When the tide goes out, that’s when you see where the stinking fish really are.

So said Alastair Ross Goobey, the late great CEO of Hermes Pensions Management in London. He was talking about scandals back in 2003. But there might be no better caption for the picture already emerging of the 2008 proxy season. For 16 years corporate governance flourished as the U.S. economy grew, albeit with a few bumps. Now, corporations are entering a very different annual meeting period. We’re about to find out what shareowner activism looks like in recession (or, at least, in a slow-growth economy ...