Lisa Gomez on EBSA Regulation & Retirement Plan Innovation

[0:03] Justin: Perfect way to cut it. [0:04] JD: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Retireholics. I'm sorry, everyone. Nerdy Chad cannot make it tonight. He is recovering from shoulder surgery. And as much as we pressed him to mix the drugs with the booze and come on the show instead, he's gonna. He's gonna sit this one out tonight, which is just fine because I'm here. I'm here. My name is Ted Bana and I'm joined by silent J, Justin McNeil. And drum roll, please. Not really. Just pretend like you hear the drum roll in your head. Up. There we go. Favorite retire holic guy. [1:03] Justin: Doing that. We really gotta stop. [1:04] JD: We gotta. We got a lot to cover tonight. We've got a very big guest. But hold off, hold off Silent J on that guest intro because I've got a song to sing for everyone tonight. It is when you get the big guests, you gotta sing the big songs. So let me get it set up here. Gotta turn that on. Gotta turn this to here and get my music ready. A little nervous. Here we go. Here we go. Can you hear it? All right. [1:57] Justin: Yep, yep. We know what this is. [2:08] JD: It's for you, Lisa. [2:12] Justin: He's terrified. [2:24] JD: Once upon a time not so long ago Paps used to think that they rock but nobody like they down on their luck. It's tough, so tough High fees that'll make you cry. Working to deceive they bring home the pay for greed, for greed they gotta stand up. Cause pets suck. Standalone plans already got it on lock. We don't need PEPs cause they fucking suck a lot get rid of the rot. Whoa. The pets don't care Whoa. They don't play fair. Take my hand and we'll make it I swear the pimps don't care. That's it. I can't. Can't hear you guys. Fun fact, when I turn this off, When I was practicing that, and I'm not kidding, the. The neighbor's dog started howling in some of my renditions. And I swear to God on my family's life, that is a fact. I'm not making that up. Yes, I was. [4:05] Justin: I was not counting. I was not keeping track. We're just gonna estimate. You said pulled employer plan and acro sin. I don't know. [4:13] JD: Eight times. Okay, all right, I'll start. I'll start working on those. Brandon, Brandon, can you just tabulate that [4:19] Justin: so I don't have to hit it eight times? [4:22] JD: Silent Gday, can you please? It is a very special day for us that we get someone of this high of a Level. Intro the guest, my friend. Intro the guest. [4:35] Justin: Now, we've, we've had some very impressive guests on the show, but our guest today, she is on a whole nother level, as most of you might already know. But for damn near 30 years, she was a courtroom juggernaut where she went toe to toe in some of the biggest bankruptcy cases in American history. She was nominated by the President, confirmed by the U.S. senate, and became the Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefit Security Administration. Suck it, Mark. You don't get to ring me up. And under her leadership, the results were staggering. In a single year, her agency recovered 1.4 billion for workers. In their plans, they helped nearly 6,000 people find over 429 million in pension benefits they were owed. She also knows the truth about the aliens in Roswell, the PEP conspiracy, and who killed Kennedy. Ladies and gents, the President of LMG Collaborative Consulting Solutions. [5:33] JD: Welcome. How do you feel? On a scale of 0 to 10, how concerned are you in the outcome of the show? [5:42] Lisa Gomez: I know, you know, people, people are asking if this is my exit, what was my exit strategy? I think this is my exit strategy on further consideration for any other positions. You know, but it'll be interesting if I get nominated in a future administration. And, you know, this shows up like at the Senate committee hearing. [6:03] JD: You're literally, you're literally tapping into my dream in life. [6:07] Lisa Gomez: Yeah. [6:08] JD: That if someone was nominated and all [6:11] Lisa Gomez: those picture the screenshot, like blown up, you know, posters. [6:17] JD: I don't even want a screenshot. I want them to like, go to the video. Be like, you were on this show. Why on earth should we ever confirm you to this, this position? Right. [6:26] Lisa Gomez: Is that you showed an incredible, you know. Well, but maybe they'll say you showed an incredible amount of judgment in doing [6:34] Justin: that, you know, sympathy for people. Right. [6:39] JD: Let's play the video to quickly kind of, I mean, not, I don't want to get out of the way because it's, it's exciting and it's important. Like, this is a very big role. So let me just talk about it for a moment. I got a question. Like, you're at the, you're at the top of the 401k food chain going into this role. And as Justin said, you're a regular person. DC I'll drink is not your forte. Like, you didn't. You're not a politician. You're on that space. And so here you are, day one of the job. How do you know what to do? Like, is there someone that's there waiting for you like, I don't know if when someone becomes president, if they've got people there waiting for them the first time, but is there someone there that's like, okay, Lisa. Or Excuse me, Mrs. Gomez, let me walk you through your agenda. The things you're going to do. How do you know whose people's phone calls to take, what you're supposed to do every day? Like, just where does it start? [7:40] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, for me, it literally started with, like, the entrance to the parking lot, because as I was pulling, I, you know, they told me, like, pull into this, this garage, you know, entrance of the Francis Perkins Building. And there were, you know, I. I do not lie. Like, people waiting at the entrance to the garage, you know, to tell me, okay, like, come in here. Yeah, park here. And I think I like how I imagined it from that very moment, like, going into the wrong entrance or, you know, going in the wrong direction. But. But yeah, no, they. [8:16] JD: And then all the way into your office, like, up in your office, they're going to, like. Because you don't. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know what the job description is, you generally know, but what does the day to day look like? You have no idea. [8:28] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, No, I mean, you know, to be honest, when I first found out that. When I first found out that I got nominated, that I was being considered to be nominated, I talked with, like, Phyllis Borsi and asked her, like, what do you do? [8:42] JD: What? [8:42] Lisa Gomez: Like, what do you do over the course of the day? And I Googled, you know, job description for EBSA Assistant secretary, and there was one online. So. But I will say it did not say everything that you had to do. But, but it was a learning. There are. There's a bunch of, you know, people. A bunch of great people working for ebsa, and they just started with, you know, coming in hour by hour, talking with me about what was on the plate. [9:12] JD: But, yeah, Lisa, you. You owe us two penalty drinks on this show. On this show, we refer to it as the Employee Benefit Security Administration. Not your fun little version. You do. So go ahead and take. [9:27] Lisa Gomez: Okay, this is my. I'm. I'm. [9:30] JD: Nice, nice. Very good. [9:33] Lisa Gomez: All right. [9:34] JD: And you don't need a shot. It's. It's just