Joseph Nocera wrote a column in the morning’s New York Times called "For All Its Cost, Sarbanes Is Working". A lot of the story was subjective but there was an interesting quote from John J. Mahoney, the chief financial officer at Staples where they have spent $7-10 million instituting "Sarbox". According to the story, Mr. Mahoney said "It offered us an opportunity to look at our processes, and in many cases to improve them. We sound that our people really benefited from understanding the processes. It has made Staples a better company." There is no doubt that inefficient and antiquated processes inflict higher costs and lower customer satisfaction. Now that Mr. Sarbanes and Mr. Oxley are about to retire, their law may get modified, but I hope that companies will not relax their efforts to dissect their processes and automate them.

• Prior story: Sarbox-1