Want to Curb Market “Speculators”? Lots of Luck

John Tamny of RealClearMarkets

Back in 2002 and in the aftermath of the Enron and Worldcom implosions, former Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., and former Rep. Mike Oxley, R-Ohio, created the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, meant to curb allegedly funny accounting and business practices. As President George W. Bush asserted in signing the bill, “There will not be a different ethical standard for corporate America than the standard that applies to everyone else.”

Nice political theater for sure, but then reality set in.

Fast-forward four years, and the joke was on politicians naïve enough to believe that corporations with aspirations of going public would lie prostrate before tough new accounting rules. Most–to the extent that they did go public–just floated their shares overseas.