You are here: Los Angeles Commentary

California News

L.A. County sheriff's investigators arrest graffiti suspects in predawn raids
Los Angeles Times - 54 mins ago
For many teens, days of summer far from lazy
Los Angeles Times - 54 mins ago
Unsolved slayings
Los Angeles Times - 54 mins ago

Commentary - Stephen Bainbridge: Sarbanes-Oxley bleeds profits, cuts risk taking

CommentsComment on this article
Jun 19, 2007 12:00 AM (437 days ago) by Stephen Bainbridge, The Examiner
This story ranks Not ranked
Related Topics: WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Apologists for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act claim that its corporate governance reforms benefit the American economy in a number of ways, including restored investor confidence in the integrity of the capital markets, enhanced corporate disclosures and reduced incentives for corporate management to manipulate stock prices. Unfortunately, these benefits are both intangible and resistant to measurement.

While we thus don’t know whether SOX in fact benefits the economy, we do know that it has imposed a much higher regulatory burden on U.S. public corporations than the law’s sponsors ever imagined. According to The Wall Street Journal, for example, publicly traded U.S. corporations routinely report that their audit costs have gone up as much as 30 percent, or even more, due to the tougher audit and accounting standards imposed by SOX.

The chief regulatory culprit is SOX section 404, which requires both management and the company’s outside auditors to annually assess the firm’s internal controls over financial disclosures. The Securities and Exchange Commission initially estimated that section 404 compliance would require only 383 staff hours per company per year.

According to a Financial Executives International survey of 321 companies, however, firms with greater than $5 billion in revenues spend an average of $4.7 million per year to comply with section 404.

This story continues below
Advertisement

The survey also projected expenditures of 35,000 staff hours — almost 100 times the SEC’s estimate. Finally, the survey estimated that firms will spend $1.3 million on external consultants and software and an extra $1.5 million (a jump of 35 percent) in audit fees.

To be sure, some of these costs were one-time expenses incurred to bring firms’ internal controls up to snuff. Yet, many other SOX compliance costs recur year after year. For example, the internal control process required by section 404 relies heavily on ongoing documentation. As a result, firms must constantly ensure that they are creating the requisite paper trail.

In addition, other ongoing expenses imposed by SOX include legal fees, premium increases in directors and officers insurance policies, and higher director fees to attract qualified independent directors to serve on boards of directors.

These costs are disproportionately borne by smaller public firms. A study by three University of Georgia economists, for example, found that post-SOX director compensation increases have been much higher at small firms. For small firms operating on thin margins, these and related SOX compliance costs can actually make the difference between profitability and losing money.

As a result, SOX has substantially distorted corporate financing decisions. On the one hand, SOX has discouraged privately held corporations from going public. As law professor Larry Ribstein observed on his blog, ideoblog.com, startup “companies are opting for financing from private-equity firms,” rather than using an initial public offering to raise money from the capital markets.

In the long run, or perhaps the not-so-long run, this barrier to the public capital markets may have a very negative effect on the economy, according to Ribstein: “Since going public is an important venture capital exit strategy, partially closing the exit could impede startup financing and therefore make it harder to get ideas off the ground.” Conversely, Ribstein notes, this is also a good deal of evidence that SOX is causing firms to go private.

Unfortunately, a recent study by former SEC Chief Economist Ken Lehn identified a new and very troubling consequence of SOX. Lehn’s study tested the proposition that SOX has a chilling effect on risk taking by managers.

Using a large sample of U.S. and U.K. companies, Lehn and his co-authors found that relative to U.K. firms, U.S. public corporations have significantly reduced their research and development and capital expenditures, while significantly increasing their cash holdings, since SOX. As a result, the equity of U.S. companies has become significantly less risky vis-à-vis U.K. companies since SOX.

Finally, they found that the likelihood that an IPO was conducted in the U.K. increased significantly after SOX and that this effect was especially high for firms in high research and development industries. Taken together, Lehn and his colleagues concluded, “the results support the view that SOX has had a chilling effect on risk taking by publicly traded U.S. corporations.”

We usually think of a risk as a bad thing, but for investors it is the absence of risk that is a problem. Risk and return go hand in hand. The more risk you’re willing to take, the higher your return. This is why returns on shares are typically higher than returns on corporate bonds.

