Thursday, April 14, 2016

Going Into Retirement

I simply no longer want to blog about the Bo$ton Globe as I hit my golden years. Sorry.

"New rules set to make retirement industry more accountable" by Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff  April 06, 2016

The $14 trillion retirement industry is about to undergo a major overhaul: Brokers for the first time will be forced to consider the best interest of their clients — rather than the brokers’ own fees — in recommending investments.  

Weren't they already? 

I mean, that's what the vast television advertisements seem to imply. 

Now we find, as we often do, is they just $#erving themselves.

The US Department of Labor announced the new rules, the first in decades, on Wednesday, after banks, insurance firms, and mutual fund companies spent millions furiously lobbying against them.

It was MassMutual and Fidelity that fought the hardest.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who pledged her support for the tighter rules more than a year ago and joined President Obama in drumming up support for them among consumer groups, called it an “enormous victory” for working families.

It’s also a victory for the Democratic senator, a firebrand on financial regulation who has aimed her substantial political voice at banks, investment houses, and now financial advisory firms.

“Hard-working Americans need every dollar to work for them, not to lose billions of dollars to investment advisers who are watching out for themselves instead of for their clients,” Warren said. “Today the rules begin to change.”

Doesn't mean they will follow them! 

With all due respect, she has become just as much a cartoon character (along the lines of Cher, Carrie Fisher, Condoleezza Rice, and Gabrielle Giffords) as those she is criticizing it's almost comic.

The rules will legally require companies and financial advisers to act in their customers’ best financial interest, potentially saving them money in fees. The rules will be phased in, starting next April, federal officials said, and fully implemented by January 2018. 

Plenty of time to work around through loopholes!

For consumers, the most immediate change may come when they decide to roll over their 401(k)s into IRAs. An adviser would need to provide information and disclosures about the types of investments he or she is recommending, as well as any commissions or perks tied to the recommendation, said Alicia Munnell, the director of Boston College’s retirement center.

Ultimately, it will discourage advisers from pushing those higher-cost products, Munnell said.

“It really changes the nature of the conversation,” she said.

As well as to whom.

The retirement landscape has changed over the last decades, with company pensions disappearing and more people responsible for building their own retirement savings. As a result, stricter standards are needed to provide a greater measure of retirement security, US Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said during a press conference Wednesday.

Combined, 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts hold $14 trillion in private retirement assets, compared to about $3 trillion in traditional pensions, according to the Investment Company Institute.

“When your doctor and when your lawyer are talking to you, they’re obligated to look out for your best interest and despite what most working people assume, that’s not necessarily the case for financial advisers,” US Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said during a press conference Wednesday.

Why does he think it's necessarily the case with those other two these days?

In unveiling the final version of the rules, regulators made several concessions to the financial services industry, including more time to implement the regulations and fewer restrictions on the investments they can sell....

Meaning this whole lead story is nothing but front-page crap.

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Yes, dear readers, it appears that we have “hit a tipping point” here at the PPM regarding the endless lies and distortions, Jewish supremacism, and subtle elite insult that spew forth from the agenda-pu$hing paper where “money is the biggest driver.” 

Time to call it quits for good, for the obvious rea$ons. 

I'm not saying I'll never blog again; however, I will be doing some spring cleaning in the following weeks whereby I will be cleaning out drafts, and be going through all the unread, half-read, and quarter-read Globes that are piling up, as well as the piles of clippings going back 15 months or more. If I find anything worth posting I'll put it up, but I suspect most of them will end up in the recycling bag.

UPDATE: How new retirement savings rules will affect consumers