Why The SEC Really Wants To Regulate Indexed Annuities…
September 9, 2008 | Author dragonfly
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” Wall Street, 1987
The SEC is a Behemoth that works for other Behemoths, in particular the major Wall Street firms and their minions. The SEC, along with its junior partner FINRA, wear the mantel of a Robin Hood while concurrently robbing everyone in the neighborhood by supporting the self serving aims of the Behemoths. Now they want to get control of another bag of money.
‘Sheryl Moore, chief executive of AnnuitySpecs.com, estimates there were $25.1 billion in indexed annuities sold in 2007, down about $2 billion from their peak in 2005. While sales decreased, last year total indexed annuity assets reached $123 billion according to the SEC.”
Furor builds on SEC indexed annuity oversight plan
By EILEEN AJ CONNELLY, Associated Press http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/09/08/ap5400800.html
The SEC claims that its aim is to protect consumers by further regulating an insurance product on the rather flimsy claim that Indexed Annuities are funded by investments.
DUH!
All insurance products are funded by investments. The simple fact is that the Wall Street wizards, who brought you the current credit and housing crises, now want to ‘fix’ the indexed annuity market.
BUNK!
The Wall Street Behemoths, who will be no more open and clear in their explanation of this product than current state regulations require, want to capture all that annuity money for themselves.
Consumers will actually lose since the Wall Street wonks will dishonestly demonstrate that these products don’t perform as well as the failed mutual fund industry, ETF’s and fee based advisors, thereby recovering the $123 billion that Wall Street’s Behemoths have been unable to get their greedy hands on.
American’s have been duped into believing that the SEC/FINRA are the watchdogs they were originally intended to be. They are not. They have morphed into watchdogs for the Wall Street Behemoths and their aim has become protecting the Behemoths from lawsuits by consumers as opposed to protecting consumers from the subterranean subterfuges of the Wall Street Behemoths.
Having said all that, it is clear also that the Indexed Annuity business is plagued with charlatans and snake oil sales reps that create a problem for the majority. The states have been too slow to effectively regulate these products and the people who sell them. The answer, however, is not to add a layer of bureaucracy that answers to the Behemoths.
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Posted in Legal, Ethical, Moral, Money, Movie Quotes, What Others Say | 
Tags: annuities, annuity, credit, investing, investments, Money
Well done post. Balanced and objective. Unfortunately, as with most of the media reports, the blog misses the real reason why the SEC seeks to regulate indexed annuities as securities. Like most things, it is not about a bad product or even bad salespeople, but about money and power.
The FINRA members have been pushing for this change in regulation because they lost millions in revenues when registered reps sold indexed annuities directly through insurance companies. The real battle here is over the control of the distribution system of financial products.
You note that neither FINRA or the SEC suggest the product is a bad product, only that it is sold improperly. They do not attack the product itself for the simple reason that their objective is to control the sale of the product and recapture lost revenues. bobmaconbusiness.com
Bob, Bob,
I appreciate your comments, but the greed of Wall Street was the point! Sorry if it wasn’t clear.
“Consumers will actually lose since the Wall Street wonks will dishonestly demonstrate that these products don’t perform as well as the failed mutual fund industry, ETF’s and fee based advisors, thereby recovering the $123 billion that Wall Street’s Behemoths have been unable to get their greedy hands on.”
And, I don’t believe the folks who want to control the distribution of these products will actually sell them. They will sell what they’ve always sold because they control the money in those products while insurers control the money in indexed products.
ketchum id…
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