As the company’s residual claimants, shareholders stand last in line. They don’t get paid until all other claimants have been paid. Because shareholders get everything left over, however, their upside is unlimited. For the company to generate such returns for the shareholders, however, it has to take risks. If SOX is deterring managers from taking risks, it’s going to reduce returns to investors.

It’s a very odd result for a statute that claims to be all about investor protection.

A member of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors, Stephen Bainbridge is a law professor at UCLA.

Add a Comment


Name: (required)
Comments:
characters left
Comments are regulated by the Terms of Use.

Comments from Examiner Readers

2:53 PM MST on Thu., Aug. 28, 2008 re: "Robert Cox: GOP candidates bailing out of PBS All-American Forum debate"

 bxtf opdiwrke said:
vxwre qcmswo xzts yfvcd iwjzdtbpf qziraosy tgmbhu

 1 agree | 1 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree

8:01 PM MST on Wed., Aug. 27, 2008 re: "La Shawn Barber: Local liberals learning new lessons on ‘diversity’"

 no no los illegals said:
You should see Huntington Ave. in Alexandria (Fairfax Co.) - it's like a landfill was spread down the length of the street... What, they don't have trash cans in El Salvador (they certainly don't have recycling bins.. heh)?

3 agree | 2 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
11:38 AM MST on Mon., Aug. 25, 2008 re: "Sen. Bill Frist: Free trade pact will benefit U.S., India and strengthen democracy"

 Examiner Reader said:
i always hang up on calls made by indi people, cant understand a word they say.

 5 agree | 4 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
6:25 PM MST on Fri., Aug. 22, 2008 re: "Mary Katharine Ham: Just go to Don’t Go!"

 Lifeofthemind said:
Mary Katherine, Please comment on the current conditions at TownHall. Since you departed have been reading a string of reports of anti-Semitic activty. This is most distressing. Perhaps you could help encourage them to clean their house. If quiet diplomacy does not work then you may feel a public statement is in order.

 7 agree | 6 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
5:51 AM MST on Wed., Aug. 20, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
Folks I am going to ask a big favor of you..a friend of mine who has moved to the island of kythera,Greece is in the throes of will they or wont they get wind power on the island,,problems aplenty..could you send this article to him to help him in his quest. Here is e-mail address;james@kythera-family.net Thank you if you can...Geocoroneos@netzero.net

 9 agree | 9 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
11:55 AM MST on Mon., Aug. 18, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
I've watched Picken's closely, he seems legitimate. As people have already mentioned he stands to profit from this venture. He requires our government to build and infrastructure that would allow for the energy produced by his wind farms to be sent to areas outside the heartland. The natural gas based cars are for fleets of cars not for the average citizen (I'm waiting for the volt). Most of you find yourselves in a bit of a pickle, you want cleaner renewable energies but you don't like big business. I loathe big government, as should any one who loves freedom and knows history. Big business needs to be regulated, we should see to that. We should not stifle new green energies because we don't trust big business; we should regulate big business because we don't trust them, let their greed power our homes and chevy volts, and let them compete with other greedy American business. I'd rather pay greedy Americans than transport 700 billion of our dollars to other countries.

 11 agree | 12 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
10:01 AM MST on Mon., Aug. 18, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
If he didn't own them you would be calling him a hypocrite.

11 agree | 10 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
9:45 AM MST on Mon., Aug. 18, 2008 re: "Should felons have the right to vote? - NO: Felon disenfranchisement is actually a good idea"

 Examiner Reader said:
This article is flawed on so many levels, but I'll just touch on one here. People who have committed felonies and served their time deserve, on release, all of their rights back. The entire point of our prison system is to rehabilitate, yet when someone gets released we disenfranchise them and the system by saying that we don't trust them with a basic responsibility, like voting. It's hypocritical to say that a man being released from his debt to society is "free" when he can't do simple things like find a good job or live in "this" neighborhood or talk to "that" person. And it's made ten times worse when we deny them the most important right we have as Americans, and that's the right to better our situation and government by VOTING. You're effectively saying that an ex-con doesn't deserve any more rights than those he had while in prison except for a better view.

