Friday, June 03, 2005
Bainbridge on the Cox nomination
Stephen Bainbridge explains why it was time for William Donaldson to go, and why Chris Cox is a good choice to succeed him.
As important as it will be to bring balance back to securities and accounting regulation, I suspect that the greatest change will be psychological. American corporations are drowning in compliance initiatives that are both expensive and exhausting. Managements are demoralized, and experienced CFOs are quitting because they would rather take up whittling than do nothing but worry about whether their internal controls satisfy the shifting obsessions of the regulators and the auditing profession. We need a break, and we desperately need to rebuilt the "animal spirits" that ultimately drive America's wonderful economy. The Cox nomination does not signal a new era of deregulation, but it does suggest that the war on America's public companies has reached its high water mark.
As important as it will be to bring balance back to securities and accounting regulation, I suspect that the greatest change will be psychological. American corporations are drowning in compliance initiatives that are both expensive and exhausting. Managements are demoralized, and experienced CFOs are quitting because they would rather take up whittling than do nothing but worry about whether their internal controls satisfy the shifting obsessions of the regulators and the auditing profession. We need a break, and we desperately need to rebuilt the "animal spirits" that ultimately drive America's wonderful economy. The Cox nomination does not signal a new era of deregulation, but it does suggest that the war on America's public companies has reached its high water mark.
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