Popular financial radio show host Dave Ramsey caused a firestorm on Twitter TWTR +0.26% last week when he weighed in against the “fiduciary rule”—the controversial pending Department of Labor regulation that would impose new restrictions on a vast swath of financial professionals who handle IRAs and 401(k) accounts. Yet, Ramsey was only echoing concerns about the costs of the rule already expressed by Members of Congress from both parties.Net effect, loss of financial guidance for people that aren't already rich. After all, progressives are largely trust fund babies and multimillionaire capitalists.
Ramsey Tweeted, “this Obama rule will kill the Middle Class and below ability to access personal advice.” A war of Tweets then broke out between opponents of the rule, and supporters, the latter of which includes fee-based investment advisers expected to benefit from the new costs the rule will shower on their broker competitors.
Fittingly, even before Ramsey came out against the rule, one of his critics called for using the rule against Ramsey, supposedly for providing advice said critic deemed harmful to savers. In an October article in LifeHealthPro, an online trade journal for insurance agents and financial advisers, Michael Markey, an insurance agent and owner of Legacy Financial Network, called for Ramsey to “be regulated and to be held accountable” by the government for the opinions he gives to listeners. Markey hailed the Labor Department rule as ushering a new era in which “entertainers like Dave Ramsey can no longer evade the pursuit of regulatory oversight.”
Experts both for and against the rule I have talked to agree its broad reach could extend to financial media personalities who offer tips to individual audience members, a group that includes not just Ramsey but TV hosts like Suze Orman and Jim Cramer, as well as many other broadcasters who opine on business and investment matters. They would be ensnared by the rule’s broad redefinition of a vast swath of financial professionals as “fiduciaries” and its mandate that these “fiduciaries” only serve the “best interest” of IRA and 401(k) holders.
Sunday, March 6, 2016
The Progressive War on the Middle Class Continues
3/4/16 Forbes:
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I read once long ago, that the purpose of the progressivce income tax was to provide a sort of haircut for the newly well-off to make their ascent to nouveau riche harder. A sort of Jizya tax for those not already in the club, if you will.
ReplyDeletewhat was the comment regarding the last Samurai of low birth who became a shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Once enthroned he made samurai a hereditary title and banned all non-samurai from carrying weapons. He thus effectively pulled up the drawbridge to prevent any other peasant from following his path to greatness. As stated in numerous books, he ended all social mobility in Japan until the Meiji Emperor of the mid-1800s.
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