MR. ODEAN: With mutual funds, there’s sometimes a compensation structure where a fund company gives money to a broker. This can create a significant conflict of interest, because a fund might be charging a high management fee and paying a significant commission back to the adviser or broker who sold the fund.
.. Every model can have conflicts of interest.
.. I think there is a need for fees to come down. If the market were to return 5% and you were paying an adviser 1% [of assets under management] a year, that’s like giving the adviser 20% of your returns. When you invest in the market, you are taking on a lot of risk, while the adviser gets paid for sure.
.. Many people think the market is moving toward a blended model, robo advice combined with personal advice.
How Will the House Freedom Caucus Respond to Trump?
“This is a brand new world for most of our members,” added Cole, noting that scores of House Republicans were elected post-2008 specifically “to fight President Obama. Not now. Now they have to find a totally new purpose. It can’t be, ‘I’m just against what Obama opposes.’”
.. Likewise, slapping one’s own leadership for seeking consensus with Obama is a vastly different proposition than slapping them for accommodating a President Trump. As Meadows put it, “The fallout can potentially be, ‘Well, Mark, you can’t get along with establishment types and now you can’t get along with those fighting the establishment.’ And if that’s the case, it can have far-reaching implications back home.”
.. Meadows’s office compiled a Christmas wish list for the incoming president, consisting of 228 rules and regulations the Freedom Caucus would like revoked ASAP. The list covers everything from trucking regulations to alternative-energy mandates to school lunch requirements. Two top targets Meadows points to: the Overtime Rule, which ups the number of Americans eligible for overtime pay, and the Fiduciary Rule, which expands the categories of financial professionals who are classified as “fiduciaries” and thus bound by stricter standards when advising clients.
.. the overarching goal of the rollback is to shift regulatory authority away from federal agencies and back toward Congress, says Meadows. This, in turn, is part of an even broader push by conservatives to curb what they consider an out-of-control executive branch... Trump came to power touting his Alpha Maleness and a fondness for authoritarian leaders. So while he may prove an enthusiastic de-regulator, it’s tough to know how he’ll respond to any broad-based effort to siphon power away from the branch of government he controls... “Every week we’ll come up with a piece of legislation—and it doesn’t have to be Freedom Caucus driven,” he insisted. “My internal goal is to be promoting between 10 and 12 Freedom Caucus initiatives and 8 to 10 pieces of legislation led either by conservative Democrats or by the more moderate members within the GOP conference.”.. On the trail, Trump vowed not to cut benefits or raise the eligibility age for either Medicare or Social Security. Even so, some key members of his Social-Security transition team, along with his newly named budget chief (Freedom Caucus co-founder Mick Mulvaney) are outspoken fans of reduced benefits and/or privatization, indicating that President Trump may be more open than candidate Trump to messing with the system... His vision for the group is “a shift,” he allowed—and one that is not without risk. For starters, being reasonable and policy oriented and open to compromise is a great way to get ignored in politics... “People are tired of excuses,” he told me. “It is incumbent upon us to find ways to get things done.”