Do the Securities Laws Matter? Since the Great Depression, U.S. securities regulation has been centered on mandatory disclosure: the various rules requiring issuers of securities to make publicly available certain information that regulators deem material to investors. But do the mandatory disclosure rules actually work? The stakes raised by this question are enormous, yet there is precious little consensus in answering it. After more than eighty years of intensive federal securities regulation, empirical testing of its effectiveness has failed to yield a definitive result. [HLS]
Florida "Lawyer of the Year" almost became — gasp — an accountant [Daily Record]
Corporate Pension Funding Falls Again in April Companies are giving back many of their recent pension plan gains as interest rates fall and stock prices stagnate. The funding deficit for S&P 1500 defined obligation pension plans totaled about $360.3 billion in April, according to consulting firm Mercer LLC. That is the largest funding gap since April last year and almost four times the $102.9 billion deficit recorded at the end of 2013. [CFO Journal]
Jerry Brown is down with soaking the rich in California [LA Times]
How Big a Deal Was BofA's $4 Billion Mistake? Just how effective are Bank of America Corp.'s accounting controls? It would be easy to say "not very" after the company's disclosure last week of a $4 billion error in its calculation of regulatory capital. [Bloomberg View]
Big Four Partners in U.K. Not Just from Elite Backgrounds Making partner at a Big Four accounting firm in the United Kingdom is no longer a privilege enjoyed only by those born in wealthy families, according to a new academic study. [AT]
Now that it's in the DM, you know it has to be true. Money CAN'T buy you happiness [Daily Mail]
