February 2, 2005
I do not believe it is in the best public interest to allow brokers to give investment advise solely incidental to the brokerage service.
I do believe it is in the public best interest to require brokers giving investment advise to comply with the RIA rules, specifically disclose their conflicts of interest. Just think, if the brokers would have disclosed their conflicts of interest with World.com, them maybe some consumers would not have purchased the stock from the brokers investment advisor and thereby avoided massive losses. Therefore I urge you to eliminate the Merrill Lynch rule.