If you're a policy maker and you are not talking about core psychological traits like delayed gratification skills, then you're just dancing around with proxy issues.

In 2003, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted a rule requiring mutual funds to disclose their votes on proxy issues to shareholders.

Ever wonder how your fund manager voted on proxy issues that may or may not have a direct effect on a company's bottom line?

The head of the Texas teachers' pension fund told me the other day that before, he would have automatically voted with management on proxy issues, and now he's looking more deeply.

Avon, for its part, saw no reason to do battle with Ms. Davis on the proxy issue.

But it also occurred as public companies' financial statements were becoming increasingly complex and as scrutiny of institutional investors' votes on proxy issues became more intense.

I.S.S., for example, provides governance advice to public companies in addition to recommending how shareholders should vote on proxy issues.

"If there is any way to resolve proxy issues without submitting them to shareholders, we'd prefer to do it that way," he said.

It's time for the fund industry to learn that their customers don't like being in the dark on proxy issues.

And how would the Government vote its beneficiaries' views on proxy issues like mergers and acquisitions and chief executive compensation?