Subject: File No. S7-25-99
From: Ruth Johnson
Affiliation: Consumer

January 15, 2005

As a consumer, I think it is ludicrous that brokers can call themselves financial planners or advisors when they dont take a fiduciary oath to protect their clients best interests, are not required to disclose their potential conflicts of interest, and dont have the training to be a financial planner. As long as they are rewarded for selling proprietary products I cannot see how they can act in the best interest of their clients. Current ads on television are very misleading.

If they are going to call themselves planners or advisors, they need to be held to the the same standards as CFPs. Its taken a while for the financial planning profession to get this far and it would be shameful for the SEC to further weaken the progress thats been made in standards thus far. The average consumer is confused and ignorant of how they can be taken advantage of. It will only make the situation worse if the SEC weakens standards.