a rats ass about the vote.
You can transfer your 401(k) to an account that will allow you to buy individual shares I did that and bought as many shares as I could in a blue chip tech company. Glad I did because if I had stayed in one of those so called index (all for one) funds my rate of return would’ve been very, very small over the years.
The managers ofsuch funds are lazy and invest in multiple mediocre companies, most of whom produce mediocre returns for example investing in 10 tech companies when only two or three of the companies actually accomplish anything won’t help you in the long-term.
Investing in one or two really good tech companies over time allowed me to retire early.
they typically offer a brokerage option. fidelity and vanguard both offered this when I had them. if that wasn't on the table I'd roll it into something that gave me flexibility.
To Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Who have crafted companies who have virtually no voting rights but get purchased up by the masses through passive index funds.
Your standard SPY or VTI investor doesn't know jack diddly squat about shareholder rights, nor do they ever plan to invoke them.