Also wonder why the "experts" aren't contacting CEO's, attending shareholders meetings, etc. and speaking up about how misguided it is to pay a dividend. The only place one reads that is on this board...UCMTSU.

This one is super easy.

If you don't like the fundamental decisions that a publicly traded company is making, DON"T INVEST IN IT. I don't even try to explain to waiters how they could have served me better, not my job to train them. So I'm going to go up against a board?

The fact that publicly traded shares generally come with voting rights is an irrelevancy to 99.999% of investors, because it is 0.001% of investors that own enough shares to make a difference. And 78% of statistics are made up on the spot, so don't go checking my facts, or if you do, at least post the right numbers.

R:

PS, this doesn't mean if you don't care about dividends you "can't" buy dividend paying stocks and still be internally consistent. I invest in the companies I think are going to make me the most money. I do not invest in companies because they pass some checklist of correct positions. That would be dumb, too. The solution to dumb things is not more dumb things. -R;)