Is Sarbanes Oxley a Waste of Time?

Kevin D. Williamson wrote a really great article recently about the difference in Senator Elizabeth Warren’s treatment of rogue banks like HSBC and state and municipal fraudsters like the state of Illinois and the city of San Bernardino.

http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer/343046/where-s-warren

The article brought to mind a question that has bothered me for some time.  Why is Jon Corzine not indicted yet?  He was the CEO of MF Global when it went bankrupt.  Commodity broker MF Global used customer account money in its failing attempts to avoid bankruptcy.   Under Sarbanes Oxley as well as Securities laws, this is a crime.  In testimony before Congress, Cozine said he didn't know he was using customer money to meet MF Global's corporate margin calls.  I thought Sarbanes Oxley was specifically designed to make this defense impossible.  Note that Jon Corzine was a really big bundler of campaign contributions for Obama, as well as a former Democratic Senator and Governor of New Jersey.  Now that the campaign is over, can't we indict this guy?  Can't Warren demand some answers here?  If Sarbanes Oxley does not apply in this case, can we repeal it because compliance is both horribly expensive and, given MF Global shenanigans, a complete waste of time? 

Nanny State Result of Government Healthcare

The nanny state is a predictable outcome of Medicaid, Medicare and publicly funded healthcare in general.  Once the government is paying for your healthcare instead of you paying for it, they have a big interest in controlling your behavior as it contributes to your health.  They are paying the piper, so they want to call the tune.  While Mayor Mike Bloomberg is a little extreme, the general attitude is that experts know better than you do, so they want to tell you what’s good for you.  Also, they want to save on paying for your healthcare.  So progressives/liberals think they must be able to control your activities, for your own good.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/03/11/soda-ban-and-the-government-leviathan-michael-bloomberg/

Statistics Prove Assault Rifle Ban Bogus

The Washington Post has a story today about how emotions play out in the Senate committee hearing on gun control legislation.  It’s clear from the article the Diane Feinstein is very emotional about the issue and resents any rational argument to the contrary.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/03/14/assault-weapons-ban-passed-after-heated-senate-hearing/

However, calm down and ask yourself some questions:  Are there any statistics collected federally or by states on the change in the use of semi automatic rifles in crimes before and after "assault weapon" bans? Are semi automatic rifles used in most murders? Are they even used in more murders than knives or blunt instruments? Given that Connecticut had and has an "assault weapon" ban, was this effective in stopping the mass shooting at the grade school? Are liberals aware how easy it is to make a spring loaded magazine with more than the legislated 10 round capacity for any mildly handy person with a few tools? Is emotion the only thing that counts for liberals?  Some of the answers can be found in the FBI statistics in the link below:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

    In the chart, it shows 356 murders committed with rifles of all kinds, not just “assault rifles” or even just semi automatic rifles, in 2011.  Does that seem like a lot to you?  I have heard on the news that in Chicago we are over 500 murders per year just in the city alone. Here in Chicago, some of the strictest gun laws in the country do not seem to be stopping the violence. To put the number of rifle murders in perspective, there were 12,664 murders in the US in 2011 according to the FBI. So the number of rifle murders in 2011 is 2.5 percent of the total. There were 1,694 murders committed with edged weapons, like knives. There were 496 committed with blunt weapons like clubs, hammers and baseball bats. Should we require a background check to buy Swiss army knives as long as we are going to be letting them on airplanes?

    Here is a link to the number of murders by weapon for 2000-2004.

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/murder.html#table2_9

This is relevant because the federal assault weapon ban was in effect from 1994 to 2004.  Taking 2003, the last full year of the ban, the number of murders using rifles was 392.  The total number of murders was 14,465, giving 2.7% of murders that year committed by rifles.  Basically the same rate as 2011.  In other words, this whole stunt is a feel good emotional exercise which will infringe on Constitutional rights without any beneficial effects.

    By the way, since liberals like to bring up Hitler when discussing conservatives, I will mention him.  Hitler was a big gun control supporter.  Once in power, he passed the 1938 German Weapons Act.  Jews were not allowed to own guns under the act.  The act was designed to preclude Jewish armed resistance. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Germany

    But there is some benefit to be had from this fiasco.  Remember that the Democrats in the Senate are going to force multiple votes on gun control.  This should cost about 7 Democratic Senators their jobs whether they vote for it or not.  If they vote for it, they lose to their Republican challenger.  If they don't, they get a primary from their left, eating up all their campaign cash.  In the words from Animal House, "This is gonna be great!" 

We Need to Cut Amtrak

Typical liberal response to any budget cut threat is: "You can't possibly cut (fill in the blank).  It’s way too important.  Besides it's not very much money by itself."  As Everett Dirksen once said, a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money.  We are borrowing 35 to 40 cents on the dollar of Federal spending.  The right answer is, we have to cut EVERYTHING WE CAN.  This includes the sacred cow of Amtrak.  The Amtrak subsidy budget is 1.45 billion dollars.  The romance of passenger trains is not worth it.  

http://www.planning.org/features/2012/federalbudget.htm