A GAO report warns that overzealous enforcement of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act promotes consolidation of the accounting industry, implying less competition, fewer firms to choose from, higher fees (and possibly some future casework for Justice Department antitrust lawyers). Reports Forbes.com : ” A series of mergers and the collapse of Andersen last
“The guy is so upfront and earnest,” says Jim Griffin of ING Aeltus, quoted intoday’s Wall Street Journal ($) , “it kind of makes you wonder about his motives.”
George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen, in a critique of the gold standard and free banking on another economics blog , clarifies where he draws the line at free market solutions and thinks statism is to be preferred. The economic performance resulting form a gold standard, he says, would have improved the economy in the 1970s (if it were
After it was announced that the FY2003 budget deficit would inch even closer to the one-half trillion mark ($455 billion), the OMB announced that the average budget deficit for the next five years will be $380 billion--and this is based on the most optimistic assumptions. The White House defends its small tax cuts as being part of the solution
There is little doubt that even the Weekly Standard can run sensible pieces from time to time, but one wonders whether such pieces are dictated more by the magazine’s funding sources than in response to a genuine appreciation for market order. If it were more consistent, the Weekly Standard would at least equally criticize regulations drawn up by
The secessionist movement in California has made created an environment that is looking more and more like the chaos depicted in the 1982 science fiction movie “The Blade Runner”, or so writes Brent Staples in today’s New York Times (zero-priced registration required). Writes Staples: “The pollution [in Los Angeles] is horrendous. The rich have
Writes Regina Herzlinger in today’s Wall Street Journal ($): “With the effective passage of the Medicare drug bill, we have just vastly enlarged the health-care sector. This is the one-seventh of our GDP that is run Soviet-style: where the doctors who are uniquely qualified to create and manage health-service businesses are prohibited from owning
The NYT’s Floyd Norris marvels this morning (registration required) at the increased importance of self-employed workers in the government’s rosy employment figures announced this week. These workers, notes Norris, account for 6.6 percent of the workforce, up from 6.1 percent when Bush took office. While there are about 2.25 million fewer jobs
The Motley Fool notes that Congress’ recent overhaul of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and especially its “No Credit Report Left Behind” provision, is yet another federal override of tougher state laws, such as California’s, where a new state law prohibited banks, insurance companies, and others from sharing their customers’ personal information.
...How much mutual funds should charge, how stock research should be marketed, that the EPA’s regulatory burden is too weak, the New York AG office deserves extorted penalties from securities firms more than the supposedly-harmed investors, the proper distribution of Red Cross funds, the correct result of voluntary labor contracts, which private
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.
