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The SEC goes after pure criminal conduct; who can resist that. The SEC looks good taking out the worst of the worst. While the recent news about large criminal activities is stunning, the largest losses and harms are not caused by criminal activity, but by systematic selling of financial products that are bad products, with purposeful misinformation, and incomplete face-to-face disclosures. Many people we talk to feel absolutely betrayed by the broker who looked them straight in the eyes and said there was a guarantee on their variable annuity. But none of the brokers mentioned that you could invoke that guarantee only after ten years of holding the annuities. None mentioned that you had to annuitize, too, and lose control of your money. To invoke the guarantee, you often also have to take the money over 20 years, after you annuitize it. This is 30 years from when you bought the annuity, just to get your own money back, with a minimal rate of return (watch out for inflation and high costs and fees in the annuity administration.) Everyone is surprised by this, because it is not a genuine guarantee. It’s this kind of in-your-face dishonesty that the SEC largely ignores.