 13 agree | 14 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
9:26 AM MST on Mon., Aug. 18, 2008 re: "Meghan Cox Gurdon: A glorious spectacle built on government repression"

 TurkeyRidge said:
Chicoms probably got idea from AmLibs who did the same to our American cities in the 1960's. It was called Urban Renewal. Only difference is speed.

12 agree | 11 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
10:22 PM MST on Sun., Aug. 17, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
When you all make billions are start handing out hundreds of millions of dollars at a time to push what you think is a good agenda and get mocked -- then you can start all this hullabaloo nonsense spouting off about corporate and political conspiracy to take everything you have. Since when have you green promoting, hippie land, liberal socialists promoted such green ideas as wind and solar, and then immediately criticize people for directly spending billions to follow your goals. Of course he wants the venture to not be in the red but to be an evergrowing business venture. That's what people with minds and degrees do. Stop sitting in your hippie coffee shop drinking a Chai Tea Latte out of styrofoam and petroleum-made plastic criticizing people at least making a real dent in the carbon footprint when you can't even stop using $.03 worth of stuff out of selfish and lazy reasons. I really will never check this post ever again but wanted to take this chance to let you all have it.

 20 agree | 15 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
2:46 PM MST on Sun., Aug. 17, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
Communicating visually via print excludes the sound of the Greek chorus quietly humming in the background, "Drilldrilldrilldrill....."

 14 agree | 16 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
1:45 PM MST on Sun., Aug. 17, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Phil said:
Pickens is a very devious & cunning scam artist. He has a long history of corporate raiding of Oil companies. He uses stealthy dealing and unethical business practice to acquire wealth. He destroyed Phillips Oil company, Gulf Oil... etc. He has caused a lot of unemployment. Pickens donated 165 million to golf program at Oklahoma State, got the Katrina deduction , paid no tax, then had the 165 mil invested in his own hedge fund. The California Proposition 10 is another scam venture that benefits his Natural Gas company in with taxpayer subsidies. His son was given probation for a stock fraud scheme in Dec. of 2007. Pickens paid $300000 to the victims of his son's fraud. How that for Family values? It is really difficult to tally all the ruin this guy has done... Is this guy to be trusted with any plan? His

21 agree | 21 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
12:04 PM MST on Sun., Aug. 17, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Frank said:
Google "Pickens & water & eminent domain" and you'll get the actual story. Pickens is betting that water will soon be the new oil. He wants to sell the water to big cities in Texas. He's bought a bunch of land in the Texas panhandle. The land sits over the Oglallah reservoir, a reservoir relied upon by midwest farmers, a reservoir formed by ice-age melt so that it does not replenish quickly. He's formed a water district and is using eminent domain to take people's land to run his water. But so far he's still blocked. Pickens wants the wind farm and the power lines so he can run water alongside it. He's trying to use the warm fuzzies of being green to get his right of way so that he can suck the Oglalla dry, make billions of dollars, ruin the livliehood of many many farmers, and destroy much of America's agriculture. You'd think any journalist worth his salt would mention this, no?

 22 agree | 18 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
12:48 AM MST on Sun., Aug. 17, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader Winslow Boynton said:
For myself the article didn't have serious content. The technologies for the top power pods is not advanced enough. The ones I saw on TV used DC generators with conversion to AC. That requires brushes and commutators which were long ago removed from cars. More brainpower must be used to have AC generators and drive trains to accomodate the normal power grid. Also- the ones on TV required weekly maintenance, thats too expensive. winslowgb@verizon.net WINSLOW BOYNTON 134 Becker Ave Northampton Pa. 18067

17 agree | 17 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
10:18 PM MST on Sat., Aug. 16, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
I think Carney raises some good points. Part of his plan involves continued reliance on expensive natural gas for transportation, when we could be switching to electric cars instead. Why should I buy a natural gas powered car, if I can charge my electric car hooked up to a few solar panels on top of my garage? Why should the taxpayers finance a national wind energy grid, when local solar/wind hybrid systems could directly generate enough for power for most of our needs? Seems like a national energy grid serves to keep the control of the majority of power generation in the hands of the largest utilities, or investor groups, at the expense of locally generated power systems which could be municipally owned and focused on public service, good paying jobs and not primarily aimed at profits for stockholders. I'd prefer to see the two parties disengage from their Imperial ambitions, (i.e. stop their damned wars, and start investing in locally based decentralized public power generation. IMHO

 22 agree | 18 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
5:19 PM MST on Sat., Aug. 16, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
good article,but the real point is left out.its all about our carbon footprint.saving this planet if you will.giving a tax break to pickens is ok by me.he does mention saving the planet from time to time.i have never ever heard a texas oil millionaire say crap about the planet.aren't those southern christians supposed to be stewards of the planet according to thier book,which obviously they never read.

