It is indeed sad that 40 percent of millennials favor the government banning speech that some deem offensive, according to a recent Pew
poll.
Even more distressing is that college students have plenty of company with members of other age groups and professions who want to shut down speech they disagree with.
Take speech about personal finance. This is an area where there would certainly seem to be room for a diversity of opinion, given the complexity of the topic and differences in individual financial goals and circumstances. That’s why there is no shortage of books and radio and television shows with differing viewpoints about financial planning.
If you don’t subscribe to what Suze Orman or others have to say, you can always read or tune in
Dave Ramsey and even call into his radio show for advice.
At least, that is, for now. A growing group of regulators and financial professionals are declaring that financial advice, even if it occurs in a public forum, should be suppressed if they deem the advice “incorrect.”
And they see a pending rule from the Department of Labor (DOL) as the perfect vehicle to make Ramsey and others who offer financial tips to the public zip their lips or face government sanctions. This rule could be as harmful to financial talk radio as the
Fairness Doctrine was to political talk radio before President Ronald Reagan repealed that rule in 1987
A recent
article in LifeHealthPro, a prominent online trade journal for insurance agents and financial advisers, calls for Ramsey to “be regulated and to be held accountable” by the government for the opinions he gives to listeners.
And it opines that the DOL’s proposed “fiduciary rule,” likely to be finalized in the next few weeks unless defunded by Congress in spending bills in December, would be the ideal tool with which to muzzle Ramsey and other personal finance broadcasters.
“This rule would define Dave as an adviser and thus … he would be regulated as a fiduciary,” Michael Markey, insurance agent and owner of Legacy Financial Network, argues in the LifeHealth Pro article he authored.
After going through a litany of financial tips given by Ramsey to callers on which Markey holds differing views — such as what type of life insurance to purchase (and I take no position on who is right, as these are not public policy issues) — Markey hails the DOL rule as ushering a new era in which “entertainers like Dave Ramsey can no longer evade the pursuit of regulatory oversight.”
Is it the case that the rule would do this? Or is Markey’s interpretation just wishful thinking on the part of someone who — like many of the demonstrators on university campuses — wants to shut down opinions he disagrees with?
Markey is right that the DOL rule does expand massively — and in my belief, probably illegally — the definition of the term “fiduciary” under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.
Moreover, as I have noted in that article and in many
blogs, the term would apply to many financial professionals who do not even give advice, such as custodians of self-directed IRAs.
Since those deemed “fiduciaries” would have to follow the mandate to only handle investments that adhere to what the government deems as savers’ “best interests,” individual choice of holdings in IRAs and 401(k)s would be sharply restricted.
But until I read Markey’s article in LifeHealthPro, I never thought the rule would cover those who offer free advice in a public forum.
So I asked Kent Mason, partner at the law firm Davis & Harman who has testified before Congress on the ill effects of the fiduciary rule, for his view. Though Mason strongly disagrees with Markey that Ramsey and others should be shut up, he told me Markey was mostly right in his interpretation of the ability of the fiduciary rule to muzzle financial personalities answering portfolio questions from callers or audience members.
“Under the proposed regulation, investment advice from a radio host to a caller regarding the caller’s own investment issues would appear to be fiduciary advice if the advice addresses specific investments,” Mason said in an email.
It doesn’t matter that Ramsey and other hosts aren’t compensated by listeners, he adds, as the DOL rule explicitly covers those who give investment advice and receive compensation “from any source.”
Mason agreed with Markey that the compensation Ramsey receives from radio stations that carry his show and from book sales are enough to define Ramsey as a “fiduciary” under the rule.
Even without this flagrant First Amendment breach, there are more than enough concerns about this rule for Congress to defund it in upcoming legislation for fiscal year 2016 spending.
A recent
letter coordinated by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and signed by 33 conservative and free-market groups warns about many Americans losing their current brokers and a projected $80 billion cost to consumers from loss of access to financial advice.
Ninety-six House Democrats also
wrote DOL expressing concern that the fiduciary rule could limit access to retirement planning for poor and middle-class Americans.
So why not create a “safe space” for free speech and financial freedom?
John Berlau is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He is the author of the book “Eco-Freaks.” Read more reports from John Berlau — Click Here Now.
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