One of the greatest strengths of American capitalism is how it addresses the problems faced by its citizens. The greater the problem, and the more lives impacted by the problem, the more entrepreneurs, academics and government officials there are seeking solutions. As it is, government tends to attack problems with laws and regulations that they hope will then steer profit seeking entrepreneurs to find a solution benefiting all of society. In the world of investment management, these profit seeking entrepreneurs rely heavily on the work of academic researchers to isolate a process that can then be manufactured into a product and monetized.
Of the many problems facing our citizens today, the needs of aging baby boomers should be considered a priority. I do not say this because I happen to be one of those boomers, but because of the economic burden placed on their children and grandchildren in covering health care, social security, and the day to day living needs of this massive group of individuals. This burden will continue to grow year by year at the rate of 10,000 per day for at least the next ten years.
Of course a simple solution would be to let the boomers fend for themselves, and be responsible for all the costs of their own lives, as is done in the majority of the world. Obviously that solution would not sit very well with the boomers themselves, nor would it sit well with the majority of the population. However, the more that boomers fend for themselves, the better off all of society will be. This has been the driving force of academic research and product manufacturing for today’s retirees, most of which has revolved around sustainable lifetime income or products offering to pay a higher yield than easily available to the public. These products have led to government regulations placing limits on the aggressive salesforce of broker dealers and insurance companies who are, at least in the current DOL’s opinion, skimming too much off the top for themselves. Their solution, which takes effect on April 10th, is to minimize conflicts of interest through disclosure and assumption of liability for the distributers of retirement products.
My concern goes well beyond that of regulation. My concern has to do with the lack of portfolio management skills of those financial advisors who the current and future retirees rely upon. The majority of these advisors have lived in an isolated world of product distribution whose portfolio management skills revolved around a suitability standard. My concern has to do with the current academic research that is attempting to find certainty where no certainty exists. My concern has to do with a government that believes all that is needed to improve portfolio management skills can be accomplished by filling out a bunch of paperwork that protects the distributors more than current and future retirees.
I am afraid that these new rules will have little impact in the short run on solving the long-term problems facing retirees and their children. Over time, as the courts interpret and apply the rules of fiduciary standards under the DOL regulations, the financial industry will evolve and produce a better outcome. Until that time, I thought I might help by sharing an article with you written in 1979, towards the end of the last bear market in bonds. There are very few of us in finance today, including academics, government employees and financial advisors, who were actively working with individual investors to build and manage portfolios 38 years ago. Given that we are near, if not already at the end of, the great bull market in fixed income investments, revisiting 1979 may help each of us as we make decisions about our own portfolios.