 20 agree | 20 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
12:33 PM MST on Sat., Aug. 16, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
This opinion piece illuminates nothing. Pickens has been open in discussing his financial interest in wind energy development and has invested heavily in it. Also, don't overlook the fact that he's 80 and doesn't need any more money. (I'm trying to get past the Swift Boat scum.) That said, T. Boone Pickens plan is spot on. It was surreal to see him on Larry King with Ed Begley, Jr. agreeing with each other. I hope there are government subsidies and tax incentives. I hope Wall Street begins to pay attention and that there will be a lot of job creation with the introduction of wind and solar power. If we don't get behind this technology now, we'll be buying it from the EU. Finally, this isn't a Pickens vs. Al Gore thing. Pickens is a business man and Al Gore is a public servant turned messenger. They're both visionary and they're both right. It's time this country stopped being scared of everything and grew a pair. Ask your grandparents how good it felt to be self sufficient

 20 agree | 22 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
12:01 PM MST on Sat., Aug. 16, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Wa Ho said:
It is not the "Wind Machines" that we should be worried about, they will at least provide a long-term clean energy benefit, whatever the intial cost. What is more horrifying is Pickens' plan to pump out the Ogallala Aquifer and pipe it to Dallas and others. The Ogallala Aquifer provides water for up to 60% of US produce and Pickens is planning to drain it for his own profit under the subtrefuge of public good. No water in the Aquifer means no water for food growth. You think $4.00 gas is bad, how about $15 bread...

 19 agree | 16 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
9:57 AM MST on Sat., Aug. 16, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
T. Boone Pickens is a traitor who paid millions to the Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth", then denied paying the reward to Kerry's swift boat mates (they designated the earnings to a charity group that serves injured vets) who answered his "$1 Million Challenge" and proved SBV"T"'s lies were wrong.

 17 agree | 21 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
9:05 AM MST on Sat., Aug. 16, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
OK, then. Let us burn more coal. After all, birds thrive on coal burning power plants! And God forbid this rich man become richer. What I'm really trying to understand is if this means Carney hates solar energy, too. PV cells take lots of energy to manufacture, and -- gasp -- rich manufacturers and installers get richer because of -- gulp -- subsidies. Why doesn't Carney mention solar in his essay? California's solar power would be a minute fraction of what it is without subsidies paid, by taxpayers. Perhaps there's no target to aim at when ripping solar power. One thing I don't see in the essay is a solution. Carney tells us what's wrong with wind power, hydro power and hybrid cars, but he offers no solution(s).

 20 agree | 20 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
6:42 AM MST on Sat., Aug. 16, 2008 re: "Michael Warren: Congress not interested in probing lawyers scam"

 Ivan Fail said:
Unless and until majority electorate Consumers and the business community join hands ---, seize and impose majority electorate administration and full disclosure control over all phases of all 50 state attorney "discipline" bureaucracies --, we will continue to be ripped off, fleeced, bullied, exploited and enslaved by the lawyers. Currently the attorney "discipline" process is owned, administered, operated and controlled by the lawyers. That is a "fox guarding the chicken house" process. Continuing to try to use the lawyer owned, operated and controlled Congress and the lawyer owned, operated and controlled Courts to "shovel the rotten apples out of the legal profession" has to be one of the most stupid, impotent, tunnel visioned and "doomed to failure" missions in history. Effective clean up and accountability HAS to take place at the state attorney discipline level first! If we fail to do that the lawyers will write the "obituary" of our freedom in fine print legalese.

