Free Republic

America's fiscal need for entitlement reform is pushing the discussion about Social Security inexorably toward "means testing," a policy both the left and the right have long avoided. Both sides realize that means testing, namely reducing or eliminating payments from the program to higher income senior citizens, would recast Social Security from its current perception by citizens as a retirement program to one of outright redistribution or welfare. Many Americans see Social Security as a savings plan, albeit a coerced one, and a recent poll by the AARP (which certainly knows how to write poll questions geared to suggest as...

The biggest question facing Democrats as they head into 2011 is this: Who has the guts, money and potential electability to take on U.S. Sen. Scott Brown? Capuano? Khazei? Lynch? Frank? Murray? Setti Warren? As Brown likes to say, give me a break. Vicki Kennedy? Maybe. She says she has no interest, but she’s been acting like a candidate. Well, here’s another intriguing possibility: Robert Pozen. You may not know him, but Pozen is a legend in the investment world who’s made many millions of dollars helping run huge financial services firms such as Fidelity and MFS Investment. The Herald...

An Action Plan for Economic Recovery by Roger Thompson Most books about the nation’s financial crisis tell us what happened. In his new book, HBS senior lecturer Robert Pozen tells us how to fix the system. A financial industry veteran and chairman of MFS Investment Management, a Boston firm that oversees more than $170 billion in pension and mutual funds, Pozen writes with authority and unusual clarity about complex issues in Too Big to Save? How to Fix the U.S. Financial System (Wiley). Q: How does the government figure out which financial institutions are too big to fail? There are...

WASHINGTON – The investment executive President Bush lauds while selling his Social Security overhaul suggested Thursday the White House drop its insistence on private investment accounts funded with payroll taxes if that prevents Democrats from supporting the effort. Bob Pozen, whose concept of “progressive indexing” for future benefits has become an administration favorite, said lawmakers should instead focus on so-called add-on accounts, which are funded with other revenues. The Boston investment chief has suggested increasing investment in Roth IRAs by lifting the existing caps on them. “Given the lack of bipartisan support for carve-out personal accounts, the president should not...

The intellectual force behind President Bush's plan to overhaul Social Security, the man the president calls his favorite "Democrat economist," is not an economist. He is Robert C. Pozen, a lawyer and mutual fund executive who serves as chairman of MFS Investment Management in Boston. A registered Democrat, Mr. Pozen donated money to the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry last year and voted for him on Nov. 2. He was a classmate of Hillary Rodham Clinton at Yale Law School. But all that has not stopped President Bush from embracing Mr. Pozen's main idea to bring the nation's public...