MY WIFE BELIEVES travel is an adventure filled with new food, new adventures and new friends. Others believe it’s a never-ending series of negotiations, surcharges, taxes and exchange rates, and these need to be painstakingly managed to minimize cost and the deep-seated shame associated with overpaying. I guess I lean a little more in one direction, as evidenced by my recent travel adventure: a road trip to the East Coast followed by a flight to Chile. Because of my travel savvy, Booking.com has bestowed upon me the honorific “Genius Level 3,” which means I can get up to a 20% discount on the trips I book. It could be that I am indeed a travel genius—though it may also have something to do with using the site to book 15 stays within the past two years. Either way, the site also generously offered me a $25 voucher for lodgings, as long as those lodgings were booked almost immediately. Well, the joke was on those Booking.com folks, as Springfield, Illinois, happened to lie between me and the East Coast, and I always wanted to walk in the footsteps of the third greatest president. Next stop was Cincinnati, to celebrate a loyal reader’s birthday. An Airbnb was engaged, except that—through extensive planning—the Air portion, along with its requisite fees and surcharges, was avoided. Basically, my wife became good friends with the bnb-keeper during a prior stay—such good friends that we now just pay her directly. During the entire road trip, gas was procured via the GasBuddy app on my cell phone, which enables me to find the cheapest gas. This is done to reward low-cost gas stations, thus driving down gas prices for everyone. It also prevents the shame of overpaying for gas, while allowing for the mocking of others who go to more costly stations located just off the prior exit. If my car needs to be run on vapors with fingers crossed, air-conditioning off and windows up for the last few miles, so be it. The City of Brotherly Love was called upon, with the primary purpose of meeting my editor to discuss possible upcoming projects, including My Money Journey the Movie. The secondary purpose was to partake of that most economic aspect of the Philadelphia culinary experience: no, not the cheesesteak, but the Citywide Special—a shot of Jim Beam and a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, all for $4. [caption id="attachment_1539414" align="alignright" width="350"] The author's wife catches up on her reading at their pod hotel.[/caption] A pod hotel room in New York City was then booked for the slightly less-than-exorbitant $281 a night. It’s not the ubiquitous and eponymous box you see in the driveway of people who refuse to pay movers $5,000 for moving their remaining personal belongings after conducting a cursory garage sale—though it’s only slightly larger. I thought the missus would balk, but she was sold by both the great Midtown location and the fact that she’d be getting the bottom bunk. Now, what to do with the car? Parking at JFK airport for the month or so that we’d be gone would be ruinous to my wallet and my conscience. My wife reached out to a girlfriend who said we could leave the car with her on the Lower West Side. She would street park it, move it as required to comply with alternate side of the street parking, and keep the battery charged by using it to commute to the Hamptons on weekends. One of the benefits of owning a 10-year-old compact car is that your wife doesn’t really worry about it. Her friend, though, had some vague apprehensions, though not necessarily about driving a 10-year-old car. I believe it was more about being seen in the Hamptons driving a Hyundai Elantra. I thought she could just mention that her Beemer was in the shop and this “piece of crap” was a loaner. In the end, I decided it would be best for all concerned if it was parked in another friend’s suburban driveway. We flew on LATAM Airlines to Santiago de Chile for a reasonable $360 one way. While technically it isn’t the de jure national airline of Chile, LATAM is the de facto national airline of Easter Island and therefore charged accordingly for that leg of our journey. After booking our six-hour flight to the home of nearly 1,000 extant moai, I realized that using LATAM’s Spanish language website could have saved me considerable pesos. I will not share how much due to the deep shame I am still feeling. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] Our lodgings at the Hotel Ismael in Santiago graciously offered an airport pickup for $50. In a few places—Morocco and Zimbabwe immediately come to mind—this offer should be accepted with thanks. In most places, though, it should be politely declined. A website called Rome2Rio.com estimated a taxi should run no more than $21, which was confirmed by inputting the Santiago airport and Hotel Ismael into the Uber app well beforehand. Was all this research really required? Well, for me it was, as Robert De Niro’s secret agent character stated in the movie Ronin, "I never walk into a place I don't know how to walk out of.” I went with Uber and there’s no better way to start off a Santiago sojourn than by saving $32. I could have saved even more by taking two buses from the airport to the hotel, but after six days in a pod and 10 hours in an airplane, I didn’t want to push my luck. Easter Island lodgings were booked via the missus via Airbnb via a local named Makohe Akuna, who appeared in a movie called 180 Degrees South