12 agree | 11 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
5:57 AM MST on Sat., Aug. 16, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 5th Estate said:
Gore was mocked and dismissed, but Pickens' newly-minted opinion is promoted by the business press because only businessmen can be respected (Riiight). The biz-press is functioning as a PR firm as it often does (e.g/ Enron, Health Savings Accounts, big companies deserve bailouts whilst individuals deserve debtors prison, and so on). Changing the energy infrastructure WILL require taxpayer contributions,the question is who gets the best return? As wind, sun and water are public resources it should be communities who benefit first and foremost--otherwise it will be business as usual where private corporations control and charge the public for public resources which the public has already subsidized whilst the majority of profits go to the largest shareholders who then avoid the income taxes that would otherwise constitute the re-payment of the tax-payer loan. The energy business may be new but the business model is old.

17 agree | 17 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
5:37 AM MST on Sat., Aug. 16, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Robin said:
Wind turbines don't displace any CO2, are extremely inefficient, are a developers dream come true as far as subsidies and double depreciation go and are taking money and time away from finding good solutions to clean up energy generation. Thank you for a thoughtful article.

 18 agree | 16 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
1:52 AM MST on Sat., Aug. 16, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Barry W said:
Whoever said the rich weren't going to make a profit? Nobody. The issue is about dependence on foreign oil...foreign intrigues...foreign anything. Why can't we be independent? Because you've been sold on the interdependence of the world markets. In other words we have to be a part of the global market. Crud on that. At least Pickens is doing something...risking something...taking a risk nobody else in the country seems to want to take....and with his own money. Sure, he'd like subsidies...they existed once before...but how in the heck are we going to build the hundreds of thousands of megawatts of wind energy capability without investment...without risk? They aren't going to magically appear. And do you really want nuclear? Really? The wind and sun can provide all we need today...with today's solar energy...not the energy from millions of years ago. Today's solar power today. Pickens is a hero...rich or poor...don't be jealous...applaud.

 14 agree | 15 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
11:52 PM MST on Fri., Aug. 15, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
Two quick things to consider. 1) Boone Pickens conveniently also owns all that natural gas that you read about in "[h]e would shift natural gas from electricity generation to transportation, replacing a third of our gasoline consumption with natural-gas-powered cars." 2) Boone Pickens owns massive (extremely lucrative) water rights in a giant Northern Texas aquifer, and sadly (for Boone Pickens), water districts don't have eminent domain. However, now that the electric transmission line routes have luckily been approved by Texas, using eminent domain, they are willing to run water pipes along the same route and install them at the same time. Isn't that neat? Regardless, wind power (and solar and cellulose biofuels) are the future and I'd rather subsidize that than oil any day - and don't think for a second that we don't subsidize oil far beyond providing "security" in war zones.

 13 agree | 15 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
8:53 PM MST on Fri., Aug. 15, 2008 re: "Timothy Carney: Shocking! Windmill owner wants subsidies!"

 Examiner Reader said:
While I would have no remorse if T Boone Pickens fell off the face of the Earth tomorrow, your pathetic attempt to discredit wind power just because Pickens will profit from it is...well..pathetic. The stupid bird argument has been disproved by tons and tons of research, and whatever source you're sighting in this article is clearly opinion based. People like you would rather polute the landscape with oil wells than wind turbines, so don't try to argue that its an eye sore either. One thing is for sure; Pickens will profit no matter what we do, so don't try hide your contempt for wind beneath this strawman argument that the swiftboater is taking advantage of us.

 19 agree | 20 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
10:35 AM MST on Fri., Aug. 15, 2008 re: "Michael Warren: Congress not interested in probing lawyers scam"

 Examiner Reader said:
Please continue to inform the public about judicial and political corruption. The corruption is very bad in the small town where I live, in Florida and from hearing the national news it is bad everywhere in this nation. This must be exposed and stopped!

 13 agree | 11 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
10:20 AM MST on Fri., Aug. 15, 2008 re: "Melanie Scarborough: ADA abusers harm genuinely disabled"

 Examiner Reader said:
I'm not quite sure who Ms. Scarborough thinks the ADA should protect from discrimination if not a woman who has had breast cancer, a mastectomy, and her ovaries removed. I think she missed the bottom line here: The Foreign Service denied a top candidate a job because she had a history of breast cancer. There was nothing about the job she could not do, but the Foreign Service reacted irrationally because of their fear of cancer. Ms. Scarborough got one thing right -- the law is written badly. It needs to be fixed so that it protects people like Kathy Adams from discrimination without the hurdle of proving that she is disabled in a "major life activity." The fact that she had breast cancer and the Foreign Service discriminated against her because of it, should be enough for protection. You can hardly fault Ms. Adams or her lawyers for coming up with a creative argument to satisfy a badly written law.