a sip. Just a little. We sip to. We've had many guests that thought it was a shot, and they. They fall over too, too soon. All right, well, before we move on to headlines. Hang on a sec. Brandon. I want to. This isn't me getting political. I just want to ask you, like everything these days seems so political. There's, there's the right and the left. It seems like you can't come up with a subject that isn't, you know, deemed to be pro right or anti left or, or this or that. [10:09] Justin: I've got plenty of subjects that, trust [10:12] JD: me, Washington would figure out a way to, to place it at one of those camps. I naively, I always felt like, well, 401k retirement plans, this is not a, a partisan subject. Like this is, it's pretty straightforward. But I guess now that I look back and I think of Jesus, I'll just drink ESG and certain things and I guess, I guess even the fiduciary rule ends up being kind of this political battle. My question for you is, did you know that going into, into the job, did that catch you off guard? And how do you feel about that right now? Like should retirement plan be so partisan or, or is it shocking to you that it is that way? And by the way, do you have any idea of history? Was it always that way? Or is this a modern day thing that's happening where we're so just at odds? [11:10] Lisa Gomez: You know, I, I definitely knew going into it because you know, deal with it on the outside, on the inside that like certain parts of things are so political, but it, it just drives me bananas that things are so political. Like for example, you know, you talk about the, the rule of prudence and loyalty and plan investing, you know, which everybody likes to call the, the ESG rule. [11:44] JD: So finish your thought. Okay. Or she's ready. She's doing on purpose now I'm ready. [11:51] Lisa Gomez: Yes. You know, but like why are these things political? Like this should just be a basic concept about and you know, and it's, and I mean the things that. One of the things that just drives me bananas and just like you see it so much more when you're in a job. Like this is like how political it really is and you know, I mean, and when you're, but when you're representing plan sponsors and you're talking to plan sponsors, plan fiduciaries, and they are just complaining that it's like I can't stand this pendulum swinging. [12:28] JD: That was going to be my next question. You're hitting my next question. Like, so is this, we turn off the faucet, we turn it on, we go back, we go forth as, as we go from Republican to Democrat. I mean obviously we, we saw that, we'll talk a little later. We saw that about the kind of crypto notice that Y' all put out that then transplant. So. So, yeah. You agree there's this weird kind of back and forth. [12:51] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, no, I think it's just a weird. It's a. It's a horrible back and forth because. And it's kind of like just rescinding. And it's not just the Trump administration that did it. You know, the Biden administration. It's just a thing now that you come in and, you know, it's like, okay, I could understand the put a halt on everything until we get a chance to look, want to soak it [13:15] JD: in, get a look at it, make sure we agree with it. Yeah. [13:17] Lisa Gomez: But to just say, you know, I don't. I just. Because the last administration put it out, we're gonna take it back, you know, and then if you. And then if you come in, you know, if you're a plan fiduciary, you're working in a plan and you're saying, okay, well, this. These people are telling me to do X certain things. You can't get them done within, you know, two, three, four years. And then it's the next. By the time you've got it in, then you're in the next administration. They're saying, oh, the thing that you put in. Yeah, we don't like it. So now you're in trouble for putting in people. [13:53] JD: I guess some people could say, like, in a weird way that that's a kind of healthy balance, like a checks and balances. Right. No one can really, like, run away with the power. But then on the flip side, and then it's like, yeah, but to a certain extent, we never make any real progress on a lot of things. Not to say we haven't made progress, because we. We definitely have. And so. [14:14] Lisa Gomez: Yeah. [14:14] JD: So I don't know. Okay. I didn't want to get too deep on that. [14:17] Lisa Gomez: No, no. I think that that's it for sure. And I think it's definitely, you know, there's always been some aspect of it, but, you know, Phyllis is always loves to tell me how, like, she got in. You know, she was confirmed unanimously. And, you know, like, it happened so quickly. And I think that just ever, you know, by the time they came to Preston and then me, I mean, you know, who was paying attention? The EPSA Assistant secretary. [14:46] JD: They're literally. They're voting. They're voting against you or voting against Preston, and they really have no idea who the hell you are. They're just doing it to stay on their team. [14:56] Lisa Gomez: Right. [14:56] JD: Yeah. [14:57] Lisa Gomez: Right. No, and then, you know, by the Time they actually voted me in. It's like they didn't even stay for the vote. I mean, I was so pissed off because you're waiting to look and these people who, like, had been voting against you the whole time once, they're just, like, giving up on the whole thing. Like the, you know, there were so few people who actually, like, stayed for the vote. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me. You made me wait 15 months and now you're not even, you know, hanging around. [15:24] JD: You know, we don't, I don't think we get too political on the show ever. But you can make fun of the presidents, like, you can make fun of Biden and you can make fun of Trump for all their kind of, you know, qualities. But, man, those people in Congress or the Senate and everything, those are a bunch of weirdos, man. Like, not all them, but like a lot of them. It's like, what are we doing that really needs to get overhauled? Says the, Says the surfer from California in a beanie. Let's move on, Brandon. [15:55] Lisa Gomez: Well, I'll just tell you one funny story if I can. [15:58] JD: Yeah. [15:58] Lisa Gomez: And that is that I, you know, we had to have all 50 Democrats at the time in the Senate, you know, present in the Senate to take a vote for me to get in. And somebody was always like, sick with COVID broke a hip. You know, there was always some kind of problem, but I was constantly Googling like, senator sick senator, injured senator, you know, like vacant, whatever. And I said, I gotta stop doing this because people are gonna, like, the FBI is gonna come to my door and like, ask me, like, why are you Googling about, like, the health and safety of all of the people in the United States Senate? We've been checking your Google history, but eventually it happened. So that was good. [16:42] JD: Yeah. All right, that's interesting, Brandon. Let's. Let's do headlines. Cue us up for some headlines, Brandon. This one is from wealthmanagement.com. the title of the article is Empower Personal wealth. Thank you, sir. Wealth division moles. Registered investment advisor acquisition people. Ed Murphy is not even pretending to hide it anymore. This guy is full fledged, 100%. And I highly recommend you go read this article. He is talking about the fact we all know that Empower purchased personal capital