Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan has made the headlines again, coming out this week attacking Sarbanes-Oxley and saying it should be scrapped.
According to the former Fed chief, Sarbanes-Oxley regulations hamper business, discourage risk-taking and drive foreign companies to shun the New York Stock Exchange for London. The only bit that's any good, he reckons, is the rule that chief executives have to certify their companies' accounts personally. "The rest we could do without," he said
Earlier this year, he expressed concern about companies shunning New York for London for their flotations when he was talking to an Asian Financial Centres conference in Seoul, organised by the Financial Times.
My, how times have changed!!
Remember back in May 2005, Greenspan gave Sarbanes-Oxley Act his blessing in an address at the Wharton School in Pennsylvania:
"I am surprised that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, so rapidly developed and enacted, has functioned as well as it has. It will doubtless be fine-tuned as experience with the act's details points the way,'' he said at the time.
Now he wants to scrap virtually the entire thing. Go figure!!
Jim Bianco gives him a serve via The Big Picture blog: "Anything else, Dr. Greenspan, you would like to change your opinion on? Maybe the productivity miracle? The fallacy of using corporate visibility as a forecasting tool? The quit rate? The world awaits your next confession at $150,000/hour."
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