CEI Weekly: Will Obama Address Job-Killing Financial Regulations?

Friday, September 16, 2011

Feature: In his speech on job creation, President Obama said he'd investigate whether financial regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley are preventing economic recovery.

FEATURED STORY: Will Obama Address Job-Killing Financial Regulations? President Obama has promised that his administration will work with the Securities Exchange Commission to review Sarbanes-Oxley, the Bush-era financial reform bill that placed strict restrictions on the activities of publicly-held companies. This week on RealClearMarkets, CEI's John Berlau talked about the potential benefits of amending or repealing Sarbanes-Oxley. Read his op-ed here. SHAPING THE DEBATE How to Transcend Post-9/11 Homeland Insecurity Wayne Crews' column in Forbes Nice Talks. When's the Jobs Speech? Wayne Crews' column in Forbes All Hail President Blair! Iain Murray's op-ed in The American Spectator Infrastructure Follies: Railroads, Cleantech, and Crony Capitalism William Frezze's column in Forbes California's Big Deal Bought on Amazon Jacqueline Otto's op-ed in The Daily Caller Congress to NLRB's Becker: Did You Write the NLRB Intimidation Manual? Vincent Vernuccio's op-ed in BigGovernment Durbin's Bill is Dietary Paternalism Michelle Minton and Paul Hsieh's op-ed in Human Events Ten Years After September 11, Business as Usual on Energy Myron Ebell's citation in Politico Colorado Cantaloupes Prompt Warning After Multi-State Listeria Outbreak Greg Conko's citation on ABCnews.com

CEI PODCAST September 15, 2011: Solyndra Myron Ebell, Director of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment, takes a look at the brewing Solyndra scandal. Solyndra is a company that makes solar panels and recently declared bankruptcy. In 2009, the federal government gave Solyndra a $535 million loan even though its own analysts predicted the company would go bankrupt in 2011. The company’s cozy relationship with political figures, including a major political donor with an investment stake, make the loan — and its low interest rate — look rather suspicious. BEST OF THE BLOGS Is Gov. Perry Anti-Science? By Marlo Lewis WTO Issues Panel's Findings on  U.S.-Mexico Tuna-Dolphin Dispute By Fran Smith Obama's Job Creation Proposal Will Be Ineffective, Experts Say By Hans Bader Belt-Tightening and FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation By Luke Pelican

CEI Daily - Union Activism, Pork, and Sarbanes-Oxley

Union Activism

The National Labor Relations Board surprised many when it threatened to sue Boeing over the building of a new plant in South Caroina.

Policy Analyst Ivan Osorio explains.

"The NLRB's case against Boeing rests on a thin reed. The Board seized on a statement by Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh that an overriding factor in the decision to locate the plant in South Carolina was that the company cannot afford to have a work stoppage 'every three years.' The NLRB cited that statement as supposed evidence that Boeing was trying to retaliate against unionized workers in Washington State. In fact, Albaugh was not referring to any specific union job action."

 

 

Pork

The USDA lowered its recommended safe cooking temperature for pork from 160 degrees Fahrenheit to 145.

Senior Fellow Greg Conko commends the USDA's change.

"It’s been reasonably well known for some time that cooking whole cuts of meat — including beef, lamb, and even pork — to a lower internal temperature could kill a sufficient portion of harmful bacteria to make the food safe to eat (though ground meats should still be cooked to the higher temperatures because the grinding and mixing process could move substantially more bacteria from the heated outside part of the cut to the inside). And USDA cooking recommendations for beef and lamb have reflected that reality for some time now. But the higher cooking temperature for pork remained, primarily as an artifact of largely bygone concerns about trichinosis — a disease caused by parasitic worms once common in pork and wild game. But due to changing pork industry practices, trichinosis from pork is now fairly rare."

Sarbanes-Oxley

This week in Investor's Business Daily, Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia and Research Associate Jacqueline Otto explain how Sarbanes-Oxley is affecting tech startups' decisions about whether or not to go public.