and which we watched for research purposes. [caption id="attachment_1539413" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Fifteen moai and two Flacks[/caption] Initially, I thought she was charging us $25 a night more for using the English language Airbnb website. And following the Easter Island flight debacle, I didn’t think further shame could be stood. But after an hour of “discussion” with the missus, we realized that our host was charging an extra $25 per night for hosting an extra person. If this had been a U.S. Airbnb, I would have just booked it for one and taken my chances. I usually figure it’s better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. But since it’s the second most isolated island in the world, I decided not to. Oh, yeah, and why was she charging an extra $25? I don’t know because the missus forbade me from asking. As I type this, I’m enjoying a Pisco Sour in Santiago, while planning the next stop on our grand tour of South America. I’ve always wanted to visit Bogota, though Buenos Aries might be another option, with its good steak and better wine. Also, it doesn’t hurt that the Argentine peso is in the crapper. Meanwhile, you might be wondering about the headline. When I tried to use it on an earlier article, HumbleDollar’s editor nixed it, saying you should never use words that most readers won’t understand. But I finally wore him down. So, what is a flaneur? Here’s Wikipedia’s take. Michael Flack blogs at AfterActionReport.info. He’s a former naval officer and 20-year veteran of the oil and gas industry. Now retired, Mike enjoys traveling, blogging and spreadsheets. Check out his earlier articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

SOMETIMES OUR BEST investments can be a great guide to what not to do—even better than our worst investments. Consider three of my best: 1. Master limited partnerships. In 1999, I read an article by Paul Sturm in the much-missed SmartMoney magazine. It was a comprehensive review of a security I hadn’t previously heard about, namely master limited partnerships (MLPs). The two decades since have made the unique commonplace. Still, for those who remain blissfully ignorant, an MLP combines the tax benefits of a private partnership—gains and losses are passed through to investors, with no taxes owed by the company itself—with the liquidity of a publicly traded company. Because of the peculiar tax structure of MLPs, investors are able to defer taxes on the distributions they receive, sometimes almost indefinitely. MLPs are mostly limited to oil and gas pipeline companies, another result of the vagaries of the tax code. To me, they were the perfect security: tax-deferred, cash flow rich, inflation-protected and high-yielding. We’re talking about companies like Suburban Propane Partners, NuStar Energy, Kinder Morgan and TEPPCO Partners. I remember feeling like Miller Huggins reviewing the lineup card for the 1927 Yankees: all heavy hitters and reliable. Would you say “no” to investing in Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and tax-deferred to boot? I bought my fill and was rewarded quite nicely, though the K-1s were a pain in the ass. But who am I to complain? For some 10 golden years, I felt like a youthful Warren Buffett, consistently outperforming the S&P 500 with less volatility. But alas poor Yorick, no security or investor is perfect. I’ve come to realize that every publicly traded company will borrow to the limit of its cash flow, and investors’ quest for yield is both insatiable and uncompromising. I won’t bore you with the details of the subsequent deleveraging and retail investor flight. But since the Great Recession, my lineup has reliably underperformed the S&P 500. Company restructurings have stuck me with hefty tax bills, reduced distributions and suffering share prices. As Job said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,” and maybe a little more. 2. Monarch Cement Company. In 2015, I started following a contributor on the mother-of-all investing websites Seeking Alpha, whose column was titled “Sifting the World.” This name had nothing to do with my memories as a child sifting flour for my mother’s lemon cake and everything to do with a quote from Charlie Munger. I found Sifting’s investment philosophy to be refreshing, because it was the antithesis of the usual Seeking Alpha analysis such as “Boeing Tanker Fuels Cash” or “Pfizer: Buy It for a Safe 4% Plus Dividend Yield.” Instead, it tended to be event-driven—with a not-so-distant event serving to unlock the value of the recommended security. In this specific case, Monarch Cement Company (MCEM) had initiated a 1-for-600 reverse stock split, in which each owner of record that owned fewer than 600 shares would receive $30 a share. As the stock was currently trading at some $28.50 and the event was three months away, I was looking at a potential 20%-plus annualized return. I bought 100 shares and waited patiently for my ship to come in. