On April 5, 2012, the President signed into law the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which passed by a large bipartisan majority in the Congress. The Act is designed to facilitate the equity funding of new companies. Recent research has documented that from 1980 through the 2008-09 recession new companies have been main drivers of job creation in the United States. 

The Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (SFRC) is a group of publicly recognized independent experts on the financial services industry--including banking, insurance, and securities--who meet regularly to study and critique regulatory policies affecting this sector of the economy. At the two closed sessions before the luncheon, committee members will discuss, among...