Actually, it’s Dodd-Frank’s abuse, and the SEC is only implementing the abuser’s requirement, but still….

At issue here is an SEC proposed rule that purports

to give investors greater clarity about the link between what corporate executives are paid each year compared to total shareholder return—the annual change in stock price plus reinvested dividends, according to people familiar with the measure.

There are a couple of things wrong with this. One, minor on the scale of this…rule’s…transgression is the idea that stock price and dividend handling are the measure of a business’ management. No, these are the outcomes; the actual measures are on the business’ financial sheets. Those P&L, Cash Flow, and Balance Sheets, among a host of other performance reporting documents, are freely available to shareholders—and to prospective shareholders: they’re public documents.

The larger problem, though, is this: the executives’ performance is the business of the shareholders, not the government. This is just a backdoor effort to insinuate government deeper into the management of private businesses.

Dodd-Frank needs to be repealed, and D-F-related SEC (and others’) rules rescinded as soon as this administration can be replaced.