 19 agree | 13 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
11:15 PM MST on Thu., Aug. 14, 2008 re: "Meghan Cox Gurdon: A glorious spectacle built on government repression"

 Examiner Reader said:
Gurdon does a really fantastic job of ignoring all the good that the Olympics has done for China... and yes, it has brought some good there. Not universal, but definitely positive developments. The Nazi comparison is really getting old. I remain hopeful - with my limited experience of only having spent time in China - that the better comparison is Seoul 1988. Anyone who thinks there's no dissent in China or that all protest it met with guns and prison doesn't know a damn thing about the place.

 14 agree | 12 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
10:29 PM MST on Thu., Aug. 14, 2008 re: "Mary Katharine Ham: Obama helped by sex scandal that wasn’t"

 For Rupert's Lady Mary Katharine said:
Fix News "analyst" Ms. Ham has hammed it up again. Polls show that most Edwards voters would have voted for Obama, not Hilary, although I understand the right's sadness at not being able to beat up the more-easily-targetable Clintons for one more election cycle.

 13 agree | 15 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
4:28 PM MST on Thu., Aug. 14, 2008 re: "Mary Katharine Ham: Obama helped by sex scandal that wasn’t"

 Barely About Barack said:
Iseman? Right, McCain's supposed sexual downfall. Of course, McCain pushed back, which is why Ryan's capitulation seemed so odd.

 12 agree | 12 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
3:20 PM MST on Thu., Aug. 14, 2008 re: "Mary Katharine Ham: Just go to Don’t Go!"

 Examiner Reader said:
Ham implies Barack would be nowhere with without sex scandals. I have two words for her about Barack's next success... Vicki Iseman

 13 agree | 13 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
7:26 AM MST on Thu., Aug. 14, 2008 re: "Mary Katharine Ham: Obama helped by sex scandal that wasn’t"

 Barely About Barack said:
In fairness, Ham's revision of the Jack Ryan withdrawl was interesting to read. One question still came up: Why did he resign from the Illinois Senate Race? If the "scandal" was a non-issue, why didn't he push back instead of just quitting? I'm also not sure how culpable Obama is for the actions of the Democratic Senatorial Camapign Committee. Sounds more like insinuation.

 13 agree | 14 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
6:20 AM MST on Thu., Aug. 14, 2008 re: "Meghan Cox Gurdon: A glorious spectacle built on government repression"

 Examiner Reader said:
If the prism through which one views another country is fear, one will always see the worst in that country. Not every facet of China reveals a rotting core.

21 agree | 15 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
1:13 PM MST on Wed., Aug. 13, 2008 re: "Should felons have the right to vote? - NO: Felon disenfranchisement is actually a good idea"

 Examiner Reader said:
Somebody is playing the "RACE CARD" against Honest, hardworking American that commit no felonies; They obey laws, the ones that commit crimes should not be given the right to vote. If Obama is out loading up with felons to get their vote-this will open an avenue for dishonest candidates to pander to them and give gadzillions of dollars of benefits. They (felons) have forsaken their rights when they chose to be felons and depend on felonious judges to go easy on crimals.

 15 agree | 14 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
3:57 PM MST on Tue., Aug. 12, 2008 re: "John R. Thomson: Whose genocide will it be?"

 Examiner Reader said:
Thank you very much dear John for your courage!! I once believed the lies that islam is about peace, And I embraced it, Only to find,Islam was never about peace

18 agree | 15 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
11:14 AM MST on Tue., Aug. 12, 2008 re: "Mark Newgent: Stupid environmentalist tricks in College Park"

 To Sam Wright (Essex, MD) said:
You asked, "If the ocean is rising and Maryland shores are threatened, why does Back River still dry up?" Assuming no dams are involved, it may just be an unusually dry spell in the river's area. Rising oceans may increase the likelihood of flooding along the river, assuming no additional erosion takes place.