for $1 billion. And when they did that, even though you could call personal capital a registered investment advisor, to me it seemed more like they were buying a app or a tool or a thing for. For wellness, you know, or not my wellness for. For planning via the 401k for these rollovers. This now Ed is saying they are actively looking to acquire a national registered investment advisor. And let's just. I like to go fast with this stuff so. But now I want to slow down a little bit and read some of these quotes from Ed Murphy in this, in this article. See come on JD for us it wouldn't be just about adding distribution capability. In some cases it would be adding management to augment when we already have. That's a little different. If you contrast the types of transitions we've done in the past. Unlike the traditional register investment where there are lots of efforts focus on hunting and prospecting. We do have this installed base of prospects. He's telling you and Lisa's looking at me funny. This is the drama with this to set Lisa up. Empowers a record keeper. Financial advisors all across the country drive business to empower. Right. And then act as the financial advisor on the plan. Empower through its acquisition of personal capital and we've been putting on our tin foil hats and talking about this on the show. Our empower is looking to take advantage of those participants and get their assets rolled over into their own little management programs to make money. And apparently I'm sorry I don't have the stats right now but it's been working pretty damn well for them over the past five to seven years or what have you. And so the advisor community is a little weary of this. Like well wait a second, these are our clients. What if, what if we want to sell these types to services to them, not you. And Ed Murphy for the longest time has said no, no, no, if you want to, we'll let you. We're not trying to step on your toes but now I feel like it's just pedal to the metal like they're literally going to purchase a large national registered investment advisor firm. I'm not trying to say I told you so. We were talking about this a long time ago but this to me is like nuts. Now tell me I'm, I'm going over the top. Lisa, am I a conspiracy theorist? How do you feel about record keepers making more money from the plans that are brought to them by financial, the hard working financial advisors all across this country. [20:24] Lisa Gomez: I mean you know, whether or not it's a. I won't go about the conspiracy theory part of it but you know, I think. [20:31] JD: True. [20:33] Lisa Gomez: Well you know it's, it's with the Roswell information so I can't provide it to you but you know I think that one of, one of the biggest problems here is just the fact that peop. The people who, Whose money we're talking about being, you know, being held by, they don't know. They don't know anything about how the system works. [21:00] JD: Right. [21:00] Lisa Gomez: You know, and if you are. And it's not really that it's being hidden from them, it's just, I mean, it's. It's not really being explained to them. [21:11] JD: Well, no, no offense to the participants, Lisa, but they're kind of like, you know, cattle. You know, they're just being herded certain places. And so we had an advisor on the show not long ago who gave us a real life example of one of her participants and one of her plans being really kind of aggressively pushed through this funnel, if you will, to roll over a significant amount of money. I actually, for my own journalistic reporting, because several years ago, pretended to sign up for personal capital. And the dude was aggressive. Like, I was getting phone calls and texts months later, you know, unrelenting to. Even though I had told them that I was no longer interested. So it's not just being the cattle being, you know, corralled. It's also like some very aggressive sailing selling tactics. Yeah, but I get what you're saying. Let's worry about. [22:06] Lisa Gomez: No, and with a. And with a group of people that, you know, look, with a large group of people that are intimidated, you know, don't really know, like, don't really know how things work. And then, you know, you have these people, like you say that are coming to you and, you know, telling you, like, oh, I can help you. And, you know, so I don't. I'm not sure what to do about it because, I mean, my feeling is that if you really, if you're the consumer and you understand, like, you, you. You get it all and you stay. Okay, you know what? I know that I can go over there and find an advisor, but it's just going to be easier for me to stay here, you know, or I just want to stay. I get how this works, but I'm fine. It's kind of like going to the. Going to the car dealership and like, buying a car and knowing, like, you know, I know that I can, like, buy, I don't know, the, the tires or the something else, but I'm just gonna, like, do it here. Like, get all the works done while I'm here. [23:06] JD: But you're. You're under the assumption there. I mean, and obviously you, you still, Lisa, come from the perspective of the employee benefits and security administration, when you're buying that car, you still feel safe, as though, oh, the engine's gonna work. The tires are proper. It's been looked at, you know, like it's not a lemon these days because you're at a professional dealership. We'll get to the fiduciary rule a bit later. Breaking news in the chat bar. Holy Nate Moody. That's insane. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that. Saying that they're threatening to boot Nate from his premier advisory network because of some comments he made on LinkedIn. That's nuts. Like, and. And then secondary kudos to Tony for worrying about Nate's sister, because we're all worried about that. [23:57] Justin: You also said his name three times, and you know that. [24:00] JD: Oh, that's right. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Let's move on. Let's show Lisa how mature we are and professional. And let's spin the wheel of ice and get out of the way, because last time we almost missed it. [24:16] Justin: I hope it lands on Chad. [24:19] JD: I'll drink for Chad. [24:22] Justin: I think we all chat. We all drink. Yeah, yeah. [24:28] JD: Oh, yeah. [24:29] Lisa Gomez: There you go. [24:30] JD: Anyways, before I drink my smearing off, I'm gonna let Lisa kind of set up this next article. Brand the article go. [24:41] Justin: Yeah, Justin, don't go yet. [24:42] JD: The article is from Plan Advisor magazine, and the title of the article is Fear of Litigation Impacts Defined Contribution Services and Investments. Real simple question for you, Lisa. I'm sure you've been asked this before. In this article, they talk about 89% of defined contribution sponsors feeling that indicated that litigation risks are very significant or somewhat significant when they consider improving their services or, like, changing investments. And then they additionally go on to say, like, 25% of the respondents, one quarter, indicated that they actually decided against doing something like providing some benefit or some change out of concern for. For facing litigation. You hear right now, Ronowitz, making statements that are very anti litigation. Where do you fall on the concept whether these lawsuits actually are a positive impact on plan sponsors in some way, or are these actions some kind of impediment to progress? [25:50] Lisa