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] Well, it never did, as the thesis for this investment turned on the meaning of “owner of record.” In this case, it meant investors who hold shares directly in their name, as opposed to the “beneficial owner,” who holds shares indirectly, through a bank or broker-dealer, sometimes said to be holding shares in “street name.” As I held my shares in street name, my shares were never redeemed for $30 and continued to be worth around $28 to $29. I was a little embarrassed. But I was also angry and wanted my $30 payday. I placed a $30 sell limit order, which expired unfilled. I promptly forgot about the stock and moved on to my next investment “score.” And I’m thankful I did, as I am still the beneficial owner of 100 shares of Monarch, which are now worth over $100 a share and therefore I get to pat myself on the back thinking about the even higher annualized return that I’ve since achieved. 3. Genzyme. In 2010, my wife hired a personal trainer. She had religiously worked out for years but wanted to take it to the next level. As part of the new training regimen, her trainer had her run up and down stairs at the gym. This struck me as a little odd. I wondered why the trainer had my wife, who wasn’t a spring chicken, running up and down stairs at a gym filled with millions of dollars’ worth of fitness equipment. Then again, I thought, “What did I know about physical training, he’s the professional.” Well, my concerns were valid, as a few days later my wife came home with a very sore right knee, which in time became quite painful and eventually required surgery for a torn meniscus. The surgery went well, but the knee continued to be painful. She tried physical therapy. When that didn’t get the job done, she turned to having a shot of Synvisc injected into her knee. Synvisc is a drug containing hyaluronan, which is a natural joint lubricant and cushion. It is synthesized from the cockscomb of a rooster—the feathers on his crown. I was a little skeptical. Chicken feathers? The thing is, though, it worked. Almost as important, it was covered by insurance. In fact, it worked so well that my wife wanted to invest in the company that made it, Genzyme. Now, back then, I was a proponent of fundamental analysis, but my wife was quite excited, and I didn’t want to ruin the moment by mentioning terms like price-earnings multiple, quick ratio or drug pipeline, so I said “yes” and a few days later she purchased some shares for $54. A few months later, I’m reading The Wall Street Journal and almost fall off my chair when I notice a certain article mentioning that Sanofi (SNY) was buying Genzyme for $74 a share and we were looking at a 37% annualized return. Apparently, my wife was onto something with her orthopedic analysis and, more important, we would be rolling in it. When I returned home from work, I excitedly told my wife the “word” and then started planning how to spend our newfound riches—vacation, new car and such—only to be informed that we owned just 32 shares. Reviewing my best investments has confirmed what I already knew: Trying to beat the market is a fool’s errand, with outperformance more likely due to luck than skill. The humble investor needs to invest in low-cost mutual funds and have patience. That said, I’ve started putting a little money aside, as my wife is complaining about a sore shoulder. Michael Flack blogs at AfterActionReport.info. He’s a former naval officer and 20-year veteran of the oil and gas industry. Now retired, Mike enjoys traveling, blogging and spreadsheets. Check out his earlier articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

WHEN I WAS IN THE Navy, the checklist was a way of life. Everything from a radiation leak to starting an air compressor required one. In emergency situations like flooding, you were expected to take memorized “immediate actions,” and then use a checklist to ensure all the actions were accomplished. For more routine procedures, you would follow the checklist line by line—deviations were not allowed. While this wasn’t conducive to a creative working environment, it was a safe and efficient one. It’s important to note that these checklists were not followed blindly. Everyone involved needed to completely understand the theory behind each step. If a step didn’t make sense in the current situation, work was stopped until the issue could be resolved. Ever since the Navy acquired the USS Holland in 1900, this process has allowed the experience, training and knowledge of every submariner to be reflected in every checklist—and therefore to be accessible to even the most junior personnel. My worth as an officer was judged in large part by how well I understood the checklists and how well I used them. When I joined Exxon Mobil, I quickly found out that my experience using checklists was not particularly valued. For many years, I worked in an operations role, coordinating the transportation of petroleum products throughout the world. I developed numerous checklists to help track vessels, create schedules and provide training to new personnel. When mistakes were made and we learned from the experience, I would revise my checklists. They were also useful when I went on vacation, as I could easily get my replacement up to speed on every vessel, shipment and schedule by reviewing the appropriate checklist. I also annotated each checklist to help track unusual requirements and to provide a hard copy of all the great things I did. This came in handy during annual performance reviews. I tried to get colleagues and managers to embrace the checklist philosophy, but I completely failed. As soon as they saw one, I could see the glaze appear in their eyes or—worse—the smirk appear on their faces. