Corporate disclosure is a little like government spending: Nearly everyone agrees there’s too much of it, but it’s almost impossible to get anyone to agree on where to make the cuts.
We all know that the entire system of financial reporting and disclosure is overwrought, burdensome on U.S. companies, and fraught with pages and pages of meaningless, time-wasting material. There are several disclosure items that companies hate putting together, generally don’t provide meaningful information, and that investors and analysts don’t bother reading anyway. Just skim through the risk factors that companies report on their quarterly financial statements, for example, to see the boilerplate disclosures.
