Your editorial "Reshaping Sarbox" (December 15), says that the Securities and Exchange Commission "deserves credit" for its current proposal to reduce the costs of Sarbanes-Oxley. So it does, but not too much credit.
The proposal is only a beginning of the required reform of Sarbanes-Oxley--and, to paraphrase a great Briton, not even the end of the beginning. Its most important achievement is symbolic: the official, public recognition that the wasteful expense generated by an act passed in political panic needs to be brought under control.
Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman, recently described most of Sarbanes-Oxley as "just a cost creator for no benefit". Indeed, the key point is that since its costs are much greater than its benefits, the implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley has been by definition bad for investors.
See full Letter top the Financial Times Editor.
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