Sarbanes-Oxley

Bloomberg is reporting that Hank Paulson will likely attempt to moderate much of the regulations surrounding Sarbox. There's no surprise here. As I had written in one of my recent postings, the finance industry is likely peaking. A large part of that is the overhiring and overregulation by accountants. For those who have implemented Sarbox solutions and/or lived through Sarbox from a business practices perspective, it is a significantly stifling and bungling mess. Ultimately, the Feds need to decide if it is more important to continually pile on more and more regulations, choke off foreign investment, reduce American competitiveness or enforce the laws already on the books.

Our corporate governance system has evolved over hundreds of years and does an admirable job when enforced. We don't need more overhead and more regulations as it pertains to financial controls in corporate America. Especially when it causes foreign listings to go elsewhere, reduces senior management's willingness to take risk and makes the business of doing business more difficult than it already is. Re-establishing Glass-Steagall or regulating hedge funds would be time better spent given your retirement dollars are now in the hands of unregulated hedge funds who have convinced them to invest in commodities and other risky schemes.