Statement of the Incoming President,
Joseph C. Peiffer
Thank you, Hugh. Hugh has moved the ball forward on important issues for American Investors all while sporting one of the strongest mustaches in the claimant’s bar. Do they make you send a postcard out, Hugh, when you move into a new neighborhood with that mustache?
Thank you to my wife, Anna Ruth, who loves me so much that she’s willing to share a suite with Frankowski, Peter and fifty of our closest friends until 1:00am each night of this conference – all while remaining stone-cold sober, so our embryo doesn’t turn out like Adam Gana.
I also wanted to thank our friend, Congressman Matt Cartwright, from Pennsylvania – 6 district. Matt has been a tremendous friend of Mainstreet investors. He sits on the subcommittee that signs the SEC’s checks so they tend to listen to him. He was going to be here tonight, but he had to be in DC today to vote on whatever the latest speaker of the house wanted to do on his first day. Thank you to everyone who has committed to donate to his campaign. He’ll be here tomorrow morning for breakfast, and we’ll be doing a Q&A tomorrow at noon. Please stop by and meet him. He’s a solid human.
I see a lot of new faces out there. Welcome! This is a special organization. In the 25 years I’ve practiced law, I’ve been a part of many national bar associations, but nothing quite like this.
People in PIABA are dedicated to the advancement of American Investors. We are, by in large, a middle-class bar association here to serve Main Street Investors.
Each of us has sat in our offices with proud 65-year-old people, who have worked their whole lives, saved money for their retirement, sent their kids to college, skipped vacations or when they went, they went in a car. These folks show up in our offices and they’re devasted. Grown men and women, cry. They need our help.
That is where PIABA comes in. We help each other, we help individual investors that call us and, we work hard to make things better for investors that we’ll never meet.
To help each other, I want to work this year on a couple of things. First, I’d like to redesign our website to move us off the MySpace platform or whatever we’re using now to become more user friendly. I want to build an investor-facing web presence that will educate investors and bring harmed investors into your offices.
If you were at the business meeting, you heard Peter Mougey talk about collaborating more between us. We should do that. With the bull market for the last 14 years, lots and lots of fraud has been covered up. But, we will all do better for the clients we have if we share tips and documents.
As far as American investors go, our agenda is both ambitious and righteous. There are three things that, to a person, when we explain it to our clients, their jaw hits the floor.
First, brokers and investment advisers can operate with $5,000 in net capital and no insurance. You can’t get a 1989 Honda Civic for $5,000. Our clients do not understand how it is possible that they have to have insurance to drive your car, but brokers can drive their life savings into the ditch without any insurance at all.
We’ve heard for years from FINRA and investment advisers that insurance would be too expensive for some brokers to get. I’m no fan of insurance companies, but the one thing they are good at is pricing risk. I mean, my cousin with three DUIs also complains that his auto insurance is too high. Well, maybe he should take the bus. And, maybe brokers whose insurance is too high should go sell used cars instead of untraded REITS.
Next, I’ve never had a client walk into my office that understood that the guy he entrusted his life savings to did not have a duty to put the retiree’s interest in a long and happy retirement over the broker’s interest in making commissions and fees. That’s nuts. The DOL Fiduciary Rule is meant to remedy that. It’ll be out this year. And, PIABA will be working with the AARP, the AFL-CIO, Better Markets, Consumer Federation of American and other powerful organizations to lend our support to pass this important rule.
Finally, RIA forced arbitration. RIA Forced arbitration makes FINRA look fair. Don’t get to excited Rick---That like being the king of shit hill. But, having clients who have lost $200,000 be forced to pony up $250,000 just to have their case heard is crazy. The current RIA forced arbitration system prices retiree victims out of just and it cannot stand.
What can we do about it? After all the industry spends tens of millions of dollars trying to keep American investors ignorant and preserve the status quo.
First, join a committee, help out, volunteer. We need your help. We don’t need to spend tens of millions of dollars because we’re right. And, we have the voters and the stories to bend the arc of justice toward the American investor and away from Wall Street.
Our power comes from our clients. The proud, elderly couple who come into your office that lost their life saving and has to rely on their children. The Retirees who have attempted suicide. The folks who had long, hard-working careers that end up greeting at Walmart. And, the worst I’ve ever heard, a client who lost all of his money, lost his house and had to rent a room from his ex-wife.
We all have meaningful stories that this that we can use to make change. This year, we will be working with powerful interest groups, legislators, regulators, lobbyist, and our PR firm to bring both public and private pressure on the industry.
Those lobbyist, PR firms and collaboration will cost money. We need that too. Give what you can. Give your time. Give whatever money you can. Together, we will fight to make things fair for American investors. This is how we fight. This is how we win!
Thank you!