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] Generally, when I returned from vacation, the checklists I had reviewed with my relief were on my desk exactly where I left them, unchanged and unread. Now retired, I think about what I might have done better to get buy-in. This all came back to me recently while reading the book The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande. The author is a surgeon who created basic checklists used worldwide that drastically reduced surgical complications and deaths. He did extensive research on checklists from the aviation, construction and even finance industry. One of the more compelling stories in the book details how a checklist played a critical role in Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s successful ditching of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. Dr. Gawande also reveals the difficulties he had getting surgeons to understand the benefits of checklists—and then to actually use them. That made me feel much better about my failure at Exxon Mobil. I have used a checklist in the past when doing my taxes. It ensured that I reviewed certain items that directly affected my specific tax situation—like that darn foreign tax credit. It also allowed me a place to make notes for the following year. After I filed my taxes, I would update the checklist with what I learned and anything I needed to review the next year. Over the past few years, I stopped using my tax checklist. I have no idea why. This year, I resolved to get my old tax checklist out of mothballs, update it well before tax time and put it back into use. I’ve also created a list of other potential checklists: prepping the house prior to long-term travel, annual auto maintenance, annual home maintenance, annual financial review and annual health care. Still not convinced of the value of checklists? Don’t take my word for it. As Charlie Munger, the longtime vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, notes, “No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use a checklist.” Michael Flack blogs at AfterActionReport.info. He’s a former naval officer and 20-year veteran of the oil and gas industry. Now retired, Mike enjoys traveling, blogging and spreadsheets. Check out his earlier articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

MY BROTHER-IN-LAW just told me about a technology issue that he’s been struggling with. He was trying to get an old scanner to connect with his Mac. The solution required him to upload some outdated software. When he finished explaining how he resolved the issue, I was happy he could scan again. I was even happier that I had a $250 personal computer. Nothing irks me more than paying a premium—the Mac premium, in his case—and winding up with connectivity issues. This reminded me of an article from 2014 titled, “In Praise of Crap Technology.” The author extolled the virtues of his Coby mp3 player. It was an ancient piece of technology, even then. But it allowed him to listen to music while exercising at a very reasonable price. Now, when I say crap technology, I’m referring to older technology that still gets the job done. Not crappy technology that never got the job done, like Google Glass. I like crap technology for several reasons. The first is economics. Until a few years ago, I’d never owned a laptop. I was issued a series of expensive laptops at work. They were high-end because they needed to run company software, like SAP and enormous spreadsheets. After I retired, I wanted a laptop for myself. My computer needs were small. A little Microsoft Office, some blogging and a lot of internet surfing. Buying a $1,200 Mac just didn't make sense. Besides, I’m a PC guy. I did a little research and settled on a bare-bones HP for $250. It has worked out just fine. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] If asked, most people will say that they just want to pay a fair price for a product or service. I believe this is an out-and-out lie. Most Americans want to pay less for more. Getting a good deal is the American dream. In 2019, I needed to buy a car. I didn’t relish the idea of spending $50,000, even if it came with air-conditioned seats, a smart key, teen-driver technology and a 360-degree camera. After a little research, I decided to buy a 2013 Hyundai Elantra for $9,300. It came with enough technology to ensure my safety and convenience: anti-lock brakes, electronic stability control, and iPod, aux and USB inputs. It also came with a manual transmission. That last bit of outdated technology has many advantages. It made the car that much cheaper to buy. It’s better on gas milage. And it provided built-in theft prevention. Nobody knows how to drive one. Another advantage of crap technology is security. In 2013, I received a promotion that came with a BlackBerry. When it was handed to me, I thought, “What the hell is that thing?” But I quickly learned to love it because I had zero concerns about anyone stealing it. Why would they? It also seemed metaphysically impossible to lose. You only lose costly things, like an iPhone 12 or a Montblanc pen. All this meant that I’d never have to explain to my boss how I lost the company cellphone. Finally, crap technology can provide peace of mind. My wife just purchased a $170 coffeemaker. In my view, paying more than $30 for a glorified water heater is incomprehensible. What’s worse is this technological wonder is so complex. It requires two different filters, one for fewer than four cups and another for four or more. Its spout is sometimes open and sometimes closed. And the carafe has an interior lip that’s hard to clean. Trust me when I say that paying a premium for inferior technology doesn’t improve my morning coffee. You technophiles can keep your $999 iPhone 13 or your $2,500 Sennheiser AMBEO 3D Soundbar. I’ll invest the difference in a low-cost index fund. Or even better, if the alternative is $6,000 HiFiMan SUSVARA Headphones, I’ll take two first-class tickets to Berlin. Michael Flack blogs at AfterActionReport.info. He’s a former naval officer and 20-year veteran of the oil and gas industry. Now retired, Mike enjoys traveling, blogging and spreadsheets. Check out his earlier articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

