UPDATE: Lobbyist Hired to Help Administration Delay/Kill Rule That Protects From Bad Financial Advice

A new rule that requires financial advisers and brokers act in their customers' best interest when offering them investment advice for their workplace retirement accounts is set to go into effect this April.  Over the past two weeks, the Trump administration has taken steps to delay or end the rule designed to save American workers billions of dollars they currently pay in excessive fees in their retirement accounts.

At its core, the new rule is simple. If you're one of the millions of Americans with a workplace retirement account such as a 401(k), the Labor Department requires financial advisers to act in your best interest.

Too often, the AARP's Cristina Martin Firvida says, your broker or adviser has been able to push you to buy, for example, mutual funds that are bad investments because they have really high fees. Those mutual funds give the adviser a commission in exchange. So, your adviser gets paid more money for giving you bad advice. "Individuals saving for retirement are losing an estimated $17 billion — that's billion with a 'b' — annually because of financial advice that's not in their own best interest," she says.

"This is a top priority for AARP," says Firvida, the retiree group's director of financial security. "Make no mistake: This rule is now under attack."  

UPDATE: Fidelity lobbyist who fought against rules requiring financial firms to act in the best interest of citizens trying to save for retirement has been hired by the White House to ensure Wall Street can continue to unjustly profit off American workers.

 

Sources: http://www.npr.org/2017/02/17/515631485/trump-moving-to-delay-rule-that-protects-workers-from-bad-financial-advice and @JustinElliott

Date: 
Monday, February 27, 2017
Tags: 
Regulations
Retirement