By: Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr.
It's astonishing that the Labor Department would contemplate a regulation that would remove retirement choices.
The Obama administration is proposing a retirement rule that could restrict access to information, limit investor choice and raise costs on American families saving for retirement.
This isn't about whether brokers and investment advisers should be subject to a fiduciary duty when doing the same thing. We agree with that. It's a question of whether the administration should proceed, irrespective of congressional intent and in conflict with regulators, with a rule that will ultimately make it harder to save.
Most middle-class investors, including most IRA investors, choose more affordable, transaction-based brokerage accounts, as opposed to managed accounts, which are often more expensive because the client is seeking more services.
Financial firms provide both services to their clients, but the clients get to choose, based on what services they want to buy. Both types of accounts are already heavily regulated.
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