The U.S. Department of Labor has proposed a new rule that requires stockbrokers to adhere to the same high standards of professional conduct that other financial advisors must follow. In essence, the rule mandates that brokers place their clients’ interests ahead of their own. Brokers don’t like it, and they are fighting this proposal with all the lobbying muscle at their disposal. Congress may kill it, again.
On the website InvestmentNews, which caters to the professional advice industry, I found the following comments from brokers who were invited to share their opinions about the proposed rule.
STOCKBOY says:
Operating in a manner that is in the client’s best interest is certainly implied in our industry. If that implication is not evident, then it certainly should be enforced by the compliance department. Once you have the government sticking its nose into, and controlling your business, you know the American way of life is just about over. If you need more evidence of this, just look at Obamacare!
MrMeek says:
MyRA.gov state run plans will compete with the private sector costing millions of jobs. Sad.
But the most despicable comment I found was this one from Goodguy6410:
This is an incremental approach to pushing the industry out of business. The Democrats, led by Obama, eyed the health insurance industry and are in the midst of taking that over. As time went on, they hit snafu after snafu in their quest to swallow one sixth of the national economy and all the fruits that came with it…ignoring the relationships between insurance company, agent, patient and doctor. They steam-rolled through…causing a huge underfunded mess where virtually all Obama care customers are receiving an average subsidy of $3,000/year and climbing rapidly. The apple wasn’t as juicy as they thought. So then they looked at this industry. Pure money. No insurance. Just pull that fruit right off the tree. Can’t do it all at once; too big…might rock the boat. But…incrementally, they will outlaw commissions entirely. Effectively gutting a model that has worked (mostly) successfully since time began. Brokers, advisors and agents will be forced out. To fill that vacuum, the government will implement exactly the same type of system we have at Healthcare.gov. That is, untrained, unprofessional people with little passion and no experience will sit in cube farms and answer general questions about a website…often with a confused or wrong answer. However, the government will now have access to these assets…ultimately…and will issue “IOUs”…much like Social Security, in exchange for those assets. That’s the Final Solution.
This self-pitying crybaby thinks that by requiring him to do the right thing for his clients, the DOL rule is comparable to the Final Solution. Maybe he should look for another line of work.