Gomez: Well, let me start out by saying that I hate these surveys. [25:55] JD: We all do. We all hate. [25:56] Lisa Gomez: And I don't. And I don't. And I don't have any ice to drink. Yeah, no, I. I hate these surveys because, you know, I feel like you're looking at these things and, you know, it's got a bunch of little, you know, circles that you can fill in about. Like, where do you, you know, how satisfied, unsatisfied are you? So it doesn't really tell you, like, why or, you know, what did, what did they actually consider? So, you know, I, I feel like, [26:26] JD: go to the general question. [26:27] Justin: Small amount of respondents, 119. That doesn't seem very vast to me. [26:34] JD: So let's skip this. Was that upper market? [26:36] Justin: I didn't read the article. Was it upper micro mid, do they say? [26:41] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, well, also just thinking about, like, what's, what's the purpose? I'm not, I'm not disputing at all that, you know, there is fear of litigation risk. [26:52] JD: There is. There absolutely is. [26:54] Lisa Gomez: And that, that stops people from, you know, maybe like, going outside the box because they're afraid that they're going to go outside the box and somebody's going to tell them. [27:02] JD: Lisa, Lisa. At the very least, the advisors that guide them are very cognizant of these lawsuits. We're beat over the head with it all the time. And so they're probably conservatively leading their clients. But I just want, I want to know from you, do you think Schlichter and everything he does is good for our industry in some way, or are you more in the Ronowitz camp, which is like, this litigation is, is bad for us as an industry in terms of our evolution? [27:30] Lisa Gomez: I mean, I, I feel like, you know, dare I say that I'm in the middle. You know, they're both, they're both what, A cop out? Oh, no, I'm serious. They're both, they're. No. And they're. They're both right. I mean, I think that, you know, there is, there's, you always, you always need, I mean, you need enforcement, you need people to be keeping people in check. You know, you need, and there's been some changes to, you know, fees and compliance, different things that have come about, only because there's been litigation and people are paying more attention to it at the same time. At the same time, there are, you know, lots of plans. Plan fiduciaries that either, you know, are afraid of doing things that are innovative, like I was saying, or are, you know, paying off. I mean, in any industry, it's like not just in, in the employee benefits industry where you get people that are, you know, paying off because it's just too much money to go through litigation. So I feel, so I feel like [28:37] JD: that's actually most of them. That's the great majority of those. Lockheed. Yeah. [28:41] Lisa Gomez: Yeah. No, so I definitely, you know, I definitely agree that we need to be looking at how we can, how can, how we can address that. So that plan sponsors, you know, know how to comply. Don't have all. Don't have as many questions like can. Can feel more comfortable and not be spending all of their time on litigation. But at the same time, I do get worried that, like, is this gonna go too far? That and well, remember, you know, kind of take advantage of it. [29:14] JD: Remember pre show when we were making the joke about Justin asked if. If Susie Orman could get sued or whatever. And so the fact of the matter is about to just tell you that I think the government, all the rules we have in place, I think they actually do a very good job of letting us all know as an industry what's okay and what's not okay. And I think the industry professionals guide their clients appropriately. But the fact of the matter is, like to Justin, Susie Orman comment. Well, that doesn't stop Schlichter. Schlichter can sue you for anything, right? I mean, so if he feels like your target date funds that are. That you thought were a qualified default investment alternative are there, he can sue you for those not being prudent or having too high a fees. He can sue you for your performance being, you know, too low compared to something else. And then. And then flip his mind two years later and sue you for. For. For not having a fun. That's performing, you know, enough or something. And so I think that the answer is you can teach, educate, put all the rules you want, but you're not going to stop litigation. And I don't know what a Ronowitz is thinking he can do to stop it. Like, we live in the United States of America. Like, everyone's going to be able to sue at a certain point. Or am I missing something? What, what lever do you think he thinks he'll be able to pull to, like, stop that or slow that. Not stop it, but slow it down in some way. [30:39] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, I mean, I think some of it is. Some of it is. Are things that they are already doing that they were doing before he even got there, like, you know, chiming in on amicus briefs about what their position is or these, these advisory opinions that are coming out. Wait. Things that they're doing to put things out there to try to, like, signal, you know, even though they're not. [31:02] JD: What a stupid question I just asked. What a stupid question I just asked you exactly. What you do is what stops those things from happening. Because they're like, oh, I'm not going to sue them on this manner because I see that something came out that told me that that's okay in the eyes of the government or what happened. [31:16] Lisa Gomez: Right. Except. Except those things, you know, and this is why I say, like, I get worried. You know, these things, like Fred Reich says, you know, things that keep him up at night. You know, like, we have all these things that, like, worry us. But I worry that. That with some of these things, like you have an advisory opinion that says X, or you have an amicus brief that says Y, or they come out with some kind of safe harbor, and then people get into this, like, false sense of security that, okay, well, I don't have to worry about that anymore. But then if, you know, the advisory opinion only applies to that one group and, you know, everything is, like, fact specific. So I would like to focus more on, like, how can you really be helping people, helping these plan sponsors understand what they have to do and be able to do it? And, you know, I mean, I'll tell you that one. There were. There were many things that were really frustrating when I was in the. In my position, one of which was I kept hearing people talk to me about, you know, issues with litigation. And I came from being, you know, an attorney for plan sponsors. So, I mean, I had. Dan Aronowitz had, you know, he had. He insured some of my clients. So we were in the same. We were in the same boat together. But I would ask people, okay, so what do you want us to do? How can we help you? Tell me what's going on out there? And I got zero. Nothing. I got nothing. So. So that bugged me because I felt like I'm here trying to tell you, like, you know, thank you, Greg. I'm trying to tell you, like, let. Tell me what you need. Tell me how. How I can help you. I'm not promising that I'll do it, but tell me who the bad actors are here. Tell me. And like, it was crickets. So then I, you know, how about. [33:11] JD: How about my buddy Freddie B. I'll drink in the chat bar saying a