I’ve talked to many different financial advisors in my time, and I have to say that most of them were more interested in selling me investments that would make them rich, than investments that would make me any money. The problem is commissions.
If a financial advisor talks to you for free, then you are the product. They have to make money somehow, and so selling you things that pay them high commissions is required. And an investment that pays advisors big commissions, by definition, is going to make less money for you. Often, no money at all. In fact, estimates say that bad advice from financial advisors costs retirement savers $17 billion every year.
That’s why John Oliver’s show on financial planning should be required viewing:
Most Americans are being screwed by financial advisors.
You may be asking, what does this have to do with Donald Trump? Well, in April, the Obama administration passed a fiduciary rule, which simply states that financial advisors have a fiduciary responsibility to their customers. In plain English, they can’t purposely cheat people. Seems very reasonable to me. After all, snake oil sales were made illegal a long time ago, why should financial advisors be allowed to lie to you about what their “products” will do?
So of course, Republicans in Congress voted to overturn the rule, claiming that their bill will “protect access to affordable retirement advice”. Well, yeah, it does protect access to cheap, worthless advice that will cost you lots of money.
Then Obama vetoed their bill. For anyone out there wanting to curb the excesses of Wall Street, this should be big news. So the fiduciary rule stands. The Fiscal Times says this rule will “mark an important breakthrough in regulating financial advisers who may prey on older Americans trying to make sense of their holdings and strategies for maximizing their life savings.”
Now, does anyone doubt that Donald Trump would not have vetoed the Republican bill? Given his history of cheating people out of their savings in Trump University, is there any doubt that he would have been a cheerleader for allowing financial advisors to cheat and steal as much as they want?
One Comment
My son took a financial adviser course and dropped out when he found how unethical it was. Spell that “Trump University”
I saw many clients when I did taxes go to Financial advisers and get nothing back. I watched one client with a million dollar settlement have it all taken away by the adviser.
I had to invest at one point, choice between Fidelity or Vanguard. The owner of Fidelity is one of the richest women in this country. Vanguard is investor owned. Investing is simple 10% cash, 30% bond, 60% stock or equities. As people have pointed out, Trump would have a lot more than his 500K income a year (he gets tax breaks on his property taxes in New York for the income he reports on his fictitious tax returns) had he invested in companies.
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