Republicans plan to kill fiduciary rule, kill Dodd-Frank.

[kimmy]

The latest Executive Orders will snuff Wall Street regulation and kill a rule that would require bankers to act in their clients' best interests.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/317698-trump-to-sign-executive-actions-targeting-obama-financial-regulations

Remember how Trump was going to stand up for "Main Street" against "Wall Street"?  Seems pretty hilarious in hindsight, doesn't it?

 -k

[dialamah]

Breitbart likes it:  

Quote

“Americans are going to have better choices and Americans are going to have better products because we’re not going to burden the banks with literally hundreds of billions of dollars of regulatory costs every year. The banks are going to be able to price product more efficiently and more effectively to consumers.”

 

 

[kimmy]

4 minutes ago, dialamah said:

Breitbart likes it:  

Has Breitpravda ever NOT liked something Trump has done?

Quote

The banks are going to be able to price product more efficiently and more effectively to consumers.

Imagine how much more choice and cost-effectiveness we could have in our food purchases if our food producers weren't burdened with all this excessive regulation to make sure that their products aren't poisonous or contaminated!

 -k

[dialamah]

1 minute ago, kimmy said:

Imagine how much more choice and cost-effectiveness we could have in our food purchases if our food producers weren't burdened with all this excessive regulation to make sure that their products aren't poisonous or contaminated!

 -k

 

Patience.   Trump will get to it, I'm sure.   

Kidding!  (I hope!)

 

[Moonlight Graham]

At last count Trump had 6 Goldman Sachs executives in his cabinet:

Quote

Trump is adding even more Goldman Sachs executives to his nascent administration. Trump’s top donor and close advisor, hedge fund manager and Goldman Sachs alumna Anthony Scaramucci, will serve as a senior White House advisor...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-adds-goldman-sachs-executive-administration-article-1.2944943

Drain the swamp he says...

 

Edited February 4, 2017 by Moonlight Graham

[eyeball]

That reminds me, my septic tank will be due for a pump-out soon.

[Moonlight Graham]

Wait, let's look closer shall we. Article from a few weeks ago...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-adds-goldman-sachs-executive-administration-article-1.2944943

"Trump is adding even more Goldman Sachs [one of the biggest banks in the U.S.] executives to his nascent administration. Trump’s top donor and close advisor, hedge fund manager and Goldman Sachs alumna Anthony Scaramucci, will serve as a senior White House advisor...The two are the fifth and sixth major hires for Trump who previously worked for the financial giant."

Now today's story from kimmy's OP:

"President Trump will sign an executive order that could effectively kill a contentious investment adviser rule that had been a top priority of President Obama....The president is expected to sign a pair of executive orders targeting rules imposed on the financial sector Friday, according to senior White House officials.  And one of those orders takes square aim at the “fiduciary duty” rule written by the Labor Department, finalized after years of effort in June.

That rule establishes significantly stricter standards on investment advisers for retirement plans and had been fiercely opposed by the financial industry.  One of Trump’s closest advisers, Anthony Scaramucci [from Goldman Sachs], went so far as to equate the regulation with the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision of 1857, in which the Supreme Court ruled that descendants of slaves could not become citizens.  Under the rule, advisers would have to act solely for the benefit of their clients [what a wild concept!]. But industry critics argue it would be costly and burdensome to implement." [ costly and burdensome to their big profits!!]

The same article also shows Trump and his big bank team looking to kill parts of Dobb-Frank, formally known as the "Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act", that was..."passed [in 2010] as a response to the Great Recession, it brought the most significant changes to financial regulation in the United States since the regulatory reform that followed the Great Depression. It made changes in the American financial regulatory environment that affect all federal financial regulatory agencies."
 

Could this happen in Canada?  Here we have Kathleen Wynne's Liberals having lobbyists from Canadian banks attending expensive cash-for-access fundraisers with cabinet politicians: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/investigation-reveals-likely-guests-for-ontario-liberal-cash-for-access-fundraisers/article30783097/

Edited February 4, 2017 by Moonlight Graham

[Argus]

12 hours ago, kimmy said:

The latest Executive Orders will snuff Wall Street regulation and kill a rule that would require bankers to act in their clients' best interests.