Runawitz wants, like, a special expert court. Right. Which I think makes a lot of sense. I've always been baffled by having a court, a judge, even a jury who don't really understand, you know, our industry and everything, kind of make judgment. And so what do you think about that concept? Apparently, Carl Ingstrom, past guest on the show, doesn't like the idea. But what Freddie wants to know what you think of, like, a specialized court that. That has expertise in this industry. [33:49] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, I mean, I think. I think that would be a good thing. I don't know, especially, like, how you Establish that. But you know, certainly like, certainly like I had, you know, I had my [34:01] Justin: own Katie be a part of that. [34:05] Lisa Gomez: I want to be, you know, we'll be, we look like we're, you know, on the, like we're at the appeals court or you know, we're all on [34:13] Justin: right now just questioning the court right here. [34:16] JD: This is the, this is the Supreme Court of 401. [34:22] Lisa Gomez: But Mark has his already so. [34:23] Justin: Yes, I'm ready to go. I passed that easily. [34:27] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, no, but I know when I, when I was at my, my prior firm, you know, we had multi employer plans so we did a lot of collection work. Right. And so collecting from employers who weren't paying into the funds. The federal courts hate those things, you know. And when I would be coming in saying, you know, I'm suing, I have a lawsuit for $10,000 in unpaid contributions and the federal district court was like, why are you here? Because I have to be here. There's, I can't, you know, I can't be any place. [34:58] JD: And it's the people's money, right? It's the people. [35:01] Lisa Gomez: We have a fiduciary duty. I have to come in. But they, you know, they did not like that. So you know, you can have a risk of court. [35:08] JD: Yeah, I know you said oh drink, drink your penalty drink. You said yeah, good and great in concept but obviously there's details of those types of. Let's go to the next headline. Human Interest and Great Gray. We had the, if people remember back in the day we had the president, chief executive officer, I don't know the, the guy behind Great Gray, Rob Barnett on this show, one of my favorite guests of all time. I, I hopefully doesn't get mad at me for saying this, but in a good way. I feel like he was like the elon Musk of 401k and investing. Like he was, he was very, not a lot of personality but a lot of intelligence and like deep understanding of everything. Well apparently Great Gray and these collective investment trusts that they're a big advocate of and just quick news update. Great Gray bought Retirement Plan Advisory Group. They, they bought something else. Like these guys are just on a tear right now. But our favorite disruptor. Do we have a favorite disruptor? No. Maybe vest. Well, if I had to choose between the three big ones the longest time [36:25] Justin: it was guideline for you. [36:26] JD: That's our favorite skyline was my favorite baby. I do like the guy there. Anyways, I digress. Human interest introduces enhancing their 338 investment lineup to lower costs. They Claim that they're going to lower cost to 33% or even up as high as 63% cheaper. Let me tell you what that really means. They've got model portfolios that are six to seven basis points currently and they're going to reduce those by moving to collective investment trust. Yeah, Mark. To 4 to 5 basis points. But hey, still better to say 33% than we reduced it by 2 bips. But that's marketing. [37:11] Justin: Okay, again. [37:14] JD: No, no, please drive them in. [37:16] Justin: I was again, like, anything, I'm not going to say anything that anyone's not already thinking of, but it's like, okay, cool, you saved me so many percentage points on the actual cost of the fund. But is it performing better? Is it doing better? Am I making more or is it. I mean, how is that being. [37:31] JD: I'm going to argue you right now, rogue guy, and tell you that it's. It's probably the exact same type of structure. Although no offense to BlackRock, who's kind of running the index strateg fees. It's simply this. And you're going to hear a lot more about this. Everyone listen in. You're going to hear a lot more about this conversion from mutual funds to collective investment trusts. And by the simple nature that they have less administrative fees, less red tape to go through, less of all this kind of stuff, they are inherently cheaper. So in a true apples to apples world, a collective investment trust will win out as being cheaper. Human interest has clearly saw this as a potential for them to continue down the path of waving the flag of low costs, which they've done since the beginning. It's been crucial to their success and now they're going to leverage it a little more with collective investment trusts. It's smart, right? [38:23] Justin: Their current 338 is just 90 Vanguard right now, so. [38:30] JD: Well, yeah, you're nailing it now. You get it. [38:35] Justin: The same returns. [38:36] JD: Yeah. [38:36] Justin: It's a good thing. [38:37] JD: Yeah. Right. Lisa Gomez, I'm sure collective investment trust caught your eye a little bit here and there as you were doing your job or even before or after. They're good things, right. Or, or can you give us a nice government perspective that you don't like the less regulation on top of them. Is that potential thought or. [39:02] Lisa Gomez: I mean, you know, I think with collective investment trust, you know, they're not necessarily bad, but they're complicated, you know, and so I mean we didn't deal, we didn't have too much that was coming up with, with that specifically while I was there. But you know, I Think again with any of this stuff. It's just, you know, trying to. Trying to explain how. Who's. Who's looking out for the participants to explain. [39:29] JD: Okay, but, Lisa, let's. [39:30] Lisa Gomez: Yes. Complication. [39:32] JD: Say more about that. I want you to say more about that. What, like, I always thought is so simple. What is potentially more complicated about collective investment trusts versus mutual funds? To me, it just seems like less overhead. [39:48] Lisa Gomez: I think it's just, you know, more layers to, you know, To. To the investment, because there's more layers there. [39:56] JD: You need to come offline and teach me more about that, because I would love to tinfoil hat some of that in the future. I just figured it was like, okay, they have less administrative duties. Why do we care these days? They've got tickers now. We can clearly see, like, where they're allocated. I mean, we're not talking about private equity here. We're not talking about crypto. We're talking about, like, these are like mutual fund clones. You know, these are just equities in a pool, but they're run as a collective investment trust, which just has less scrutiny in terms of all the crap you had to do for mutual funds. And because we're 401k plans. What do we call this? You almost treat a plan sponsor as an accredited investor. Right. Which has always been true per the law. And so I just thought that, by the way, they have over 50% of. Of. Is it just target someone in the chat bar? Help me out. Collective investment trusts are winning the battle against mutual funds in 401k. I believe in the target date fund space. Maybe it's all funds. Someone