Here’s a video of my appearance yesterday on Bloomberg’s “Bottom Line” program with Mark Crumpton. We discussed some of the problems with the federal pension system.
Category Archives: Media Mentions
A clarification of my thoughts on retirement and the deficit
Advisor One reported on a speech that I made about retirement. For the most part they understand my positions, but I want to clarify some of what they reported.
Speaking in Boston on Monday evening at the 4th annual Retirement Income Symposium, Pozen first said that it’s “pathetic on how little we’ve agreed on to deal with our debt.” Charging that “We’ve only agreed on $1 trillion; we should be aiming for $5 trillion,” he then laid out a proposal to “to keep our GDP to debt ratio as it is over the next 10 years.” Continue reading
New York Times book review of The Fund Industry
Demystifying the Fund Industry
Paul B. Brown reviews the latest book by Bob Pozen, The Fund Industry: How Your Money is Managed
It is amazing how little many of us really know about our mutual funds.
We may have a handle on the investments they hold — large-cap stocks or bonds or whatever — and some understanding of how they work: our money is pooled with a lot of other people’s, and we share the gains and losses proportionately. Continue reading
Respected Finance Veteran Proposes Professional Boards
By Amanda Gerut February 14, 2011
In the wake of the financial crisis, the work of corporate directors has come under intense scrutiny, with some critics calling for change.
A recent Harvard Business School article proffered one of the more radical visions: a new corporate director archetype in which typical directors are paid twice as much, spend double the amount of time they currently do on board matters and are seasoned experts in the main line of business of the company they oversee. Continue reading
Robert Pozen Discusses New Book “The Fund Industry” [Bloomberg Audio]
Robert Pozen, chairman emeritus of MFS Investment Management, discusses his 2011 book “The Fund Industry: How Your Money is Managed” with Bloomberg’s Pimm Fox and David Wilson. They spoke on Bloomberg Radio’s “Taking Stock.”
Robert Pozen: One on One [PBS Ideas in Action]
Jim Glassman asks Bob Pozen: Now that the U.S. financial system has come “back from the brink,” what more should be done to re-structure our banking system?
They’ve Got It: Fixes for the Financial System [New York Times]
By SEWELL CHAN and BINYAMIN APPELBAUM. Robert C. Pozen, chairman of MFS Investment Management and author of “Too Big to Save? How to Fix the U.S. Financial System” (Wiley, 2010), wants to require banks to issue an existing kind of bond known as long-term subordinated debt. “Subordinated debt is bought by very sophisticated investors who insist on conditions like capital requirements and covenants to make sure that banks don’t take on too much risk,” he says.
Since their investment is not guaranteed and their time horizon is long term, such creditors have interests closely aligned with those of government regulators, says Mr. Pozen, who is also a lecturer at Harvard Business School.
Cinderella’s moment [The Economist]
A special report on financial risk. Robert Pozen … thinks bank boards would be more effective with fewer but more committed members. Cutting their size to 4-8, rather than the 10-18 typical now, would foster more personal responsibility. More financial-services expertise would help too. After the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley act in 2002 banks hired more independent directors, many of whom lacked relevant experience. The former spymaster on Citi’s board and the theatrical impresario on Lehman’s may have been happy to ask questions, but were they the right ones?
Under regulatory pressure, banks such as Citi and Bank of America have hired more directors with strong financial-services backgrounds. Mr Pozen suggests assembling a small cadre of financially fluent “super-directors” who would meet more often—say, two or three days a month rather than an average of six days a year, as now—and may serve on only one other board to ensure they take the job seriously.