July 30, 2010
I am contacting you regarding the 30 day public comment period regarding the study examining the effectiveness of regulations governing broker dealers and investment advisers.
I feel it is my duty to relay to you how strongly that I disagree that the fiduciary standard has protected consumers better. I can assure you that additional regulations on our industry will only hamper our ability to serve our clients. The compliance that is currently in place is so cumbersome that we can hardly do our work. The amount of paper work is so mind boggling that is it rediculous. My small firm has to hire two people just to fill out forms and guarantee that all the compliance issues have been met whether we take $100 or $1,000,000. This can only add costs to our clients and it is very time consuming and mostly a waste of time and resources.
I hold Series 7, 63, 6, my CFP, CLU and ChFC certifications. You cannot beieve how much continuing education that is required to maintain these certifications. In my small rural market, it is very difficult do talk to people about fee based accounts. I am mortified that with these additional regulations and liabilities that I will be unable to purchase Errors and Ommissions insurance I can afford and this will surely put myself and many advisers out of business. The public is already under served with quality advice on saving for retirement needs and losing additional financial advisers due to over regulation will only hurt the public not help them. Please understand that although there are many theories that sound great when one who is sitting around a table thinking of what is perceived to be good ideas are in reality not feasible and place unrealistic standards on good honest working people that do their very best to serve their clients.
Thanks for your time and I do hope that you all use "good , common sense" and realize that our industry is already so over regulated that it is getting very difficult for us to do business in a reasonable way. Thank you.