After months of talk about solutions that would rev up job growth and the economy, today the House Financial Service Committee may finally adopt a true bipartisan stimulus. Led by Democratic Reps. Carolyn Maloney of New York and John Adler of New Jersey, two amendments will likely be introduced to the Investor Protection Act that would truly stimulate the economy by partially liberating investors, entrepreneurs and innovators from the shackles of a seven-year-old “investor protection” law that has added billions…

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Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will weigh whether to decide what a federal judge called the “the most important separation-of-powers case regarding the President’s appointment and removal powers to reach the courts in the last 20 years.” Law professors Kenneth Starr and Viet Dinh, who worked on the case, have an editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal urging the Supreme Court to hear the case, which challenges a powerful, and largely unaccountable, federal agency called the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).…

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A different take on possible effects of lawmakers’ rabble-rousing on TARP bonuses. Jeffrey Goldfarb at breakingviews.com says that driving out talented financial executives in the U.S. may be a boon for foreign-owned banks in the U.S. in getting new talent, but most especially for London and its global financial powerhouse, the City. Sarbanes-Oxley already caused financial institutions to flee New York for London. The 90 percent tax rate on TARP bonuses might provide a new impetus for savvy executives to relocate.

Still, with London house…

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On Friday, a divided appeals court rejected a constitutional challenge to a powerful board set up by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to regulate the accounting industry.  The court’s decision was internally-inconsistent and illogical.  It also provoked a strong dissent from Judge Kavanaugh.  The challenge argued that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, as well as separation-of-powers safeguards.  Eminent legal scholars have questioned the PCAOB’s constitutionality, such as Law Professor Donna Nagy, an expert on securities regulation, and Professor Stephen Bainbridge, a…

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