Facebook, Russia, & Reagan
Ron Hart over at The Daily Caller notes Facebook's recent overseas stock offering:
With the proliferation of cumbersome and often ambiguous American financial regulatory laws, companies like Facebook choose to let people in other countries invest in their growth, not Americans. Such was the case with Facebook's most recent offering where, instead of filing all the complicated paperwork and risking our litigation/regulatory system, it sold $1.5 billion in shares to Russian and other overseas investors, giving them what will probably be a hefty profit. All the layers upon layers of rules and regulations Washington has heaped on an already-fragile financial system have hamstrung our competitiveness and sent jobs and investment money to friendlier shores.
Facebook's recent financing venture is a wakeup call. Russia, run by ex-KGB officers, is viewed as an easier and less intrusive regulatory environment than the U.S. The Russians will make a huge profit on an investment that, just a few years ago, U.S. investors could have reaped. That Russia, a country that once crumbled under the weight of its own immense bureaucracy, is now less regulated and more business-friendly than America speaks volumes
If Ronald Reagan had known that we would head toward socialism and our Cold War adversaries would go from communism to capitalism, he might have altered his famous line: "Mr. Gorbachev, reinforce this wall!"