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Here are my ten best books for college undergraduates to read.

- Envy by Joseph Epstein (2003)
- The Overspent American by Juliet Schor (1998)
- Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury (1999)
- American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (1925)
- The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell (1975)
- The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004)
- Golden Notebooks by Doris Lessing (1962)
- Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers by Robert L. Heilbroner (1953)
- The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade by Pietra Rivoli (2005)
- A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul (1979)

Notre Dame College of Arts and Letters students asked me to write about what books I would recommend they read before they graduate and why. I didn't select the best ten books, I selected ten books that would make them prepared for life as a new graduate.

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March 2007

The new pension legislation (Pension Protection Act 2006) promises to make pensions better funded and to increase savings. The opposite is true and, sadly, Congress missed an opportunity to improve workers' retirement security. The Act, signed into law on August 17, 2006, changes the funding rules for single employer defined benefit plans, and though it does nothing to kill these plans outright, it does much to discourage firms from continuing them. There were loopholes in the old law that let firms avoid their funding responsibilities. But this Act goes overboard, making perfectly sound companies speed up funding for any pension debt and, for many, will make defined benefit plans much more expensive. Since firms freezing or eliminating their DB plans do not have to make up for their workers’ pension losses when they do, it may be a way for companies to reduce their labor costs at the expense of worker pension benefits. Estimates show the biggest losers are workers about 10 – 14 years away from retirement. The almost 1,000-page bill packed in a list of goodies. Foremost is help for Wall Street 401(k) plan managers. The bill exempts them from conflict-of-interest protections, so they can advise employees to buy the products they sell. 401(k) plans enjoy over $110 billion of tax-favoritism, but Congress did not hold them to a public purpose. Congress ignored pleas to force employers to disclose 401(k) administrative fees. The new law encourages employers to include middle- and low-income workers in their 401(k) plans; Congress should have mandated coverage for everyone if the executives have it. Congress moved to permit high-income workers to shelter up to $20,000 per year in a tax-free account; most economists agree this encourages the highest earners to shelter their wealth from taxes and does little to increase the amount saved. Congress failed to limit the amount of money people take out of their retirement accounts before old age, so 401(k) plans are still not real pensions. Most large companies opposed the bill saying it would make traditional pension funding more erratic. Tragically, Congress did nothing for over half of workers with no pensions. We may have fond hopes Congress will someday pass laws to promote pension security; but, for now, the financial management industry knows it got theirs.

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