‘Big Deal’
“Economists talk all the time about a ‘Pareto improvement,’ which means something that leaves no stakeholder worse off and leaves some stakeholders better off,” said former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, an investor in one such bond. “This is ground zero of a big deal.”
Goldman’s investment hinges on people such as Roca case worker Sulai Rosa, a 27-year-old former gang member who earns $34,000 a year trying to persuade her charges to go straight.
Rosa got an early start on Monday, March 10, the morning after the Dunkin’ Donuts shooting. Even before learning that 15 of the 22 men on her caseload had links to various sides of the gang-related conflict, she began making a case against retaliation. “Someone could have died,” Rosa told one of her charges that day.
Someone’s definitely going to die, the young man said.
“We’re working on de-escalating,” Rosa said.
Figuring out what to do with Aguilar would be trickier. In the nine months since police arrested him with a Mason jar of marijuana and a digital scale, he had been making progress in Roca’s programs, she said. Yet there he was in a cell, facing three charges, including armed assault with the intent to murder a man now lying in the hospital.
Beginning to piece together Aguilar’s role, Rosa feared the worst. “He’s done,” she said.
Values Investing
Social-impact bonds are a quickly expanding part of the nearly $40 billion umbrella of impact or “double bottom-line” investing, in which people seek to align their portfolios with their values.