You need contionuous monitoring, reporting & oversight, otherwise, you end up like Greenspan’s “I thought businesses are more responsible to themselves…”

Calling expenses incurred in cleaning up internal auditing procedures a ‘hidden tax’ is similar to calling the price of cleaning supplies and labor for people pushing a mop in a restaurant a hidden healthcare tax.

I am reminded of a line from an SNL skit about an investment company:

“We will make a list of our clients and how much money each of them
has given us to invest. We will keep this list in a safe place. If
we have time we will make a copy of the list in case something happens
to the first list.”

Is keeping proper records really just too hard? Isn’t that what professionalism all about? We have all of these fancy expensive computers now too to help you. All we ask is that you use them properly if we’re going to let the public invest with you. Is that really so much to ask?

I implement SOX systems in IT all the time. More often than not, the audit merely exposes existing bad practices to much-needed sunlight. Rarely are we forced to jump through unreasonable hoops. Usually it’s merely a question of handing out round-tuits all around.

If Newt is in a hurry to crowbar ANY regulations off of business, then he should pick some legislation where the paint is dry.

And fusion is the most viable choice to sunshine and happiness. Let’s find a viable choice that is a little less impossible, shall we?

IPOs are the single greatest engine for growing wealth. We need quality IPOs not the buckets of cow flop the VC cranked out in the late 90s. To ensure that people do not game the system, make false or negligent statements by Directors and Officers felonies punishable by 10-20 years in prison (yes 10 years minimum if you are convicted!), with third-party audited and verified sales and financials (who are subject to 20 year if they make a false statement).

This would be cheaper than SOX, be cost effective and have enough of a threat of real punishment to deter the excesses while giving the public early access to great companies, reopening the avenue of IPO exit and protecting all involved.

Accountants or accounting rules can not stop business failures/insolvencies. Accounting is simply a scorecard it cant ensure that people will buy your product/service.

Even though Newt doesnt make any compelling arguments against SOX that doesnt mean there are not opportunities for improvement.

The mindset that SOX tries to instill in companies (continuous improvement) could be used on SOX itself.

The article then says that SOX did not stop the collapse of Bear, Lehman, AIG and Merrill. Well guess what…all these companies incidentally happen to have something in common…they are in Financial Services and are subject to a set of regulations that exempted them from listing significant liabilities on their balance sheets…

In confirmation of this, the Financial Services industry is in for dose of better regulation and enforcement…much like SOX (just listen to Greenspan’s sober testimony before Congress).

Finally, in reference to SOX the slowing of the IPO feed. This is not such a bad thing, as good deals still go public (like netflix) while all the venture hyped crap deals don’t go anywhere. All this is good for the investor and for the public.

The funny thing is, for all of the whining I have yet to see one company with a really great product fold, and I shudder at the thought that some of these monstrosities that are collapsing now would have ever gone as far as an IPO. Slapping something together using AJAX or Ruby on Rails doesn’t count, nor do a thousand retarded “apps” with a business plan that doesn’t surpass the “throw AdSense on it!” threshold.

The types of patents Google and Microsoft and other large tech company’s submit are absurd.

A business process or method is NOT an innvention and is by definition cannot possibly be original.

Patents should only be given out to original innovations, not improvements to prior innventions.

It should not be possible for establish firms such as Google, IBM, & Micrsoft to Patent competition to death.

It should not be possible to use absurd Patents and teams of lawyers to build barriers to entry for small businesses.

Instead, I think it makes sense to rate companies based upon criteria that matter, such as how aligned the interests of executives are with shareholder interests (perhaps they own a huge chunk of stock) or how well compensation rewards performance.

And maybe that’s already being done, but its not always based upon information that is collected by government. Maybe it makes sense to require this stuff right on the label.

Ain’t that the truth. Perhaps Newt is position for a re-run in 2012?

Want most people do not understand is the term “free market”.

The literal meaning of free markets would be a 3rd world bazaar with not consumer protections, no licesnes required, no quality control (use all the melanine you like), no child labor laws, ….

An American “free market” is infact a regulated market. The repblicans idea of “de-regulation” was really re-regulation to benefit the few. A transfer of wealth from the middle class upwards.

We need a re-regulation to balance labor and capital back to favor the working middle class. Yes that makes it harder for capital – VCs to slime money from 401ks into thier pockets.

We also need a re-regulation of finance. Printing money.

As president of a company that offers solutions for Fortune 500 organization seeking to comply with SOX, I have lived through the very difficult times following the passage of the Act and I understand the frustration it has created. To date, hundreds of companies continue to have interpretation and enforcement concerns.

I fully supported the revision of Section 404 to remove the onerous burden that mandated financial controls and reporting had placed on small and mid-sized businesses. However, in light of the implosion of the capital markets following the sub-prime debacle I can’t imagine the outright repeal of Sarbanes unless there was a plan in place to replace the salient and important requirements of the Act.

The accounting practice of Mark to Market, required by SOX, requires financial institutions to value their assets at current market value. Those that had large portfolios of mortgage backed securities took a big hit to their balance sheets, putting some of them at near insolvency. This was a big contributor to Wachovia’s failure.

At the same time, banks like Wachovia are very profitable and are in a fine position with respect to cash flow. So, an otherwise very viable institution faces bankruptcy.

With a stroke of the pen, Congress can change this and I believe that much of the bailout would not have been necessary. The SEC is slowly looking into this, but should have years ago before all this happened.

So, we are no living in the perfect storm of incompetency with the Republican adminstration asleep at the helm while the Democratic congress pushes for more of these bad loans to people who do not qualify and creates more legislation to regulate what they did not oversee.

Bill Warner

Please TechCrunch… leave the conservatives off your tech pages. The American people just voted overwhelmingly to rid ourselves of these corrupt clowns.

Next, you’ll have Newt lecturing us about “family values” while he cheats on his cancer-stricken wife. Oh, wait.. different blog, same corrupt Republican hack.

Please stick to the tech stories, leave the Republican propaganda to Fox.

http://vidsonly.blogspot.com

This neither proves or disproves anything, but you can see how much we’ve slowed down compared to some other leading nations without as much regulation. There was a lag period which may be explained by the time given to companies to comply with the law, although that would encompass a pretty large span. There was definitely some real growth in there, but it doesn’t look like it was long lived or strong enough to make up for whatever difference there is between the various markets. Notice that the significant drop occurred starting at the beginning of 2004, a full 4-5 years ago even as the GDP was in a period of rapid expansion.