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Bob Veres' Comment Letter to the SEC on Proposed Regulation Best Interest and Broker Standards

"The proposed disclosure language for broker-dealers, under 'Standard of Conduct,' would say 'We must act in your best interest and not place our interests ahead of yours when we recommend an investment or an investment strategy involving securities.' However, there is no evidence that the Commission intends to actually hold broker-dealers to this standard. In fact, there is abundant contrary evidence in your accompanying regulatory Proposal."

Bob Veres Explores Fiduciary

"[A] rational regulatory structure would evaluate the conflicts of interest that are (or are not) embraced by different 'players' on this playing field, and the potential consumer harm that could arise out of them. And then the regulator would focus proportionately more attention on those 'players' whose conflicts could do the most damage.... Currently, the only viable path forward is for true fiduciary advisors to continue marching constantly uphill on an unlevel playing field and take market share away from the sales organizations."

Questions on IRC 403(b) Tax-Sheltered Annuity Plans - Answers from Bob Architect

Excerpt: Bob Architect, Senior Tax Law Specialist and the resident expert on 403(b) plans, receives many questions while presenting the latest 403(b) information to organizations. See the most frequently asked questions and Bob's answers [at the target page].

A Tribute to Retirement Security Hero Bob Nagle

"As General Counsel of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Bob was responsible for crafting and securing passage of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, the seminal law that safeguards retirement protections for American workers and retirees. Later, as Executive Director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation from 1979 to 1982, he implemented the law's insurance program. In recent years, Bob was a lawyer in private practice, an arbitrator, a neutral trustee for two mining industry pension and health funds, a participant in the Pension Rights Center's Conversation on Coverage, and a Michael S. Gordon Fellow at the Center."

Social Security Advocate Bob Ball is Dead at 93

Excerpt: You probably don't know his name. And you probably won't see any news of his passing outside of the obit section. But Bob Ball, who died last night at the age of 93, probably played a greater role in expanding and defending Social Security than anyone in the second half of the 20th century.

Official Summary of Senator Bob Bennett's Proposed Social Security Legislation (PDF)

3 pages.

Bob Kaufman Retires After 20 Years of Writing Railroad Retirement Benefits Q&A Column

"Since December 1, 1997, I have posted more than 1,000 Q&A's in my Q&A column on BenefitsLink, and an estimated 5,000 questions I've answered by direct e-mail. Times have changed, and the Railroad Retirement Board has developed an excellent web site, which you can use to find answers to questions about the Railroad Retirement System. I just turned 78. I think it's time to enjoy my retirement and my six grandchildren!"

Updated June 2005: Bob Ball's Plan to Reform Social Security (PDF)

9 pages. Excerpt: [T]here are several ways to bring the system into balance and pay benefits that are kept up-to-date with wages, changes that are desirable in any event and that I would favor whether or not there was a long-run shortage of funds. It is not true that hard choices have to be made and painful measures taken to restore balance to long-range Social Security financing. Changes do need to be made but the choices are not hard nor the measures painful.

Permanent Changes on the Job Due to the Pandemic

"Virtual meetings are opening up the marketplace.... The pandemic (and Zoom revolution) may be killing off the traditional wholesaling model.... Advisory firms are taking the opportunity to hire anywhere, and also to reduce home office space.... Advisory firms may be permanently more efficient as a result of the pandemic.... Virtual meetings may be slightly less personal than in-person meetings, but that has been more than made up for by greater frequency of contact."

Life (Insurance) in the Fiduciary Lane

"[A] new amendment to the New York State Department of Insurance Regulation [imposes] a mashup of the infamous DOL Rule and the recent SEC regulatory proposals on life insurance salespeople operating in their state. The word 'fiduciary' doesn't appear anywhere. But the gist of the new rules is that life and annuity recommendations, if they are made inside the borders of the Empire State, now have to be in the best interests of the customer. Whoever wrote these regulations knows full well that the life insurance 'advisor' is actually selling products."

The Diminishing Future of Investment Advice Regulation

"[S]ometime after 1975 ... the idea of a 'commission' morphed into something else, something closer to a bribe. Commissions became a way for product companies to pay a broker or sales agent to recommend their products over products which offered superior features or returns.... In retrospect, the SEC has proven to be a terrible regulator of this new commission regime.... With these new proposals, the SEC is fecklessly trying to, at the same time, restore merit-based investment recommendations to the marketplace and make Wall Street lobbyists happy."

