Renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper, founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, predicts that Sarbanes-Oxley “will have the exact opposite effect that it intended.” One unintended consequence is the heightened legal liability of corporate board members. Draper has removed himself from all public boards because of the potential of being
Property Casualty Insurers Association president Ernie Csiszar has bitterly complained about New York prosecutor/gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer’s unfair use of the threat of jail and trial by media against business executives. Spitzer is himself guilty of conflict of interest, but answers to no higher authority. This is perhaps the most
Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is financially irresponsible, writes CNBC mutual funds columnist Tim Middleton . The Domini Social Equity Fund, an index of 400 most socially conscious companies, ranks in the 88th percentile of comparable funds over the past 12 months. The downfall of SRI in recent years has been its concentration on three
A Bloomberg report describes the folly that is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. SOX has caused companies to divert resources from consumer-serving operations into the installation of new computers and the hiring of additional accounting workers. SOX forced Yellow Roadway Corporation to hire 10 additional employees and 20 consultants to help write new
From late March, individuals have been able to buy gold for investment online from the Bank of China and other selected banks which are members of the Shanghai Gold Exchange Perhaps a step toward an eventual return to real
Inflation: Why you’re not getting a raise this year : If you’re like most Americans, don’t count on a raise this year. The Los Angeles Times reported on Monday: “For the first time in 14 years, the American workforce has in effect gotten an across-the-board pay cut.” In other words, inflation is back. The cost of living, measured by the federal
The Business Roundtable, with 160 of the largest U.S. companies, says its members paid $10 million each on Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance in 2004. Section 404 of the SOX has caused greater-than-anticipated personnel, consulting, auditing, and software expenses, according to a survey by Financial Executives International. In the survey , 94% of
John Berlau of CEI writes in National Review of some little known aspects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act: “one section of the law threatens to become the most extensive day-to-day regulation of American business since FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act, the price-and-output regulatory scheme struck down by a unanimous Supreme Court in 1935. Just as
Kimberly A. Strassel dismantles NY attorney general/gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer’s case against ex-New York Stock Exchange chairman Dick Grasso( WSJ $ ). It turns out that interviews with the NYSE board members refute Spitzer’s contentions that Grasso manipulated the board to pay him too much money. Unintentionally, the interviews reveal
A survey of public companies finds that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has poisoned business relationships between companies and auditing firms. According to company comments, the auditing firms have been transformed into de facto agents of the government . “Public company auditors are now privatized regulators for the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.