The Tax Foundation has just issued its State Business Tax Climate Index (HT Atlas Shrugs aka “The Whirling Dervish of the Blogosphere”).

Here is the full set of state ratings and their weights (click to see a clearer version; no, I don’t understand why the pic below isn’t very clear; I promise the link is, though you may need to click to magnify the pic in Firefox):

The best two? Wyoming and South Dakota. The worst two? New York and New Jersey. For those in BizzyBlog’s immediate area, Ohio is #47, Kentucky is #44, and Indiana is #11.

Keep in mind that The Tax Foundation only evaluated the TAX business climate, and did not other factors that affect total business climate (education, workforce, infrastructure, etc.). Nevertheless, I’m not singing “The Wonderful World of Ohio” right now.

The background paper with all the gory details can be found at the bottom of the link.

The press release announcing Korn/Ferry International’s 32nd Annual Board of Directors Study reveals troubling findings on the impact of Sarbanes Oxley, and strong opposition to having it continue in its present form (HT Scatterbox):

Majority of Board Directors Feel Sarbanes-Oxley Regulations Should be Repealed or Overhauled

Significant Numbers Demand Amendments, According to Korn/Ferry International’s 32nd Annual Board of Directors Study

New York, February 23, 2006 – Just four years after the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley, 58% of Board Directors surveyed feel that the regulations have served only to make boards overly cautious, and should be repealed or overhauled, according to the 32nd Annual Board of Directors Study, released today by Korn/Ferry International (NYSE: KFY), the premier provider of executive search, outsourced recruiting and leadership development solutions.

“Although gross corporate misconduct has necessitated recent landmark regulations, there is a growing contention that the impact of these rules has been negative,” says Charles King, head of Korn/Ferry International’s Global Board Services Practice. “Many directors believe boards have become exceedingly wary and are not taking necessary risks to drive company growth. These directors are demanding reform.”

….. Rather than being the catalyst for improved governance, 72 percent of responding directors in the Americas believe that Sarbanes-Oxley regulations have served to make their boards more cautious. Almost two-thirds (65 percent) of their peers serving on US-listed Japanese boards hold the same opinion.

The above is potential poison for economic growth. If companies are deciding NOT to get into business lines or take calculated risks they would have otherwise taken pre-Sarbox, the resulting shortage of the kinds of innovations that drive long-term economic growth will likely lead to stagnation instead.

This isn’t the most elegant language, but it will get the job done: An economy doesn’t primarily achieve long-term growth merely by having everyone get just a little better at what they’re currently doing every year. Long-term growth only occurs when entrepreneurs and innovators come up with superior ways of doing things, of doing more things, and of solving more problems.

So is there a groundswell for overhauling or repealing Sarbox, which Scatterbox notes has already cost companies $14 billion in out-of-pocket costs, heading soon for $20 billion? Unfortunately, no. The mindset that company managements are mostly criminals in waiting has been planted deep in the public consciousness, and that perception is not going to change anytime soon. The definitely-not-scatterbrained Scatterbox quotes a CFO.com article that shows just how deep the distrust is:

According to a new poll conducted by The Wall Street Journal and Harris Interactive, 55 percent of U.S. investors believe that financial and accounting regulations governing publicly held companies are too lenient. That figure rises to 77 percent for male investors ages 45 to 54.

That is grim. Expect more companies the size of formerly public Georgia-Pacific to say “the heck with it” and go private, or get taken private, if things don’t change soon.
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UPDATE: Related story — “CEOs: Regulations Hurting U.S. Businesses”:

NEW YORK — Increased regulation and raised standards for financial reporting are hurting the international competitiveness of U.S. businesses, a survey of chief executives found.

The survey released Tuesday by Chief Executive magazine found more than one-half of CEOs said current levels of regulation hurt competitiveness, with another 11 percent saying they “significantly hurt.”

Most corporate leaders also said they are spending more on compliance, having increased funding for staff training, technology infrastructure, and for new software.

Jim Geraghty Nails It (HT Lucianne; links are in original post):

My friends, there is an organized disinformation campaign going on in the discussion of the Dubai Ports World deal. Draw whatever conclusions you wish about whether the deal is worthwhile, but please do not buy into these blatant misrepresentations, and please don’t spread them in your discussions.

Clearly, this is a hot-button issue, and there are plenty of reasons for concern in the UAE’s past behavior, particularly before 9/11. Of course, we’re hearing from guys like Ret. Gen. Tommy Franks and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace that UAE is “a friend” and “very, very solid partners” in the war on terror. And Sen. John Warner observed that the U.S. military has docked more than 500 ships in the past year in the UAE and uses their airfields to perform support missions for both Afghanistan and Iraq. But some folks still feel as if they can’t trust the UAE, and/or they want a fuller review. Fair enough. I don’t begrudge someone for having concerns about this deal.

However, I do begrudge someone for not having their facts straight. And long after I, and many others, pointed out that this deal is significantly different than what we were initially told, a particular group of people continue to dramatically misrepresent – aw, hell, let’s call it what it is – continue to lie about what it entails.

Read the whole thing.

But all of this demagoguery doesn’t change the fact, pointed out previously, that the Bush Adminisration should have been ready for this.
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UPDATE: Dennis the Peasant works through the details of security by reference to The International Ship and Port Facility Security Code.
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Previous Posts:

• Feb. 27 — The Dubai Deal: The Vaguely Written Story That Started It All
• Feb. 26 — The Dubai Deal: Isn’t This Special?
• Feb. 26 — The Dubai Deal: Confessions of a Knee-Jerk Reactor, with Plenty of “Good” Excuses
• Feb. 19 — That Arab Seaport Takeover Thingie

4th Quarter 2005 GDP — Revised upward from 1.1% to 1.6%. That’s a little more like it. Most, including yours truly, predicted the upward revision. Still, not impressive, and in the context of reports that 1st Quarter 2006’s rate will be 4.5% or more, odd to say the least.

