The New York Stock Exchange said it will not impose the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on European firms if it merges with European exchange Euronext. This is a rejoinder to defenders of the onerous accounting law who claimed that it helps markets work better. The market itself has witnessed the unmitigated disaster of Sarbox, especially the dreaded Section 404. If Sarbox were so great, the NYSE Group would be more than happy to tell its European customers to comply with it voluntarily.
Blackstone Group’s CEO Stephen Schwarzman called Sarbox a terrible thing for the U.S. economy, despite the fact that his private equity firm benefits from the Act by encouraging public companies to go private. It is a shame that Bush did not pick Schwarzman for Treasury Secretary instead of the environmental extremist Henry Paulson of Goldman Sachs.
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The Economist has a nice piece about an ulterior motive behind Paulson’s move to the Treasury Deptartment. Probably sensing the end of a credit cycle he decided to take advantage of the tax shelter of working in the Executive Branch. He will be allowed to diversify his $700 mm in GS stock into other investments without paying capital gains, though he still will have to pay taxes on the new investments later.
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