fact check me. Yes, Robe guy. Well, just. I just said. [41:04] Justin: Can we take a step back real fast? Because you're going down a little bit of a different path here than, I guess, where my brain was going. And seeing this, it's like, okay, there was just a transaction with another disruptor who you claim, like, obviously was, like, not doing as well as everyone thought they would. [41:19] JD: Right. [41:19] Justin: And so he. Interest is kind of in that lane too. So why is it that they're making this move? Right? Is this. Is this a conservatory effort to say, look, we're going to lower cost so they can stop the bleeding? Are they losing plans? Is this I love you that's occurring. [41:37] JD: I love you. [41:38] Justin: Then they're trying to position themselves for acquisition. Are they going, look, our. Our. Our, you know, people, too, want to get money back for what they invested in, and I'd like to try and conserve as much of these cl. [41:52] JD: Possible. [41:53] Justin: Why are they doing this? Why now? Why? [41:56] JD: You're so awesome, Ro Guy. You're, like, made for TV now. You're literally, like, bringing controversy. Yes. Silent J, do you remember when we [42:05] Justin: were at Disney a few weeks ago and I told you no, guys, I didn't know that because I wasn't there. Thanks. [42:11] JD: No Disney anyways. I wish. [42:14] Justin: Very interesting thought, Mark. Jerks. You remember that conversation? Or were we too many beers deep at that point? [42:20] JD: I wish that was true, but I think this is nothing more than great. Gray probably reaching out to them going, hey, we got a deal for you. Them saying, oh, what's in it for us? Them saying, hey, you can look cheaper, and then just saying, okay, that. That lines up with what we try to do. And yeah, let's. Let's do it. We can. We can double down on our kind of cheap statement. I don't. I don't think that means that. Are they spilling out at the bottom of the engine or whatever. But I love that they then. [42:49] Justin: Is this just like a. Basically going to be what they have now, the 338 just getting replaced by this? So all their existing plans using this just automatically are now. [43:01] JD: Great question, but probably. I would imagine so. Yeah. I mean, we talk about. [43:06] Justin: We talk about litigation. Couldn't someone look at that and go, you know, hey, why didn't you guys. When this transaction took place and you decided to go from one 338 to the next, why didn't you evaluate not having a 338? [43:20] JD: Roby, do you want me to have Chad not come to the next show? Because I love this version of you right now. This is awesome. Lisa, let's talk about real news, shall we? Let's move on from these silly collective investment trusts and let's talk about Taylor Swift's new album. It dropped recently. And I don't know if you're a fan. Taylor Swift. We're talking about the fiance. [43:48] Justin: Never heard it. [43:49] JD: Kelsey, buddy. The fiance of Travis. Kelsey. That'll make sense to you. Rub guy. Oh, I. I have to say, I'm big into Bieber. I will admit to everyone. I've. I've definitely gotten in the jam lifting listening to Swifty over the years. The old Swifty, this new thing was coming out. I was. Was kind of anti it. I was thinking, I'm not gonna like this. I'm over this. And I popped it in. Popped it in. That's an 80s term. Did you go buy a compact disc, put it into my, My, my Sony disc, man, or Whatever it was. And my God, you know what they say about. I think, I think Saturday Night Live did a bit that, like, people who hate Taylor Swift and then you play it for them and they can't stop, like, moving to it and liking it. It's kind of like. What do they call it? Just like an ear worm or a, or a ear something. I mean, I, I don't know what [44:47] Justin: you're, where you're going with this, because I haven't listened to the album and I won't. Sorry. [44:52] Lisa Gomez: In my opinion, he couldn't, he couldn't look away. [44:56] JD: Great. [44:56] Lisa Gomez: Listen, I have to say. I have to say that I am not a swifty, but I do like some of Taylor Swift's songs. [45:05] JD: But I'll put them right there with you. [45:07] Lisa Gomez: But I started, But I started listening to the new, you know, to the new album. Are we still allowed to call it album if it's like, not sure for sure. I started listening to it and I have three, three kids who are in their 20s, and like, I just heard in my house, who is, who is listening to Taylor Swift? Why do you have Taylor Swift haters? [45:32] JD: They're haters. [45:32] Lisa Gomez: Yeah. Yeah. So I never, I never got to continue. I turned it off. But, but you're saying, you're saying we [45:40] JD: should, we should listen. I'm saying it is the classic Taylor Swift algorithm or mix or blend or what do you want to call it? Like, it's, there's about five songs on there. I think maybe there's 12 songs on the album or something that I was just like, okay, she's bringing it again. I, I, I, I, I want to hate this. And I'm loving it. As I drive my, my diesel GMC 2500 black truck with big mud tires on it. Down the road, I'm popping off to Taylor Swift. [46:14] Justin: Windows down, like, arm hanging out. No, right here. [46:17] JD: No, no. I gotta keep it to myself. [46:20] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, I mean, I, I see, like, some people in the, like in the comments are saying this, but we were saying before, like, how do you get to participants like, or even just like plan sponsors to get them to understand anything? And maybe we just need to collaborate with Taylor Swift and have her, you know, I mean, she, you know, she could have something. On behalf of the plan sponsor, why [46:40] JD: were you not thinking of these ideas when you were in charge of the. [46:45] Lisa Gomez: Say she, she can call out, you know, on behalf of all the plan sponsors. She can write a song, you know, about Schlichter and how he did her wrong and, you know, and Just saying all about CITs. We're. Yeah. [46:59] JD: Oh, ring her up. Lisa, you missed your opportunity. That would have been such a baller move for you to collaborate with Taylor Swift. And. [47:08] Lisa Gomez: Well, I mean, I never told you what was. You know, I was. I was only in there for half of the administration. [47:13] JD: Yeah, you only had a little over. [47:15] Lisa Gomez: You'll never know what was going to happen in. In the next administration. [47:18] JD: You had negotiations with Swifties. [47:20] Lisa Gomez: I had her. I had her pegged for, like the [47:23] Justin: other term limits or. Can you get back. [47:24] JD: I love it. I love it. [47:26] Lisa Gomez: So. [47:27] Justin: So, But. [47:27] JD: But real quick. [47:28] Lisa Gomez: I don't know. I think the Ronowitz. No, it's like a teenage daughter. Maybe he's a Swiftie. [47:33] JD: I'm not sure Ronowitz can get Swifty online. I don't think that's gonna happen. Yes. [47:38] Justin: I was gonna say. Yeah. I have no say on the album. I haven't listened to it. I heard she sold. Sold 3. 