November 15 KAZI Book Review Features Author of TOO BIG TO SAVE?: How to Fix the U.S. Financial System

Robert Pozen, author of  TOO BIG TO SAVE?: How to Fix the U.S. Financial System is the November 15 guest on KAZI Book Review on KAZI 88.7 FM, 12:30 p.m. – 1p.m. You can listen to the interview live on the web at http://www.live365.com/profiles/kazifm.

Widely recognized for his leadership in both finance and economic policy, Pozen takes federal policymakers to task for spending huge sums of money with too few benefits for America’s taxpayers. Instead, he urges our government to rein in its bailouts, stop buying toxic assets, and provide more incentives for the private sector to regulate itself.  Pozen argues that:   

• The key to our economy’s recovery is the revival of loan securitization
• Broad-based legislative restrictions on executive compensation tend to backfire
• Fair value accounting did not cause the financial crisis and should mostly be retained
•  International cooperation won’t do much to prevent future financial crises
• Regulatory gaps should be closed without creating omnibus agencies

Within a sweeping analysis, TOO BIG TO SAVE? chronicles the collapse of our financial system, one domino at a time from mortgage-backed securities to stock markets, from money market funds to recapitalized banks, and from the SEC’s mistakes to international protectionism. Pozen then suggests how the securitization process should be reformed, assesses the impact of the financial crisis on the stock and bond markets, and evaluates the federal bailout of financial institutions by buying their stock and toxic assets.

Robert Pozen

 Pozen is Chairman of MFS Investment Management, which manages over $150 billion in assets for more than five million investors worldwide.  He was formerly vice chairman of Fidelity Investments and president of Fidelity

Management & Research Company, the investment advisor to the Fidelity mutual funds.  He served on President Bush’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security and as Secretary of Economic Affairs for Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.  He is a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and has contributed numerous articles to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Financial Times.

How Today’s Smartest Businesses From Facebook to Twitter Grow Themselves Focus of November 16 Economic Perspectives

Adam Penneberg, author of Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves, will be the November 16 guest on Economic Perspectives on KAZI 88.7 FM, 5:30- 6 p.m.  You can listen to the interview live on the web at http://www.live365.com/profiles/kazifm.

“Here’s something you may not know about today’s Internet. Simply by designing your product the right way, you can build a flourishing business from scratch. No advertising or marketing budget, no need for a sales force, and venture capitalists will flock to throw money at you,” explains Pennenberg.

Many of the most successful Web 2.0 companies, including MySpace, YouTube, eBay, and rising stars like Twitter and Flickr, are prime examples of what journalist Penenberg calls a “viral loop”–to use it, you have to spread it. After all, what’s the sense of being on Facebook if none of your friends are? The result: Never before has there been the potential to create wealth this fast, on this scale, and starting with so little.

In this game-changing must-read, Penenberg tells the fascinating story of the entrepreneurs who first harnessed the unprecedented potential of viral loops to create the successful online businesses–some worth billions of dollars–that we have all grown to rely on. The trick is that they created something people really want, so much so that their customers happily spread the word about their product for them.

Adam Pennenberg

All kinds of businesses–from the smallest start-ups to nonprofit organizations to the biggest multinational corporations–can use the paradigm-busting power of viral loops to enable their business through technology. Viral Loop is a must-read for any entrepreneur or business interested in uncorking viral loops to benefit their bottom line.

Penenberg is a journalism professor and assistant director of the Business and Economic Program at New York University. A contributing writer to Fast Company, he has also written for Inc., Forbes, the New York Times, Slate, Wired, The Economist, Playboy and Mother Jones. A former senior editor at Forbes and reporter for Forbes.com, he garnered national attention in 1998 for unmasking serial fabricator Stephen Glass of The New Republic. Penenberg’s story was a watershed for online investigative journalism.