Shareholder Votes

Something I was thinking about over the past day since I had my (insignificant) Microsoft vote.

So, let's say a person has $100,000 invested in a 401k. 401k plans hold securities in a wide variety of business. Every share has a vote, however in a 401k, these votes are proxies to the holder of the paper (in my case, Principal). Some of this is based on assumptions (namely, the assumption that the holding company gets/uses the votes. I can't confirm this anywhere, as it seems the question hasn't come up. If you find the actual answer to that, let me know). So let me break this down a little bit:
1. Social Security may damn well not be around by the time I retire (should I somehow live that long)
2. My generation has been told that (about S.S.) forever (I suppose, if they lower our expectations, we won't be THAT upset. Pay no mind to the fact that we've been holding up S.S. for the generations before us. *cough* bullshit, f*cking figure it out so we get ours too!)
3. We're told we have to have 401k/Roth IRA plans so we can retire one day. (Because with pension plans, we don't have the "freedom" to choose where to invest it, ignoring the fact that most people are not savvy stock market investors with the proper tools/knowledge to invest properly anyhow)
4. We put (maybe I should say I on a lot of these) money away from our paychecks every pay period
5. That money buys securities/shares/whatever in various companies
6. We are essentially giving our money to someone to allow them to have large amounts of sway in the business they use our money to hold.
7. This is all a f*cking scam to use our money to influence these businesses.
8. I hate republicans

Q.E.D.

Think about things, read stuff, do a tiny bit of homework. People need to stop taking things at face value, and look deeper into them. We are getting screwed in the worst way possible. This had been lingering in my mind long before there were market problems. I realize that the stock market goes up and down, the point is the interest lost on that money in the meanwhile (for CHRIST sake, my ING savings account has a 3% return, and is F.D.I.C. Insured!), not to mention the votes we are buying very rich people [shareholders]. Oh, and; what happens if Principal fails? What happens if the company that holds your 401k, or whatever fails? F*cked. We don't need 8% returns with the risk of 100% losses. I am sick of holding on to my ankles, it's time to grab some hot, tight ass. (What??)

(I just wanted another comment inside of parenthesis)

~Nic