Friday, October 28, 2011

Regulation Cost? Just a Piffle!

(And if you believe THAT headline, we know how you'll vote next November.)

The number of man-hours it took to build every one of the 146 million iPhones in the world is dwarfed by the number of man-hours it takes American businesses to comply with the regulations created by this financial regulatory act, a video introduced by the GOP Committee on Financial Services shows.

While it took 5.5 million man-hours to build every iPhone out there, it takes 10.2 million man-hours annually to comply with Dodd-Frank regulations – every year.

The Wikipedia 'summary' of the damn bill takes 46 pages.

That's just Dodd-Frank.  Let's not forget Sarbanes-Oxley.  Or EPA.  Or SEC.  Or IRS, to name a few other burdens. 

And then there are the State and local regs.

No burden at all.  What--WE worry?
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8 comments:

  1. neomom10/28/2011 5:11 PM

    The regs don't cost anything Dad, just ask Jim and Strupp.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jim10/28/2011 5:56 PM

    Hey Mom. Pffft!

    Another way to look at it is if there are approximately 14,000,000 people employed in the financial services sector, that would be just under three-quarters of an hour per employee...annually.

    ReplyDelete
  3. neomom10/28/2011 6:39 PM

    How much do those 14,000,000 bean counters and paper-pushers cost businesses? Especially since they don't actually produce anything.

    Our Finance Department is almost as big as our Engineering Department. Our ERP system is designed to support Finance reporting, not manufacturing. On top of that we have a dedicated internal travelling audit staff and we still spend millions to KPMG and Ernst & Young.

    And Dodd-Frank hasn't even really hit yet.

    Gee, I wonder why we are losing jobs to other countries.

    ReplyDelete
  4. J. Strupp10/28/2011 7:31 PM

    Yes. That's my official position. Regs. don't cost anything.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dad2910/29/2011 7:13 AM

    Your official position is delerium.

    Unless you officially believe that there is no labor-value to time spent, or that the regulators are not paid.

    Jim's analysis conveniently forgets that the cost-of-compliance rises in converse proportion to the size of the bank (or other business.)

    IOW, the Big Banks--those spectacular failures like Citi and B of A--have minimal costs vs. the community banks.

    Huh. What a bargain.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dad2910/29/2011 9:27 AM

    And of course, Jim, Dodd-Frank is only ONE of the regulatory schemes out there in banking.

    There's FDIC, Comptroller, FRB, State agencies, and (depending on the flavor of the day) SBA, FHA, and the ever-famous Fair Housing enforcers.

    Not to mention CPA/auditors and IRS.

    But maybe your bank doesn't bother with all that stuff, eh?

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  7. Jim10/29/2011 12:22 PM

    My bank had record earnings once again this past quarter. I think they are doing just fine.

    ReplyDelete
  8. neomom10/30/2011 8:11 AM

    So change banks. Shop around. Regulate them with your feet. Stop expecting the government to save you from yourself.

    ReplyDelete