Requiring investment advisors for retirement plans to act in the best interest of their clients causes volatility? Seriously? I can't even imagine what convoluted thought process would lead one to come to that conclusion.
There are alternatives other than no regulation and strangulating legislation. Washington is quite adept at addressing a problem by making it worse.
Last I checked the markets were at all time highs and almost everyone in the financial industry is doing very well. I'd hardly call that "strangulating". There are people who need help, those of us in the financial industry aren't among them.
Yes, the big firms can afford the legion of compliance lawyers but hard to call that layer of cost helpful with respect to egality. It's going to be interesting when Mr. Bear comes to town.
The senate really makes this (and so much else of administration's desired policies) all a moot point.
@Sig The potential problem (and I'm saying it neccassarily out weights parts of the DOL) is when the compliance cost/headaches or just the reduced profitability hit a point that advising the mom and pop accounts are just not worth it. Net result is that those who need the advise most will receive reduced service at best, it will be magnified in a bear market. So, once again, is poorly crafted regulation harming the ones it is trumpeted to help ? Edit: and I'm NOT saying...
In general I would agree. However that particular regulation imposed no compliance burden per se, i.e. there was no paperwork that advisors had to file. The did have to make sure that they were acting in their client's best interest. I'd say if it cost too much to comply with that requirement and it caused someone to get out of the advisor business than good riddance and mom and pop would be far better off just randomly buying a basket of stocks!
The thing is, what specific impact has Dodd Frank had on you (not you specifically but anyone here who is sure it's killing us all)? So GS has to hire a couple extra compliance lawyers, cry me a river. The commissions we all pay have steadily gone down, and I pay less for trading now with better execution that in 2008, so none of the supposedly crushing burden of Dodd Frank has been passed down to traders like us. Seems the banks are still uber profitable as well, so obviously not hurting their bottom line. Who is being harmed by Dodd Frank again, and very specifically how? BTW, I agree that the small financial institutions being subject to big bank rules is bad policy, fine with repealing that. Repealing a requirement that retirement planners act in the best interest of their clients is just absurd though.
@Sig I have to disagree with you on the no burden, no paperwork. There is plenty. Don't think we want to discuss the nuts and bolts, but as the regulation stands it is a shinning example of missing the forest for the trees.