"For the sake of today’s entrepreneurs and investors, Congress needs to take a close look at burdens that discourage companies from seeking public offerings. Revisiting the Sarbanes-Oxley Act would be an excellent first step. Section 404, which purports to prevent conflicts of interest, should be scrapped. The section establishes duplicative layers of oversight that are exorbitant to maintain. For instance, companies must assess for fraud, assess the measures to assess for fraud, then assess the assessors!"

CEI - TARP2 - Bad Plan, Bad Timing!

Tarp the TARP and give small biz relief from Sarbanes-Oxley and other burdensome regs

President Obama’s announcement that he will extend TARP — the Troubled Assets Relief Program — and keep spending its proceeds could not have come at a worse time. Credit rating agencies are looking at dropping the “Triple A” rating from the U.S. because of the trillions in spending on bailouts, stimulus and other big-government programs. The rationale put forward seems to be that because we spent this for undeserving big banks, it’s only fair to spend the rest of taxpayer dollars on small businesses, But two wrongs don’t make a right, and this money belongs to taxpayers, not to the favored recipients of politicians. Whether TARP fund go to small or big businesses, it’s still government picking winners and losers, and many innovative entrepreneurs will be left out. That’s why any money paid back to the TARP should go for general tax relief or paying down debt that all small businesses and taxpayers could benefits from.

Congress could pursue a real no-cost stimulus for the economy and smal buisness by providing regulatory relief from the mountains of red tape that provides little benefit to investors and consumers. Unfortuately, even limited bipartisan reg relief seems to be at risk from Congressional Democractic leaders. >>> Read the full comment on OpenMarket.org.



CEI Weekly: Scholars Support Case Against Sarbanes Oxley

>>Support Builds for Supreme Court Case Against Sarbanes Oxley

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to hear a case that could have a major impact on the U.S. capital markets.  In a new development, three former U.S. Attorneys General, a prominent former Democratic Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and several law professors and economists are all asking the Court to strike down as unconstitutional Sarbanes-Oxley’s Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, or PCAOB.

-Visit CEI to read more about who is challenging Sarbanes Oxley.

-Briefs pertaining to the case are available at ControlAbuseofPower.org.

>>Shaping the Debate 

Memo to Spitzer: It's Not Your Money

Ivan Osorio and Vincent Vernuccio's op-ed in the Investor's Business Daily

Tech Heavies to FCC: Stay on Target

Ryan Radia's quote in E-Commerce Times

One of These Groups is Wrong About Climate Policy

Myron Ebell's letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal

>>Best of the Blogs

A Cure Worse than the Disease

by Greg Conko

With Democratic support coalescing around Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-Mt.) health care reform proposal, passage of a comprehensive overhaul now appears more likely than ever.  As I explain in a new Competitive Enterprise Institute paper out today, “A Cure Worse than the Disease: Obama Care Won’t Cut Costs, But May Cut Quality,” most of the alleged cost-cutting measures in the Baucus bill merely shift costs from the federal government onto the states or private payers

Data Deflates Threat-Multiplier Hype

by Marlo Lewis

“Climate change is a threat multiplier” is the new trendy rationale for Kyoto-style energy rationing. One hears little these days about Al Gore’s nightmare vision of death and destruction from ever more powerful and frequent hurricanes, catastrophic sea-level rise, or a warming-induced climate shift into a new ice age. This story line is too implausible for most grownups to swallow or patronize, no matter how desperate they are to look green.

FTC Sets its Sights on Bloggers

by Elizabeth Jacobson

The blogosphere has been up in arms over the last two weeks, ever since the Federal Trade Commission issued an update to its “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” In the past, these guidelines have determined the kinds of research claims companies or celebrity endorsers can make about products in advertising. With the recent update, though, the FTC has chosen to extend its reach onto the Internet, applying its regulations to blogs, Facebook pages, even Twitter feeds

 >>Liberty Week Podcast

Episode 65: Your TV Violates State Law

This week, host Richard Morrison and guest-host Jeremy Lott interview CEI Senior Fellow Gregory Conko about Congress’ health care debacles, er, uh, bills. Energy Policy Analyst William Yeatman joins in to discuss avoiding another housing crisis, California’s proposed ban on big screen TVs, the Abramoff scandal’s latest jailing, and the FTC’s war against free speech.

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