Before you get too angry, Kimmy, you should be aware no such rule exists in Canada. I got a call from a friend yesterday, who was at CIBC to put money into an RRSP. She asked if she should put it into an income fund or a balanced fund. I said not to buy a mutual fund at all but to buy an index fund. But I think the difference eluded her and she wound up being talked into buying a mutual fund. Worse, the mutual fund basically holds a collection of other mutual funds. 

The fees Canadian banks charge for mutual funds are the highest on earth, more than double, and close to triple, on average, what American mutual funds charge. This particular fund made a 4.6% in 2015, the last year listed in the papers she showed me afterward. But the management fee was 2.3%, so half the profits went to the bank.

NEVER take investment advice from a Canadian bank! They will ALWAYS put their interests ahead of yours.

Quote

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/317698-trump-to-sign-executive-actions-targeting-obama-financial-regulations

Remember how Trump was going to stand up for "Main Street" against "Wall Street"?  Seems pretty hilarious in hindsight, doesn't it?

 -k

It sounded pretty hilarious with foresight, too. As I pointed out at the time, a 70 year old billionaire hedonist who abandoned his father's efforts of providing good solid houses to the middle class for catering to the wealthy, a man who had never once in his life shown the slightest care or concern for the poor or powerless or middle class, was not a guy who was suddenly going to be their champion.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Argus

[TimG]

1 hour ago, Argus said:

Before you get too angry, Kimmy, you should be aware no such rule exists in Canada.

But what we do have now are mandatory disclosures of fees collected by financial advisers.  Just because a problem exists that does not automatically mean that any cleverly named regulation dreamed up by a bureaucrat is better than the status quo. One big problem with regulation in the US is vague or subjective definitions leave people with no clear path to follow to avoid breaking the law. This leaves them open to legal attacks by grand standing DAs or trial lawyers looking for a payout.

That said, Trump's response to get rid of - rather than replace with a more effective regulation - is still problematic. My point is it is mistake to assume that the existing regs are better than no regs. 

[Argus]

58 minutes ago, TimG said:

But what we do have now are mandatory disclosures of fees collected by financial advisers.

Since I started getting involved with investments I have discovered the vast, vast ignorance most people have in Canada about investing. They know nothing, and they have a level of discomfort with it all that leads to an aversion to learning. The losses to banks are long term, and people have a hard time wrapping their minds around them. Banks take advantage of that. And not all fees are quite so obvious. For example, the mutual fund my friend was put in holds, not stocks, not bonds, but a collection of other bank mutual funds which contain stocks and bonds. All of those funds also have fees. So is my friend paying twice over? I'm not sure, never having owned these instruments, but it wouldn't surprise me. There is generally a lot of fine print in buying instruments like this and people don't understand the implications of what's written, nor have a comparison readily available. The Canadian financial industry has been preying on and ripping off the middle class for decades. So we have no business criticizing US financial disclosure records or rules of behavior for US financial institutions.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Argus

[TimG]

20 minutes ago, Argus said:

The Canadian financial industry has been preying on and ripping off the middle class for decades. So we have no business criticizing US financial disclosure records or rules of behavior for US financial institutions.

I hear you. The disclosure rules in Canada are the start. Adding MERs to the total is the next step. I don't think you can do much about the fact that most people are not going to be come sophisticated investors. But if they are given basic information about the real costs of the services they receive that should help them make better choices.

[blueblood]

Unfortunately the great experiment with cranking up regulations has come to a close.  In essence the investor class said that if the USA government is going to tax and regulate them excessively, the investor class will take their ball and go home.  By piling on regulations and doing so unpredictably it put a lot of fear into investors and instead of investing in factories, jobs, etc, it was far easier to take their money and play the stock market.  