 14 agree | 14 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
10:55 AM MST on Tue., Aug. 12, 2008 re: "Mark Newgent: Stupid environmentalist tricks in College Park"

 Examiner Reader said:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I tried to get friends and neighbors to read the junk on the CCS website and they didn't believe the state was spending money to put this plan together, let alone actually do it. Unfortunately we have part of it in place already that will cost us hundreds og millions of dollars for years to come - one example being the Regional Green House Gas Initiative (RGGI). Electric rate payers will pay for years for this farse to fund pet projects of the CCS plan. Lets hope this article casts some light on run amuck junk science and stops the stupidity.

 14 agree | 15 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
10:15 AM MST on Tue., Aug. 12, 2008 re: "Mark Newgent: Stupid environmentalist tricks in College Park"

 Sam Wright - Essex, MD said:
"Take sea level rises, for example. Boesch’s report claims that Maryland’s waters will rise four feet, wiping away 200 square miles of land and islands, along with submerging large swaths of coastal counties. This is pure fantasy." My apartment faces Back River in Essex. If the ocean is rising and Maryland shores are threatened, why does Back River still dry up?

13 agree | 14 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
4:55 PM MST on Mon., Aug. 11, 2008 re: "Should felons have the right to vote? - NO: Felon disenfranchisement is actually a good idea"

 Examiner Reader said:
First and foremost, once you have served your time and paid your fines and are released from probation, parole and/or prison, your sentence should be done. If you don't let someone vote, work or be part of society, then you leave them no choice but to return to what they know. Let's not leave out the fact that felonies are handed out like parking tickets in some areas. What's the use of a "Justice System" and "Laws"? Open your eyes, people can change! By the way. To the writer of the article, if you really believe this way, wouldn't you be more happy in a place like Russia,China,Iraq or some other closed minded country?? Just saying......

16 agree | 19 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
1:31 PM MST on Mon., Aug. 11, 2008 re: "Mark Newgent: Stupid environmentalist tricks in College Park"

 Lies, Damned Lies, and Demographics said:
MCCC is the Maryland Climate Change Commission, mentioned earlier in the article. However, I'm not sure who the "IPCC" is.

 16 agree | 16 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
12:57 PM MST on Mon., Aug. 11, 2008 re: "Mark Newgent: Stupid environmentalist tricks in College Park"

 Examiner Reader said:
Newgent says: "The MCCC itself is a kangaroo court conceived and controlled by the Center for Climate Strategies, a subsidiary of an avowed alarmist advocacy group....." Mr. Newgent, please tell us what group you are referring to. This article is just a shallow, childish rant.

 17 agree | 18 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
10:39 AM MST on Mon., Aug. 11, 2008 re: "Mark Newgent: Stupid environmentalist tricks in College Park"

 Lies, Damned Lies, and Demographics said:
Would the author care to cite a scientific source for his alarmist claims? Specifically, "In Maryland, the recently deceased federal cap- and-trade bill, Lieberman-Warner, by 2020 would have resulted in 40,000 jobs lost, a 70 percent increase in gasoline prices, a 40 percent increase in electricity costs and a $4.2 billion loss in gross state product"

 18 agree | 17 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
7:16 AM MST on Mon., Aug. 11, 2008 re: "The curious case of Wilson Senior High's Art Siebens"

 Examiner Reader said:
This infuriates me to no end.

 19 agree | 17 disagree
Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree
2:04 PM MST on Thu., Aug. 7, 2008 re: "Meghan Cox Gurdon: We should never have given China the games"

 Examiner Reader said:
Ms. Cox Gurdon is always entertaining and provocative. There is a more than a touch of provocative bombast in this piece, though. One of the enduring lessons of the last 30 years is that China is a complex, dynamic and difficult-to-pigeonhole society that observers characterize at their peril. Occam's razor is a useful tool, but when it is wielded with unprincipled abandon, as does Ms. Cox Gurdon in her piece, it butchers reality and reveals nothing but caricature. Where to start? China's lao gai gulag? Yes, much to worry about. But how does one factor in improved labor laws and conditions that are transforming China from a system in which slave labor conditions pr