Government workers’ pensions may sound like an obscure topic, but it’s front and center in some of the most rancorous of today’s political discussions. Retirement benefits for public workers are at the heart of the conflict between state and local governments and the unions representing their workers — and how that conflict gets resolved will affect investors in the municipal bonds issued by those states and cities. Let’s take a look at the looming public pension crisis, its effect on municipal finance and how accounting reform might help.
Author Archives: Bob Pozen
JOBS Act: Jumpstarting Business or Bilking Investors? [Real Clear Markets]
President Obama is about to sign into law the JOBS Act-short for “Jumpstart Our Business Startups.” This Act won bipartisan support because it reduces the regulatory burdens on capital raising by small businesses. However, many of the Act’s provisions leave investors too vulnerable to significant risks that they do not understand.
Jumpstarting Hedge Funds
President Obama is about to sign into law the JOBS Act (pdf) – which stands for Jumpstart Our Business Startups. This Act has broad bipartisan support because it purports to create jobs by reducing the regulatory burdens on capital raising by small business. Whether the JOBS Act achieves this objective is another matter—which I have written about with Harvard Law Professor John Coates.
The danger of rolling back investor protections
Right about now, the Senate is scheduled to vote on H.R. 3606, the “JumpStart Our Business Start-ups Act” (or “JOBS Act”), which passed the House 390 to 23. The bill would roll back investor protections for a wide swath of mid-sized companies. Last week, Harvard Law School’s John Coates and I wrote an Op-Ed for the Washington Post arguing that the reforms would go too far.
A guide to charitable investing [Trusts & Trustees]
Bill to help businesses raise capital goes too far [Washington Post]
With John Coates.
The House voted 390 to 23 last week for a bill to provide regulatory relief for small companies trying to raise capital. The bill is moving quickly through the Senate; no one likes unnecessary regulations that burden economic growth.
But this bill does more than trim regulatory fat; parts of it cut into muscle. Small businesses will have a harder time raising capital if investors do not receive sufficient disclosures or other legal protections.
Read the rest at the Washington Post.
Bloomberg: “Pimco Deploys Derivatives in Race for Target-Date Fund Investors”
Bloomberg recently interviewed me for an article about the challenges facing target date funds, which are designed to gradually reduce an investor’s risk as he or she approaches retirement. Here’s what I had to say in the article:
Smoothing Corporate Pension Plan Discount Rates
There’s a controversial cost-offset provision in the highway bill currently being debated in the Senate; it would effectively allow corporations to make smaller contributions to their pension plans. And since a smaller contribution means a smaller tax write-off, tax revenue would increase by $7 billion over ten years. Although the bill itself is certainly not headed for an easy passage, this provision has raised some interesting—and complex—issues related to pension accounting.