3.5 million copies week one, which is insane. So good for her. Yeah, I'm sure she needs the money, but the one thing I'll say is know your audience a little bit. My daughter's 11. She listens to it. Great. Goes into her room, turns on Alexa, asks her to play it. There's a song that's basically just an innuendo about Travis Kelsey's dong. [48:08] Lisa Gomez: I heard about that. [48:08] Justin: I'm just like. It's a little bit like, now. Do I have to, like, think about that? I don't know. [48:14] Lisa Gomez: There's apparently, like a kid's bop version of it or like a. Oh, that's even better friendly. You love kids [48:23] Justin: too, right? [48:24] Lisa Gomez: Yeah. [48:25] JD: Rogue guy. Be a better parent, bro. Be a better parent. Why the. Are you letting Maya listen to a dick song by Taylor Swift? I don't like Taylor Swift. I know. I don't. Yes, you do. [48:41] Justin: How do you sell albums when people just listen to. [48:44] JD: Hey, guys. Guys. Justin, ask the question again. But I just want to let everyone know I did not intend to spend 15 minutes on Taylor Swift. Go ahead, Justin. Yeah, you do it. [48:52] Justin: You said she sold three and a half million copies in the first week, but does anyone buy albums anymore? [48:57] JD: It's just streaming. [48:58] Justin: Yeah, no, I don't know how it works, Justin. I just saw an article about it. [49:02] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, I don't know how. I don't know how that works either. [49:05] JD: Yeah, you just pay for your Spotify or your I or your Apple music for the album. [49:12] Lisa Gomez: By the way, I think we need to call for more transparency in how this Data is reported, get you back. [49:18] JD: We need a specialized court to review this stuff. I. But what a great time we live in. Like, not to, you know, talk like someone born in the early 70s, but to be able to just click an album when it comes out and get it, like, you don't have to go down. That's amazing. Amazing. Okay, next article, which I'm really going to lean on you here, Lisa. This is from Planet Visor in the show and the title of the article is Law Firm Faces Fine for Sharing Confidential Information with the Department of Labor. I honestly, I'm not going to build a grill on this. I know nothing about this stuff. I've seen it, I've heard about it, but I honestly don't know like, what the argument is on both sides. Like, are, is it unfair for the [50:07] Justin: three times and then I copied into artificial intelligence to tell me what it was about. [50:14] JD: I think, I think rogue guy, what it's about. And we're going to let Lisa. And teach us all is that are people upset that maybe the Department of Labor, the Employee Benefit Security Administration and attorneys are, are like collaborating at times and that's somehow crossing a line. This is your moment to literally, like public service announcement, like, teach us all about this. At least me. I'm sure there's smarter people in the chat bar that get it, but yeah, [50:43] Lisa Gomez: no, this is, this is also like ranking up there on things that like, drove me bananas at the, at the, when it was towards the. The end. But so, so what they're saying there's this thing called common interest agreements, which I'll, you know, I'll use an acronym acronym even at the risk of having to drink my, my thing. Because I thought it was crazy that in one of the articles they called it, you know, the CIAs because of course, you know, common interest. [51:14] Justin: Way cooler. [51:15] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, they sound way more nefarious. But so there, there's a thing called common interest agreements, which is something that is used quite often in litigation by lawyers everywhere. If you have two parties that have a common interest in the outcome of the litigate litigation or just any kind of legal. Yeah, they're working on. Right. [51:42] JD: Same goal. [51:42] Lisa Gomez: So that, that they can share information together without losing the attorney client privilege. Okay. Because basically they can. Because, you know, not to put you all to sleep, but, you know, normally if you tell something to your lawyer, you know, your lawyer can't tell anybody. And if you do, then you lose the attorney client branch privilege. So this is an agreement because the two of you are on the same side trying to accomplish the same goals that you can share information without losing that privilege. That's all this is about. [52:12] JD: Yeah, it's kind of like you're just, you're just gathering more information for your case and you having a partner helping you in a way or something. [52:20] Lisa Gomez: And, and so something came up where, you know, last, last summer, you know, in the summer of 2024, there was a court out in Colorado who said there was a complaint, you know, brought by a, by a defendant saying, we found out that the Department of Labor had a common interest agreement with this plaintiff's firm and shared information about a bunch of different investigations that the Department of Labor was, was doing. And we didn't know that that was happening and you know, it, it worked against us and that, you know, secret thing that we didn't know about before and we think it's a problem. And in that district court found that, you know, it was a problem and that that shouldn't have happened and, but, you know, didn't, you know, didn't really said that it was, said that it was a problem this one district court, but it turned into this big issue where there was, you know, there was, there were news articles about it and the Department of Labor, ebsa, sorry, is doing this. I'll wait until I finished. Epps is doing this. We didn't and we didn't. Nobody knew about it. And this problem and there's this big conspiracy happening. And you know, when it came to my attention and people started asking like, how often is this happening? You know, and we, we reported this to the news, you know, the news media, because, you know, they were asking these questions. There were like 17 maybe or like 10, I think it was of these common interest agreements over like an eight year period. So it was like under 1% of all of the cases. [54:10] JD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [54:12] Lisa Gomez: So it was just there were so few of these things to begin with. And it's a, it's, it's a common thing that's used, you know, outside of government. But, but it was turned. And I'm not saying it could be that, you know, if you looked at them all, maybe some of them were [54:27] JD: you under, you understand, you understand the opposition thought, but you're just saying it. This was not that big of a deal. [54:34] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, it was not that big of a deal. And you know, I mean, if you, if you say that, you know, we find out this happened, we want to ask more about it, you know, we want to make sure that this is okay. So fine, so they ask Questions they ask. You know, the Congress asked to have the Office of the Inspector General take a look at it. Fine. You know, you can take a look at it and you see, you know, let people decide whether or not it's a. A problem. But what I had a real problem with was that the, the wording that was being used about it was that the. That the Department of Labor was leaking, you know, information. And I mean, secretary. The Secretary of Labor said she was going to stop these illegal leaks. And I mean, it was like, you talk about a boring thing that was made into this big conspiracy theory. Again, if it's, you know, if it's a. If it's a problem, if somebody did something wrong in one case, okay. But it turned into. Now we have, you know, like, four different bills in Congress that are attached to this. It's like in, you know, there's, like in. In my mind, it's kind of like, all right, fine, if there