Existing Home Sales — Down 2.8%, to a seasonally adjusted 6.56 million units. Most analysts believed that 2005’s rate was unsustainable.

Consumer Confidence — This is one of those things I call “Indicators of media success at convincing people the economy is worse than it really is.” Those whose mission it is to make that case had a good month: The Conference Boards’s consumer confidence index fell from January’s revised 106.8 to 101.7 in February, below an expected 104.0.

Here it is, as of February 26:

What can be said:

• Traffic has definitely plateaued.
• The plateau period began shortly after BizzyBlog Internet Wall of Shame member Google announced plans to launch Google China and to censor search engine results to satisfy Chinese government censors.

Beyond that, who outside the hallowed halls of Google knows why traffic has plateaued? Is the reaction to Google China’s censored launch a coincidence, or a cause, or has Google China’s traffic growth since the announcement simply cannibalized Google.com?

The company’s two-year chart shows virtually uninterrupted traffic growth since the beginning of 2005 — until roughly the past four weeks.

It bears watching.

UPDATE: Speaking of bears — “Google CFO Comments Send Investors Scurrying”:

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc.’s (GOOG) stocks declined sharply Tuesday morning after Chief Financial Officer George Reyes told investors that growth at the online search leader was slowing.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company’s stock was down as more than 10 percent, or nearly $41, in morning trading after Reyes told investors at a Merrill Lynch conference that the company would have to find new ways to boost revenues.

Free Links:

• The shortage is of objective talent at Reuters — Their report on the latest Manpower Inc. survey of employers starts this way (HT Taranto at Best of the Web; bold is mine):
  

  Employers are having difficulty finding the right people to fill jobs despite high unemployment in Europe and the United States, a survey by U.S.-based staffing firm Manpower showed Tuesday.

  The talent shortage referred to starts at Reuters, which must be having a very tough time finding writers who recognize there is a difference between double-digit near double-digit unemployment in Europe (”high”) and 4.7% enemployment in the US (”low”).

  Update: eLarson in the comments asks a great question about whether unemployment rates between the US and Europe are comparable. Based on the info below, which also inlcludes the unemployment rates in various European countries as of December, I would say the answer is “yes”:

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It appears that the definitions in the U.S. and European are essentially in sync, as both implicitly exclude “discouraged workers” (those who are out of work and not actively looking for work) and both use a 4-week time frame to determine whether someone is “actively” looking for work. Here’s the U.S. definition:

Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work. Actively looking for work may consist of any of the following activities:
- Contacting:
An employer directly or having a job interview;
A public or private employment agency;
Friends or relatives;
A school or university employment center;
- Sending out resumes or filling out applications;
- Placing or answering advertisements;
- Checking union or professional registers; or
- Some other means of active job search.

Update 2: Just when I think I have a handle on it — “German unemployment rises to 12.2 per cent.” Unless German unemployment went from 9.5% in December (DE above) to 12.2% in February (doubtful), there must be a difference in the way the EU reports unemployment vs. the way at least one of the governments reports it. Zheesh.

• First, They Came for Wal-Mart — Now the health-care mandate crowd in Maryland is working its way down the ladder, from its biggest employer, Wal-Mart, down to its smallest. This is from OpinionJournal.com’s Politicaly Diary (no link available):
  

  Eurosclerosis Comes to Maryland

  Last month, over Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich’s veto, Maryland Democrats enacted a “fair share” health-care tax on Wal-Mart. Now Delegate James Hubbard is going after the rest of the business community in a quest to give “health coverage to all Marylanders.”

  Four years ago Mr. Hubbard first offered legislation to impose a broad mandate on employers to provide health insurance. It went nowhere, so he turned to salami tactics. The just-enacted Wal-Mart bill was always just a first step. Last week, he introduced the next salami slice — legislation to force companies with more than 1,000 employees to spend at least 4.5% of their payrolls on health care or cut a check to Annapolis for the difference.

  Mr. Hubbard tells us he’s committed to being an “agent of change,” and he’s already sizing up his next target — companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. He wants to mandate that 2% or 3% of their payrolls be spent on health care.

  The Wal-Mart bill, which took aim at employers with 10,000 or more workers, had been pushed by big labor and some of the state’s biggest retailers, including supermarket chains, seeking to hobble a competitor. But the state Chamber of Commerce opposed the law. Now its warning about letting the camel’s nose under the tent has been vindicated. Mr. Hubbard’s latest health-care mandate bill “is the rest of the camel,” said chamber spokesman Ronald Wineholt.

  Whether the partially business-funded coalition for higher health spending will hold together now that Wal-Mart has been whacked will be worth watching. Though styled as health benefits, Mr. Hubbard’s plans are a direct tax on employment, which can only have a negative effect on job creation. Euro-stagnation anyone?

  The “business funders” should be second-guessing themselves about sticking it to Wal-Mart right about now.

  Update: Brendan Miniter has more at today’s OpinionJournal.com, especially how perverse federal incentives encourage states to expand the Medicaid rolls so that they will get — you guessed it — more federal dollars.

It happened in Ivujivik, Quebec (HT Amy Ridenour):

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