Sarbanes-Oxley

When you see the word trillion, you might want to pay attention, it may include your lunch. Full time legislators claim that matters are so complicated that only they, working with a lifetime in office, can make the right decisions. Their unintended consequences are tragic, however. This Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation has cost the economy trillions, enough to solve the funding of Social Security, the Budget deficit and maybe even health insurance. "The first dictate of a good physician is to do no harm." (Sir William Osler) Would that politicians had such a sense of stewardship.

"Its provisions are so costly one section of the bill alone has an average company cost of $4.36 million, and the regulated companies will have to pay $6.1 billion this year alone to comply with SOX. To ensure companies comply with the regulations, the four large accounting firms that do almost all public company audits have raised their fees an average of 78 percent to 134 percent in 2004." (Peter Walliston of the American Enterprise Institute.)

"Professor Ivy Xiying Zhang of the University of Rochester has calculated SOX has resulted in a cumulative loss of $1.4 trillion for the shareholders of public companies. (This works out to an average loss of about $460 for every man woman and child in the United States)." --- and don't think that it only effects the corporations. The costs are a direct pass through to you, they cannot be otherwise." (Richard W. Rahn in his essay "Destructive Government" in The Washington Times June 16th.)

The well being of our citizenry does not derive from government programs or regulation but from public infrastructure. (Communication, Safety, Education, Health Care & Public Health, Social Security, Energy, roads and, to some extent, Transportation) The revenue of government does not derive from tax rates but from growth in the economy, GDP. Our standard of living, our quality of life does not derive from either but from personal and congregate productivity and an egalitarian giving and sharing the abundance of life in the fraternal or community relationships of living.

What don't these guys understand about economics? There are numbers to support all of these decisions if they would only look and think. Alas, but the thinking is done with the vote, not of the people but of the most money, campaign contributions, prostituted through the ultimate pimp, the lobbyist --- bribery by any other definition. "Three wolves and a sheep vote to decide what to eat." (A North Dakota part time Senator.)