A Legal Scholar Overreaches From The Bench

December 1, 2011

By rejecting the SEC’s settlement with Citigroup, a federal judge has appointed himself to enforce federal securities laws. He overreached.

Comments Off

A Utopian ‘Conflict Minerals’ Mandate Offers No Practical Solution

November 9, 2011

Neither business nor the SEC knows how to comply with a mandate on the origin of industrial metals. Congress does not see this as a problem.

Protecting Us From Opportunity

February 9, 2011

Securities laws are supposed to protect us from harm, but the rules that govern privately placed investments can end up shielding potential investors, not from fraud or theft, but from opportunity. Federal laws were written after the Crash of 1929 to protect investors, particularly individuals with small portfolios, who got caught up in the mania of the Roaring Twenties and lost everything, often on investments they did not fully understand. …

SEC Lets Shareholders Act Like Owners — To A Point

October 5, 2010

A new rule that gives public company shareholders the power to nominate their own directors is not going to turn boardrooms into union halls, nor is it going to revolutionize corporate governance. A best-case scenario is that making directors more accountable to shareholders will finally put a brake on senior-executive compensation, which has spiraled out of control for two decades. This is not to say that talented managers of large, …

Comments Off

Breaking Dishes In The Credit Market

August 2, 2010

Parents have a sixth sense that warns us when a small child has been too quiet for too long. We call out “What are you doing?” and the little munchkin chirps back, “I’m helping you! I’m washing all the nice china!” The next thing we hear is a loud crash. So it goes with President Obama and the current Congress. They want to help, but they just can’t keep from …

Comments Off

The Dog That Did Not Bark

May 20, 2010

Something pretty significant did not happen yesterday, and because it did not happen, not many people paid attention to it. But it is pretty significant nonetheless. Greece did not default on a public debt of €8 billion that came due yesterday. It had the cash to pay its creditors on time, courtesy of the massive rescue package that its fellow members of the euro zone made available earlier this month. …

Comments Off

It’s Not Cheating To Be Lucky Or Smart

April 20, 2010

Every time somebody sells a stock, somebody else buys that stock. Brokers put the two together. If the seller happens to unload his shares just before their value plummets, does it mean the buyer has been cheated? This question is at the heart of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil fraud charge against Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs. So let’s begin by answering the question: When a seller makes a …

What A Friend

February 23, 2010

Greetings, American shareholders. Your friend, Rep. Barney Frank, has a plan to help you — by giving your competitors a guide to your firm’s very best talent and how to poach it. Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview with Bloomberg earlier this month that the Securities and Exchange Commission should require companies to publicize how much they pay their top-earning employees. …

Comments Off

Changing The Faces Of Corporate Boards

February 16, 2010

In Norway, more than 40 percent of all company board members are women, compared to just about 15 percent of American board members. Are Norwegian women more ambitious than American women? Is the business culture there more welcoming to women? Maybe, but the real reason there are more female directors in Norway is because the government said there had to be. In 2002, when women held less than 7 percent …

Comments Off

Accepting Inconvenience For Safety

January 25, 2010

Nobody likes going through airport security, but nobody wants the security measures to disappear, either. That’s pretty much how I feel about a new round of government regulations that affect investment advisers and tax return preparers. The new rules will make my life more difficult, and they may contain some contradictions and gaps that will cause headaches for people in my line of work. On the other hand, if the …

Comments Off
Page 1 of 212»

Sorry, you can not to browse this website.

Because you are using an outdated version of MS Internet Explorer. For a better experience using websites, please upgrade to a modern web browser.

Mozilla Firefox Microsoft Internet Explorer Apple Safari Google Chrome