Retirement Savings Reform?

Unfortunately, I don't understand finance intricacies - and I'm sure that making things complicated and hard to understand is part of the plan - but I do understand this article is claiming we're about to get screwed again by "the most transparent administration ever".  Democrats - the people's party.

Caveat: the article comes from the American Action Network - described as a "center-right" group founded by a Republican senator and a Republican fundraiser/strategist.  Specifically, the author was a senior policy adviser for John McCain's run for the presidency, and members of the group include Jeb Bush and the wife of Mitch McConnell.

[T]he Department of Labor (DOL) has finalized its proposed "fiduciary rule" – the Obama administration's regulatory onslaught on retirement saving advice. Hiding behind the high-minded notion of a "fiduciary" standard that purports to put customers' interests first is a regulation that is expensive and onerous, and not a favor to investors in the end.

Most, 86.2 percent, of the $7.3 trillion in retirement assets is in commission-based accounts. That means that instead of paying high fees directly to the adviser for his or her advice, the adviser is taking a smaller fee that is a portion of the gains in the account. When DOL's fiduciary rule is enacted, each of those accounts – totaling $6.3 trillion – will be moved to a fee-based account. Even with a fee of just 1.2 percent that's $75.6 billion in duplicative fees on American retirement accounts, or about $1500 per household. This cost is an unneeded tax on people saving for retirement who should not be forced into fee-based accounts that they don't want.

As it turns out, these may be the lucky "winners." A majority (51 percent) of retirement accounts have balances less than $25,000, and, for small funds, it will simply make no sense to pay the fees. These retirement savers will be cut off entirely from retirement saving advice.

[...]

The fiduciary rule is a mistake. At best it is a well-intentioned overreach in which the desire to improve the investment advice for a few means no advice for the masses. At worst, it is a classic case of burdensome, top-down regulation that ends up harming the very consumers that it is purported to help

  CNBC

Let them eat cake.

This has the scent of the great Affordable Health Care Act.