Closing gaps

Henry Paulson, late of Goldman Sachs, seems to have been appointed as much the post of chief whipper of Sarbanes-Oxley as that of Secretary of the Treasury. Not that I'm all that pro-SOX, even though the big accounting companices refer to it as "Y2K without an end date" (quoth Rye and Flax). So Paulson goes around banging on tables saying that SOX is making US Capital markets fall behind those of the rest of the world. As measured by a small uptrend in companies listing with exchanges.

I might protest that he's overreaching, but it took me back 23 years to my AB Duke interview at Duke. For starters, I spilled the soda I had brought in all over the table.

I had submitted an essay on National Industrial Policy a la Robert Reich, and cited a fifteenfold increase in Airbus's market share (from 1 to 15%, while Boeing and McConnell-Douglas retained 82%) as evidence of how we needed some government investment. "Is this really a threat?" asked Professor John W. Cell (father of Jon and Tom Cell of CHHS soccer). A little flustered, I said "the trend of which it is representative is a threat." He huffed and puffed. I did not get the fellowship. (Not that I would have wanted to be in school with Christian Laetner)

And now what? McConnell Douglas is history. Airbus has majority market share. Small trends can grow to be big ones, that's for sure. Maybe Hank's on to something.