Mr. Davidson believes, for example, that oversight by a single regulator would result in onerous costs for small brokerage firms.

While everyone here complains about what they say are the onerous costs of complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or dealing with pesky shareholders, it is much more than that.

The Federal Reserve and Commerce, in assessing profitability, often include in income an item that business executives think of as an onerous cost: the interest payments on ballooning corporate debt.

Maybe so, Cassell argues, but Miranda also imposes an additional, more onerous cost on society.

"It was an onerous cost," said Mr. Frawley, who now operates his own corporate security firm, Eastern Security Inc.

That being higher acquisition costs, and, at times, onerous costs.

As for the onerous cost of the discovery process, "I don't think it's solely a securities-fraud case issue," Mr. Seligman said.

In recent years, corporation after corporation has complained about what they assert are the onerous costs of pensions.

While the states wait for federal leadership, automakers need to be compelled to achieve what they can in fact achieve without onerous costs.

"You can manage $2 billion in that amount of space, so rent is not an onerous cost for them."