401(k) fees and disclosure, fiduciary rules, mutual funds, Social Security, retirement planning.
171 articles · page 6 of 9
At first glance, there is no connection between the shooting of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri, and planning for retirement. But dig a little deeper and you can hear some of the same criticisms about poor people who have too many run-ins with the police and people who fail to save enough money…
“Don’t believe what you read in the newspapers. See, that’s the law talking. They want us to look big so they can look bigger when they catch us.” –Warren Beatty to Faye Dunaway in “Bonnie and Clyde,” 1967 Terrorism has used violence to shape political goals since the first century, but the scope of counter-terrorism…
The financial media is replete with articles about why more Americans are failing to accumulate enough wealth for retirement. There are many seemingly viable answers, but the problem is that they all come from the monolithic perspective of the financial services industry: investment firms, banks, financial planners, investment counselors and corporate human resources departments. These…
While Social Security has become a political football in Washington, Americans still regard it as the corner stone of their retirement and are very concerned about it future financial health. A Pew Research Center for the People & the Press report, the Millenials in Adulthood report, found just 14 percent of Americans expect to receive…
Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican in the 2016 presidential run, made headlines this spring by proposing a five-point, Social Security-focused reform plan. The last time Congress made changes to Social Security was 30 years ago, so Rubio’s plan helped to fuel an emotional and complex national debate, although nothing he proposed is viewed as exactly…
“To put it badly, there are two ways to become wealthy: to create wealth or to take it away from others. The former adds to society. The latter typically subtracts from it, for in the process of taking it away, wealth gets destroyed.” –Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, 2001 Pity the middle class.
“While 85% of the equity managers studied underperformed the market in nearly all relevant time periods, the amount of fees extracted globally for this and other financial-intermediation services is in the range of $1.5 trillion annually.” –Suzanne Duncan, global head of research for State Street’s Center for Applied Research…
The recent heated discussion about whether the equity markets are rigged should be a major concern to all investors, especially those in retirement, since it fundamentally affects their quality of life and collective financial futures. Any society which has its fundamental retirement system under constant attack by conservatives concerned about its privatization, higher fees, expenses…
In their focused efforts to revoke regulations, conservative zealots in the media and Congress have expanded their argument to elevate free markets into near-divine status. But in the process, free market proponents have consistently avoided any discussions about how government intervention and its largesse provide essential funding and profits to major economic sectors and significant…
The American workplace has become very risky and it’s not because of any safety hazards. It is more risky because individuals, most of them ill-equipped, are being asked to make more complex, long-term investment decisions that will affect their own retirement for many decades into the future. To complicate matters, the ill-effects of the 2008…
Health care reform has many things in common with the way financial services are delivered, and could be changed, if financial reform gets more political and public support. But in the interim, changes are coming to a related industry–insurance brokers–who are now re-inventing themselves due to changes in the way health care will be delivered…
Disclosure has its pros and cons. It is good when someone wants to release good news, and the opposite emerges when there is bad news afoot. That seems to be the case when Yale University Law Professor Ian Ayers sent 6,000 letters to plan sponsors notifying them of their ranking in terms of fees and…
The historic decision by Detroit to declare bankruptcy under the rarely used Chapter 9 clause has not only upended municipal bond markets, but it has also focused more attention on municipal pensions and created an odd endorsement to protect the city’s 20,000 pensioners from having their benefits cut or eliminated by Michigan’s Republican Governor Rick…
Something does not add up in a recent survey on the impact of the DOL mutual fund fee disclosure regulations on 401(k) plan participants. According to a survey of 416 plan sponsors conducted by BMO Retirement Services, 80% of employers reported that the new DOL rules mandating full disclosure of retirement plan fees and expenses…
Baby Boomers may recognize the old 1964 Rolling Stones’ song, “Time Is On My Side,” but when it comes to people who are approaching retirement, they should start humming another tune. That’s because with the huge losses in both home prices and in their equity portfolios, anyone approaching retirement should be trying to recoup their…
News that the CEO and chairman of the drug distribution corporation McKesson Corporation has received the largest pension in U.S. history highlights the gap between corporate executives and their employees. As more corporations discontinue their pensions ans convert to 401(k)s, where employees assume all the risk for navigating their financial futures over four or five…
Recent declines in 401(k) fees in both small and large plans benefits all 401(k) investors, but more investors must become more involved in managing their fund expenses if they want to save thousands of dollars more over their investing lifetimes and secure a more financially retirement. That is the advice from Chuck Epstein, author of…
KPLU -FM radio in Seattle, Washington, has aired the interview they conducted with me on my book, and the negative impact of fees on 401(k)s and mutual funds. KPLU’s business and labor reporter Ashley Gross did a great job of conducting the interview. The audio is available here As of now, no music video is…
“The system is presented as having such a mystique that apparent evil becomes a kind of good.” ––The Organization Man, William Wythe, Chapter 19 Wall Street abhors change, so an examination of its past presents great insights into its future. Here is one very significant object lesson from the New York Stock Exchange which simultaneously…
The PBS documentary, “The Retirement Gamble,” which aired April 23, 2012 on PBS, has shaken up the 401(k) and mutual fund industries. Since these industries dislike any form of criticism, they have responded mostly by being silent. In a few rare cases, such as a blog post by Vanguard, the criticism centers on what the…
