Scott Burns is a newspaper columnist and author who has covered personal finance and investments for over 30 years. Today, he ranks as one of the five most widely read personal finance writers in the country, according to The Dallas Morning News. He is best known for creating the "Couch Potato Portfolio" investment strategy, which advocates the use of index funds over managed funds or stock-picking. In 2006, he co-founded the Web startup AssetBuilder, where he serves as chief investment strategist.

Education

Burns graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 with a degree in humanities and biology (1962).

Career

Burns began his career as a newspaper columnist at the Boston Herald

Boston Herald

The Boston Herald is a daily newspaper that serves Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and its surrounding area. It was started in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States...

in 1977 where he was also the financial editor. The column was nationally syndicated in 1981 and is now distributed by Universal Press Syndicate

Universal Press Syndicate

Universal Press Syndicate, a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, is the world's largest independent press syndicate. It distributes lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger Ebert and News of the Weird...

. In 1985 he joined the staff of The Dallas Morning News where his column became one of the most widely read features in the paper. Retiring as a Dallas Morning News staff member in 2006, he continues to contribute to the paper through his ongoing syndication.

In August 2006, Burns co-founded AssetBuilder, a registered investment advisory firm, with former Microsoft executive Kennon Grose. The firm offers investors a means to employ an advanced version of Burns' "Couch Potato Portfolio" investment methodology through a Web-based service platform. Burns is chief investment strategist for AssetBuilder.

Financial writing

In December 2001 the National Center for Policy Analysis published a paper Burns co-authored with benefits attorney Brooks Hamilton titled, "Reinventing Retirement Income in America." The paper was influential in advocating automatic enrollment, automatic increases in contributions, managed accounts, and little or no company stock, all of which have become trends in corporate retirement plans.

Burns' book "The Coming Generational Storm" (MIT Press, 2004) was co-authored with Boston University economist Laurence J. Kotlikoff. The book was endorsed by five Nobel laureates, listed as one of the 25 best books of 2004 by Barron's, and named one of the top 10 business books of 2004 by Forbes. The book warns of a worldwide generational financial crunch and advises investors on how to protect themselves.

Kotlikoff and Burns recently wrote a second book, "Spend 'Til the End," presenting new ideas in financial planning based on consumption smoothing

Consumption smoothing

Consumption smoothing is the economic concept used to express the desire of people for having a stable path of consumption.Since Milton Friedman's permanent income theory and Modigliani and Brumberg life-cycle model, the idea that agents prefer a stable path of consumption has been widely accepted...

. The book was published by Simon & Schuster in June 2008.

The Couch Potato Portfolio

The original Couch Potato Portfolio strategy included investing half of the investor's assets in a Standard & Poor's 500 Index fund and half in a fund mirroring the Shearson/Lehman Intermediate Bond Index. Burns used the Vanguard 500 Index and Vanguard Total Bond Fund Index.

As described by Shauna Croome-Carther in Investopedia:

"Those with higher risk tolerance can modify the 50/50 asset allocation strategy to 25% in the Vanguard Total Bond Fund Index and 75% in the Vanguard 500 Index. The 25/75 allocation is known as the 'sophisticated couch-potato portfolio'. The higher weighting in equities is more suitable for younger investors, and those closer to retirement need more security. Ever since the concept originated, the couch-potato strategy has been modified to suit individual needs from various countries."

Published works

• Squeeze It Till the Eagle Grins (1972)
• Home, Inc., The Hidden Wealth and Power of the American Household (1975).
• "Reinventing Retirement Income in America" (with Brooks Hamilton; National Center for Policy Analysis, 2001)
• The Coming Generational Storm
  The Coming Generational Storm
  The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's Economic Future is a book by Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Scott Burns....
  
  (with Laurence Kotlikoff
  Laurence Kotlikoff
  Laurence Jacob Kotlikoff is a William Warren FairField Professor at Boston University, a Professor of Economics at Boston University, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a...
  
  ; MIT Press, 2004)
• Spend Til' the End (with Laurence Kotlikoff; Simon & Shuster, 2008)

Burns' articles and columns have appeared in Worth, Boston, Playboy, Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.