May 08 2006
Sarbanes-Oxley Just Another Reason to Move a Business Abroad
When people wonder why so many jobs and businesses have moved abroad, often times they lay the full blame on U.S. organized labor… That, or they blame “greedy” corporate executives willing to sell America short just to earn a few extra million of (evil) profits…
What’s often ignored is the absurd regulatory environment the U.S. has created over the last 100 years. Unfortunately, folks
Since the founding of the country, a parasitic class of business owners and bankers has been working to lobby Congress to pass focused special interest legislation to benefit their business in some way or another. Books have been written on the subject (I recommend Rothbard’s “The Case Against The Fed” for a solid primer on the U.S. banking cartel as well as for its introduction to they type of lobbying that took place during the latter part of the 1800s for the purpose of establishing competitive barriers and other laws helpful to special interests.
In the meantime, you can give a read to a Washington Post article that covers the clumsy and destructive Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The law is a classic example of Congress failing to do what it had promised for its citizens (”providing a safe investment environment”), and then reacting badly by closing the barn door long after the cows had already escaped. Worse yet, it is a classic example of a failure to enforce existing laws that could have taken care of the problem. Worse, like most regulation, it treats all participants as guilty until proven innocent, while burdening the entire economy with a whole new layer of crimes of non-compliance without any relationship to actual fraudulent intent.
With the Sarbanes-Oxley anchor around the neck of the economy, it’s just yet one more very expensive reason to not set up shop in the United States. And, it’s another reason why Vigilant readers ought to be skeptical of the perpetually bullish choirs on Wall Street and on CNBC and other financial media.
