August 20, 2010
Please oppose this legislation. This is just another layer of regulation that in and of itself doesn't fix the problem. Proper enforcement of the existing regulation can do what is needed to help protect the public. This new regulation would add to the cost of doing business which would have to be passed to the consumer, in turn forcing people to avoid professional advice. Forcing consumers to avoid professional advice will hurt their fincancial well being in the long run. The middle income and lower income segments of our country are already very underserved in terms of financial advising, this legistlation will make this problem even worse. Besides the fact that these people will be less likely to pay the fees that the advisor will have to charge, Advisors are not going to put themselves at greater risks of lawsuits and other regulatory actions by advising the smaller accounts. We need better enforcement of existing regulation and perhaps more targeted regulation in certain cases, but not this redundant, wide reaching, vaguely defined regulation that is proposed. This regulation also does little to protect the professional advisor from frivolous lawsuits, it instead encourages them by not properly defining things like "best interest".