MANY YEARS AGO, I read an article that posited that U.S. income inequality is due, in part, to the unwillingness of unemployed and underemployed Americans to move to a new state or city to take a better job. It mentioned three reasons for this reluctance. First, folks didn’t want to sell their home, which may have decreased in value due to the recession that caused the bad job market in the first place. Second, the other spouse might have a job that, even if it didn’t pay well, still provided some income. Third, people didn’t want to lose their connections to family, friends, schools and church. While the above three reasons are the main ones, I think many people also don’t want to move for two other reasons: the anxiety and cost of moving. As an adult, I’ve moved numerous times. The initial two moves occurred while I was in the Navy. I knew going in that I’d be moving often, so that may have softened the impact. Probably more important, the Navy provided a free, white-glove moving service, plus my possessions were few and of little value. Things were different in 2017, when my wife and I decided to sell our home, put our stuff in storage and travel the world. I knew that packing up would be stressful and costly. I therefore used a technique I’d learned as a nuclear submarine officer: I delegated the responsibility to my wife. I told her that she had “extraordinary and plenipotentiary power to negotiate and execute this move.” I based this authorization on a scene from The West Wing and felt it was quite witty. I guess my wife’s not a fan, as she immediately recognized it for the screw job that it was. Still, with the boldness of President Bartlet, she called a few full-service moving companies and just as quickly received egregious quotes for moving what was essentially a very nice Noguchi knockoff coffee table and a slew of boxes filled with pure gold, otherwise known as our personal possessions. To spare me a fit of apoplexy, she didn’t share the quotes, but instead looked at other options. The best was PODS, short for Portable on Demand Storage. PODS is the company that owns the eponymous and ubiquitous containers that sit on streets, driveways and the back of flatbed trucks throughout the U.S., Canada and Australia. A flatbed truck with a hydraulic lift system lands an empty storage container uncomfortably close to your residence. You then pack it with your stuff and, a few days later, it’s hauled away. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] In our case, a 12-foot by eight-foot by eight-foot PODS container was landed inches away from our townhome. Delivery and pickup were free. Over the next three days, we packed it with all our worldly goods, locked it with our own sturdy podlock, and then it was hauled away to be stored in a nearby secure climate-controlled storage facility. The hardest part—and, by that, I mean blood, sweat and tears hard—was packing our stuff in the container. Two years earlier, my wife had made friends with the subcontractor who had collected the empty boxes after our prior move. She had chatted with him over a couple of the most economical Bud Lights she ever bought. She subsequently subcontracted with him for $500 in cash to help us pack up our gold and stash it in our PODS container. We also paid him in items that we couldn’t fit in the container, which included a very nice Costco-pedic mattress. Without Stanley’s assistance, I’m not sure the PODS option would have worked out so well. During the ensuing four years, whenever I saw the monthly storage charge of $194.84, which surprisingly never increased, I always wondered how our stuff was doing, if it really was in a secure climate-controlled storage facility and, more important, if it was undamaged. Well, four years later, we finally stopped traveling and, for $2.46 per mile, had our PODS container shipped to our new home, with an additional $139 required to have the container placed on the street in front of our new home. We emptied it ourselves and the container was removed three days later. After unpacking all the boxes, we were thankful that the only damage was one cracked wine glass. We were also confused as to why we’d put so much crap into storage in the first place. PODS isn’t necessarily the option for everyone, as the emotional and physical cost may not be offset by the financial savings. My wife and I were both in good shape and retired at the time, so body aches and time were not an issue. Now that we’re a few years older and slightly wiser, it might not be an option next time. Michael Flack blogs at AfterActionReport.info. He’s a former naval officer and 20-year veteran of the oil and gas industry. Now retired, Mike enjoys traveling, blogging and spreadsheets. Check out his earlier articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