[cannuck]

End of the honeymoon for me.   I thought Trump to be amusing in his ability to stuff it to the press, but had lingering doubts about his regard for Wall Street.  After all, he has never actually made a product, just put his name on office towers, luxury condos, casinos, golf courses - all things that produce diddly squat.

I can not approve of his use of Goldman-Sucks people - makes him no different from the rest of the Uniparty.  But, and this is a big BUT:  too much regulatory compliance cost is one of the things that is killing US industry's competitiveness.

That being said, the way to control the incredibly destructive binge of greed on Wall Street is by taxation - most powerful influence of human financial behaviour.   Solution is simple: tax the crap out of speculative gain and stay the hell away from taxing dividend income.  That alone will make the way to get returns on investment to buy into productive and profitable companies, i.e. Main Street.  Oh, that and making derivatives illegal.

[August1991]

23 hours ago, kimmy said:

The latest Executive Orders will snuff Wall Street regulation and kill a rule that would require bankers to act in their clients' best interests.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/317698-trump-to-sign-executive-actions-targeting-obama-financial-regulations

Remember how Trump was going to stand up for "Main Street" against "Wall Street"?  Seems pretty hilarious in hindsight, doesn't it?

 -k

Kimmy, does Canada's Bank Act have such a regulation?

Heck, who exactly regulates Canada's "financial institutions"? Indeed, is there any regulation at all?

Reserve requirement

Edited February 5, 2017 by August1991

[August1991]

9 hours ago, Argus said:

Since I started getting involved with investments I have discovered the vast, vast ignorance most people have in Canada about investing. They know nothing, and they have a level of discomfort with it all that leads to an aversion to learning. The losses to banks are long term, and people have a hard time wrapping their minds around them. Banks take advantage of that. And not all fees are quite so obvious. For example, the mutual fund my friend was put in holds, not stocks, not bonds, but a collection of other bank mutual funds which contain stocks and bonds. All of those funds also have fees. So is my friend paying twice over? I'm not sure, never having owned these instruments, but it wouldn't surprise me. There is generally a lot of fine print in buying instruments like this and people don't understand the implications of what's written, nor have a comparison readily available. The Canadian financial industry has been preying on and ripping off the middle class for decades. So we have no business criticizing US financial disclosure records or rules of behavior for US financial institutions.

In defence of Canadian banks - or their managers/people, we in Canada have largely avoided bubbles, panics and bank runs.

[Argus]

14 hours ago, August1991 said:

In defence of Canadian banks - or their managers/people, we in Canada have largely avoided bubbles, panics and bank runs.

The Canadian stock markets dropped just as much as the ones in the US during the financial mess, and a lot of people's pensions are tied up in them, even if they're part of a pension fund. Even the CPP is invested in the market now.

[H10]

Repeal the regulations, my stocks need to go up, I want more money, repeal anything you have to, to make the economy grow. I don't live in America, but have their stocks, if they destroy their own environment, not my problem.  If they long term destroy their economy for my short term gain, benefits my portfolio, usa will go into a recession in late 2018 around the time of congressional elections and senate re-elections, GO TRUMP, WOOOOO, TRUMP YEAH.  Grab that regulation right in the p.

[bush_cheney2004]

2 minutes ago, hernanday said:

Repeal the regulations, my stocks need to go up, I want more money, repeal anything you have to, to make the economy grow. I don't live in America, but have their stocks, if they destroy their own environment, not my problem.  If they long term destroy their economy for my short term gain, benefits my portfolio, usa will go into a recession in late 2018 around the time of congressional elections and senate re-elections, GO TRUMP, WOOOOO, TRUMP YEAH.  Grab that regulation right in the p.

 

Agreed...investment opportunities with Canadian equities is slim indeed.   I got some action out of that Valeant Pharma turd stock, buy not much lately.   Maybe Trump can help to kick start investment across the border....they depend a lot on that.

 

Edited February 5, 2017 by bush_cheney2004