Footnoted.org

For those of you who just don't have it in you to pour over the proxies filed by the companies you invest in, I encourage you to visit footnoted.org. It is run by Michelle Leder and is considered by most pundits to be one of the top financial blogs on the web. Michelle somehow finds time in her busy schedule to mine through public records and find the little pieces of information that companies do their best to bury with fine print and ridiculous typeface. To make matters worse, (or better depending on how you look at it) heightened disclosure requirements of perquisites in recent years mean there is much more for Michelle to find.

For example just this morning Michelle discovered that Global Industries (GLBL) CEO William Dore "rang up $83K in expenses for 'an apartment provided to him by the company during his displacement as a result of Hurricane Rita.'" Now, this in and of itself probably doesn't jump out as being that uncommon given the kind of perks many CEO's are given even when they aren't displaced. The key here, as Michelle points out, is that "Hurricane Rita took place in 2005, not 2006." Just a minor oversight you could say . . . if I was an investor I might want to know exactly what happened to that $83K . . . .