JERRY SEINFELD tells a story about visiting the post office and noticing a wanted poster on the wall. He looks at the poster and checks the guy standing behind him. “If it’s not him,” he says, “I feel I’ve done my part.” I own some individual stocks, so it’s that time of the year when I vote my proxies. I do the best I can at trying to understand the issues. Sometimes, I wonder whether I’ve really accomplished anything. Just like Jerry, though, when it’s all over, I feel “I’ve done my part.” When I was younger and busier, I would stack the proxies and their associated annual reports on my desk and methodically go through them, trying to give each its due and then casting my vote accordingly. Now that I’m retired and have more free time, I can’t be bothered. I use the following shortcuts to allow me to vote as efficiently—meaning as quickly—as possible: I vote for all proposals that would require an independent chairman. If I owned 100% of a company and employed a CEO, I would immediately fire him if he asked to be chair of the board. Why should a publicly owned company be any different? Having an independent chair just makes common sense from a governance perspective. How can management manage themselves? Additionally, if a CEO has such little self-confidence as to demand to also be the chair, an investor needs to wonder about his or her leadership ability. I vote against so-called classified boards, which have directors serving different term lengths. When I was employed, my performance was reviewed annually. Why should a company’s directors be any different? I don’t vote for executive pay packages that include options. Since I own shares of a company’s stock, why would I want to incentivize executives with options? After using these three heuristics, I then spend time only on proxies that pique my interest. This is what has piqued me so far this year: 1. D.H. Horton appointed Benjamin S. Carson to the board in April 2021 and he is now running for a permanent seat. Politics aside, what sense does it make to have a medical doctor, however talented, on the board of a company that builds houses? Also, anyone who touts oleander extract as a cure for COVID based on the word of the My Pillow Guy should not be on the board of any company. This was an easy vote against Dr. Carson, though I would love to know WTF is going on. 2. Myra K. Young of Elkgrove, California, proposed that Agilent give 10% of shareholders the power to call a special shareholder meeting. Despite Agilent pleading that 10% was too low a threshold, I voted for Ms. Young’s proposal, thinking, “What the hell?” 3. An unknown shareholder of the Boeing Corp. proposed that Boeing create a report listing all its charitable contributions greater than $999. The board’s two-page response against the proposal seemed like overkill. It never mentioned anything detrimental that would come of the proposal. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] I felt that the time it took to generate the response could have been used to generate the requested list, so I voted for the proposal. I also voted against any director who was on the board in the runup to the whole 737 MAX debacle. 4. The Jay Stanley Weisfeld Trust of Rochester, Vermont, proposed that IBM prepare “a public report assessing the potential risks to the company associated with its use of concealment clauses in the context of harassment, discrimination and other unlawful acts.” In the time the IBM board took to recommend a vote against the proposal—saying that “IBM does not prevent employees from discussing the terms and conditions of their employment”—it could have published the report, unless, of course, it does unethically use concealment clauses. Companies may legitimately use concealment clauses in employment agreements to protect corporate information, such as intellectual capital and trade secrets. But many companies use concealment clauses to limit their workers’ right to speak openly about harassment, discrimination and other unlawful acts. I must admit, before reading this specific proposal, I didn’t know what a concealment clause was or why it was used. It appears this was all stirred up by Apple’s recent unsuccessful attempt to exclude a similar proposal from its annual shareholder meeting, which in the end was voted down. After reading this IBM proposal, I felt the whole thing kind of stinks, so I voted for the proposal. 5. The DI Foundation proposed that, by the end of 2022, Enbridge—the oil and gas (O&G) pipeline company—"strengthen its net zero commitment such that the commitment is consistent with a science-based, net zero target.” Now, as a former O&G man myself, I may not be the most impartial net-zero observer. But asking the largest pipeline in North America to work to “develop, communicate, and implement a decarbonisation strategy” seems a little much. What’s next, asking Philip Morris to work towards a net-zero cigarette target? It’s only about halfway through the proxy season and it’s all starting to get a little old. I’m thinking I should either come up with a shorter heuristic—or sell some of my stocks. Michael Flack blogs at AfterActionReport.info. He’s a former naval officer and 20-year veteran of the oil and gas industry. Now retired, Mike enjoys traveling, blogging and spreadsheets. Check out his earlier articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]