SEC Proposal 34-83062: The Best Interest Standard for Broker-Dealers

"[T]he proposed standards for brokerage firms and broker-dealers ... are clearly NOT a 'best interest' standard, and calling them that will certainly mislead consumers into thinking that sales agents are required to put their interests ahead of the sales agent's and the firm's, when in fact they are not.... [T]he Proposal mixes a lot of high-minded language about doing what's best for the customer with specific standards that are no more high-minded than FINRA's existing suitability rules. There's a lot of talk about what brokers and sales agents 'should' do, but the actual standard as written doesn't actually require anything different from what is going on now[.]"

SEC Proposal 34-83063: The Relationship Summary Disclosure

"[SEC Proposal 34-83063, the Form CRS Relationship Summary,] is altogether the longest of the three proposals at 470 pages, and just about all of it relates to one new document that the SEC is proposing that you deliver to prospects and clients: the relationship summary. The goal behind requiring this new document, when you push aside all the excess verbiage, is stated fairly clearly[.]"

Why Aren't Advisor Groups More Involved in Efforts by States to Protect Investors?

"State securities regulators have historically been far less conflicted and 'captured' than the SEC, and have been on board with the idea that advisors should manage or avoid conflicts from the beginning. But at present, they don't have anything resembling a unified position on what a fiduciary law should look like. The logical group to propose model state legislation is the Financial Planning Coalition -- made up of NAPFA, the FPA and the CFP Board."

Financial Planners Must Push Forward as Advocates for Investors

"Based on past statements from Republican officials on Capitol Hill, there is every reason to believe that an undivided Republican Congress will repeal the Dodd-Frank Act, and President Trump will unravel the DOL fiduciary rule. The odds are that all this will happen within the first couple of months of the new year. However you feel about a Trump presidency, this will be a severe setback for the concept of professionalism in the financial planning world, and the strong fiduciary standard generally."

Conflicted Interpretations Arising from DOL Final Fiduciary Rule

"Was it the DOL's intent to provide incentives for you to apply your AUM fees to a client's cash accounts, so you could comply with the new regs? Do you think the DOL believes you should give up your investment judgment and simply recommend whatever happens to be on the Morningstar list of least expensive options? Don't you think the BICE exemptions were purely and simply an accommodation to product manufacturers who were selling investments that would otherwise be hard to justify as a fiduciary recommendation?"

The DOL Rule: A Milestone for the Profession

"[T]he new rule fundamentally (and with pretty zero exception) requires the broker or independent BD rep to act as a fiduciary. That brings a lot of people into the principles-based universe, which is alien territory for the brokerage firms. They'll all have to set up subsidiaries that function as fee-compensated RIAs in order to keep working with qualified plan money.... Most importantly, the DOL rule writers seem to have been very careful to make sure that Wall Street firms and sales agents cannot disclose away, disclaim away or have their customers contractually sign away fiduciary responsibility."

Sound and Fury Over Annuities

"[Y]ou'll read through the report and discover that [U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren] is irate about the sales of 'annuities.' There is no distinction between variable annuities (highly questionable products), equity-indexed annuities (the financial equivalent of toxic waste), and immediate or deferred annuities (potentially beneficial retirement options). What a report this could have been if the perks that Warren is detailing are leading agents to switch their recommendations from one product or another! Or if Warren had looked at the differing compensation that agents can slip into their wallet if they steer a client from a lean product to one that happens to be offering double bonus commissions!"

Let the Lobbying Around Fiduciary Continue Just a Little Longer

"For the first time, ordinary people are reading that the brokerage firms and independent broker-dealers are standing four-square in favor of commission sales and strongly against having to serve the best interests of their customers.... The longer this lobbying effort drags out, the more articles we'll see. The more times this story comes up, the more the consumer writers will realize uncomfortable facts about conflicted business models that the members of the brokerage and independent BD community don't want their customers to know."

The New Fiduciary Debate: It's Time to Be More Specific About What We Mean

"Only a small part of the overall financial services industry believes it is important to protect consumers from potential abuse by those calling themselves financial advisors. The brokerage industry's belated embrace of its own definition of 'fiduciary' is a clever effort to co-opt an argument it cannot win in the court of public opinion, a way to forestall meaningful protections which would erode or destroy its revenue model."