Wendy Sherman: “America has to fight to get capital. China lets its domestic companies put anything they want on their financial…”

“America has to fight to get capital. China lets its domestic companies put anything they want on their financial statements. We respond with independent, nonpolitical, generally accepted accounting principles written by the FASB, an independent board. Under this bill, we would have generally political accounting principles. Capital will go abroad. No wonder perhaps the best group defending investors, Greenspan, Buffett, the mutual funds represented by the Investment Company Institute and the major pension plans representing public employees all oppose this bill. We are told that options are broadly based. Thirty percent of the options goes to the top five executives; the other 70 percent are narrowly spread among top executives. That is why 80 percent of CEO compensation in this country comes in the form of stock options. We are told that it is difficult to do the calculations to expense stock options, but accountants do much more difficult calculations already and have for generations.”