This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, October 7, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown, a proposed federal rule that aims to reduce conflicts of interest among brokers who are both advising you and selling you

Thayonite discusses the proposed rule and what it might mean for your retirement.

This is a rule that has been proposed by the Department of Labor who has oversight over ERISA, which is pension plans and retirement accounts. So there's a little bit of an overlap with their jurisdiction here with the Securities

and Exchange Commission who oversees investments in securities.

Obviously pension and retirement funds are invested in securities,

so there's a concurrent jurisdiction on some of these issues.

DOL has come out with this rule and there's a possibility that the SEC will also come out with its own rule.

But this would require brokers to conform to a fiduciary duty standard

when recommending different securities for purchase by their clients.

So currently they are under a suitability standard,

which means that they can only recommend products that are suitable for their clients.

This would raise the bar a little bit.

I think the concern is that there are certain payment and compensation structures

for brokers.

I think a lot of people know, brokers oftentimes work on commission.

So if they sell you a product, they get paid for selling you that product.

And there are different compensation structures for different securities that they could sell you or different funds.

And the concern is that they might sell you something where they get a better commission payment,

but it might not be the best purchase for you.

So you know there's I think that that concern in some ways you can understand where people

are coming from saying that well you know when I get

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