Elizabeth Warren couldn’t be further from a Cagney/Coppola-style capo, but only in physical appearance. Her tactics are quite similar, as in “nice car, shame if something happened to it.”
The Massachusetts senator and liberal gadfly has a passive-aggressive habit of curiously wondering what financial services companies might be thinking and doing about a particular piece of legislation she supports, and sending letters to inquire.
The inference is classic La Cosa Nostra—get in line, or else. Scary when it’s a common street hoodlum, absolutely terrifying with the full weight of the United States Government.
The latest is her letter to 33 companies with direct ties to the 401(k) space, including Schwab, LPL Financial, TD Ameritrade and others.
She simply asked if “they support delaying the regulation and if they would roll back their already-announced plans if the rule’s implementation is pushed back.”
Any guesses on their answers?
She was a bit more aggressive than passive in her last go round when, in April, she again “asked” the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate comments made by companies about the fiduciary proposal.
Lincoln National, Jackson National Life, Prudential Financial and Transamerica were all targeted “for publicly stating that the rule …would hurt business while privately telling investors it would not create a major hurdle.”
She requested the commission “formally look into whether the statements were contradictory and ran afoul of securities laws.”
Nothing much came of it, and lo and behold SEC commissioner Mary Jo White then became the target of Warren’s ire, with a request of President Obama to fire White as chair.
Nothing came of that as well, but we think we see a pattern, and maybe that’s the point—establish a consistent anti-corporate record to capitalize on the next political pendulum swing.
“Given these positive changes in the market, any efforts to roll-back these new protections will be devastating to consumers,” Warren wrote in the latest letter. “In addition to undermining Americans’ newfound confidence in their investment advisers, it could result in immediate price increases and the return of dangerous commission-based sales incentives that benefit the advisers’ bottom lines, but drain away consumers’ savings.”
“Undermining Americans’ newfound confidence …,” given her record, it takes some chutzpah to write a line like that.