Trump administration attacks rule protecting retirees from getting ripped off

[babylonsister]

Bryce Covert
Economic Editor at ThinkProgress.
Apr 5
Trump administration attacks rule protecting retirees from getting ripped off
The Department of Labor has taken a first step toward dismantling the fiduciary duty rule put forward by Obama.


As things currently stand, a financial adviser helping a retiree pick investments doesn’t have to put the retiree’s interests first. Instead, the adviser can steer his client toward products that make him money but that might not be the smartest investment choice. This conflicted advice has been estimated to cost Americans $17 billion a year.

The Obama administration took action to change the rules so that advisers have to put retirees’ interests ahead of their own, otherwise known as the fiduciary duty rule. The new rules were set to go into effect this month. But now, the Trump administration is taking steps to whittle them down or do away with them altogether, allowing advisers to continue pushing clients into costly investment choices.

On Tuesday evening, the administration officially delayed the implementation of the new rules by 60 days, pushing one part of it back to June and the rest of it to January 2018.

In February, President Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department of Labor, which issued the original rules, to consider revising or rescinding them. In its announcement of the delay this week, the department said the move will allow it to examine whether the rules “may adversely affect the ability of Americans to gain access to retirement information and financial advice” and to “consider possible changes.”

These are all steps toward dismantling the rule. “We want them to cease the implementation of this and completely review the fiduciary rule,” a senior White House official told Time in February. “We think that this was a complete miss on what{the Obama administration} were trying to do. It has taken away a huge variety of investment options for individual investors.”

more...

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-department-of-labor-delay-fiduciary-duty-3f7131eb886c

[marybourg]

1. Yeah, they've deprived you of your option

to get ripped off. They support the right to choose.

[FSogol]

2. FREEDUMB!

[duncang]

3. Yep takes away investment options.

Like those packaged sub-prime auto loans the lenders are worried about. Sticks them right in the pocket of the average investor. I mean what could go wrong with investment like that.

[Eliot Rosewater]

4. 401K's were designed to take our eyes off the fact we no longer have pensions

They have been stealing our money thru fees for years with this system.

Now it will get worse.

[Phoenix61]

5. Interesting article

Looks like it will be harder for them to actually accomplish. Fortunately, like much of Twitler's executive orders.

[Solly Mack]

6. Let us help you keep more of your money so we can take it for ourselves.

They tell people tax cuts (for the wealthy) allow people to keep more of their own money. The not-so-wealthy think that means them.

The GOP always frames any tax cut as beneficial to everyone, as creating jobs and allowing everyone to keep more of their money. Which we all know to be a lie.

And now, once again, the not-so-wealthy (read everyone not in the 1%) can just give their money to the truly wealthy under the guise of investments for the future. Course, it's not the retiree's future they are talking about.

And poor people/working poor aren't even on the playing field.