Regulatory Burdens

Congress does two things well, nothing and overreacting.(not mine) Regulatory approaches with high costs and little benefit are not exactly pro-growth.

Steve Waite at his Creative Destruction blog gives us this:

Here's an exchange between Mike Holland and Herb Greenberg from economist Larry Kudlow's TV show that discusses the unintended consequences of government regulation - in this case, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act...

Mike Holland: I'd like to put a fact in here. Before Sarbanes-Oxley, 50 percent of all IPOs around the world listed in the United States. Would anyone, including Herb, like to guess how many since Sarbanes-Oxley have listed in the U.S.?

Herb Greenberg: Give me the number.

Mike Holland: It's 8 percent. And the last 25 largest IPOs, they all listed abroad. I was in Europe a couple weeks ago--they're talking about erecting statues to Sarbanes and Oxley in London's financial center.

Given some luck, the overreaction will be modified. Donny Baseball is hopeful.

I am agog. One of the the most unreconstructed liberal members of the Great Sausage Factory's Upper Chamber, my very own Senator, Chuck Schumer write this today in the WSJ:

With the benefit of hindsight, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which imposed a new regulatory framework on all public companies doing business in the U.S., also needs to be re-examined. Since its passage, auditing expenses for companies doing business in the U.S. have grown far beyond anything Congress had anticipated. Of course, we must not in any way diminish our ability to detect corporate fraud and protect investors. But there appears to be a worrisome trend of corporate leaders focusing inordinate time on compliance minutiae rather than innovative strategies for growth, for fear of facing personal financial penalties from overzealous regulators.

It gives you a sense of what a disastrous misfire Sarbanes-Oxley was that Chuck Schumer would even put his name to this let alone do so before his colleague Paul Sarbanes has even left the building.

You'd think they might have discussed these matters before writing and passing the legislation!