was some issue with this, let's take a look at it, see if there was a problem. But there are so many other big things we should be dealing with. So I'm not saying to just pay no attention to it, look at it and see, but this should not be, like, top of the priority. [56:01] JD: Can you imagine if. If a company was run the way the government's run? Like, it would be the most inefficient shit show you've ever seen. Like, well. [56:12] Lisa Gomez: And, you know, one thing I gotta say is that in that article, they talked about adverse interest agreements also. And the person who. I forgot who wrote that, or if it was like, James Breamer who wrote it, but he started talking about, like, what an adverse interest agreement is. And I was thinking to myself, because I heard, like, when Congress was calling it an adverse interest agreement, and I thought they just were using the wrong word. But in that article, he starts getting into, well, here's the difference between a common interest agreement and. [56:50] JD: We've talked about this. [56:50] Lisa Gomez: I think you're giving these people way too much credit. [56:53] JD: Yeah, we've talked about this many times on this show, or not many times, but a few. And I don't know, James Van Premiere or whatever, but most of these people writing these articles are just journalists. Like, they don't actually. They're just getting quotes and trying to piece together the information. And I don't know James, but they don't actually know. [57:11] Lisa Gomez: I thought he was. I thought he was smarter than the Congress people who are putting these things forward. [57:15] JD: Because I'm like, that's not a High. That's not a high bar. [57:20] Lisa Gomez: You're giving them way too much credit that they actually meant. You know, they're now worried about two different things. And they didn't just call it the wrong thing. [57:29] JD: All of us are smarter than Congress people. [57:32] Lisa Gomez: I think it's a. I think it was that same congressional hearing where he. Where the. One of the congressmen referred to the law as Ariza. [57:42] JD: Yeah, Ariza. I heard a guy. I heard a guy. [57:45] Justin: Island you go party on. [57:47] Lisa Gomez: I know, right? You go from Ibiza to Ariza. [57:50] JD: I. I heard a guy grilling you. And it might have just been his accent, but he was. He was having a tough time with fiduciary. Like, he was reading off of whatever his junior support people had provided for him and. And mispronouncing fiduciary. We got a big guest tonight, so this show's gonna go a little Rob guy. I know you're not worried anymore about that, but it's gonna go a little bit. But let's have some fun. Lisa, speaking of smart people, sometimes the smartest people you can find are on social media. And this is a segment we call Fin Talk, and we got a new intro. Robey. New intro. [58:30] Justin: I'm excited. I'm excited. [58:31] JD: And talk. Let's do it. BC Fin Talk. You're sweet like a neon sign [58:40] Lisa Gomez: But [58:40] JD: I'm two steps away from breaking mine Might strike gold or lose it all Riding high or taking that fall. God bless Texas. God bless Texas. All right, Brandon, let's. Let's play the first one. Oh, sorry, Lisa. We're just gonna pull random little bits from the Internet, and then we're just gonna talk about them a little bit. [59:09] Lisa Gomez: So it's Fin Talk, an actual, actual thing. [59:12] JD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's like when people are on Tick Tock talking about finance, but some of ours come from Instagram reels, too, so. [59:20] Lisa Gomez: Okay. [59:21] JD: You know, details. [59:24] Justin: Do you know how to work? No. I have no technical ability, and I know nothing. [59:31] JD: You must know something. [59:31] Justin: Well, I know what I like and what I don't like. So what are you being paid for? Family business. The confidence that I have in my taste and my ability to express what I feel. [59:45] JD: Yeah. [59:46] Justin: Has proven helpful. [59:49] JD: Smart. My favorite ones. [59:51] Justin: First off, Rick Rubin is awesome. Let me. [59:55] JD: He's. He's being asked about, like, whether he can play a musical instrument or, you know, make music. And he's like, no, people just pay me millions for my opinion about what they do with their skills. But I thought it was funny when you Ask financial advisors what they do other than offer mutual funds. I don't know. Lisa, I'll give you a cheesy question to connect to this social media post. You love advisors, right? Oh, wait, no. You are an advocate, a strong advocate, I believe. Tell me if I'm wrong for the fiduciary rule or what was supposed to be the fiduciary rule. And you wanted consumers to know that their advisors were, you know, that it was clear what their intentions were. We can debate, we won't debate that right now. We're having a fun segment here. But do you think advisors are more of a joke like this guy or you think in general they're pretty good at what they do? [1:00:54] Lisa Gomez: So first of all, it was rebranded as the retirement security role. [1:00:59] JD: Yes. [1:00:59] Lisa Gomez: So that, just so that you. Nobody, you know, I tried to trick everybody that this was great branding. It was a whole new rule. Right. Didn't fool anybody. You know, I, I hate to like sound like I'm, you know, you saying that I'm like copping out on all of these answers, but I mean, you're in the middle. There are, some are good, some are good advisors. [1:01:21] JD: Yeah, right. [1:01:21] Lisa Gomez: There are also people that are not good. I mean, there's bad apples. And so, you know, and I, and with these, we, we came across so many people that were, you know, saying to, saying to us, talking to me and saying like, yeah, you know, I want, I want I'm a fiduciary or I'm not a fiduciary. You know, I'm gonna, I want to make sure I don't cross that line. I'm going to explain it to the person who's here and you know, so that they understand like whether, you know, what duties I owe to this person, whether or not I owe any duties to this person. So, so I definitely think that there are fiduciary, that there are advisors out there who are doing a great job. But I also think that there are, there are advisors out there who are doing a great job, but they might be making more money off of, you know, selling one product. [1:02:13] JD: You want to know, you want to know a funny thing from the front lines? And I realize that to be a name fiduciary is just creates that kind of legal stature. But there are name fiduciaries out there that do that do wrong by their clients and I understand that that creates a liability for them. But then there are non name fiduciaries, you know, some insurance broker guy who, or girl who bust their ass to do what's right and what's prudent for their clients as it relates to 401k plans. So I've always been kind of feeling like this is much ado about nothing. Like, oh, my God. Like, we. We've got structure. We've got, you know, kind of prudence in place. We all know how this works. And. And so I understand that this actually the fit that the industry is giving back to. It has to do with rollovers and these other things, which I think will be an immense cost for broker dealers and large firms to comply with it. But anyways, this is supposed to be the fun time we're doing. [1:03:17] Lisa Gomez: There was. There was something in. There was something in that article about, like, so what's gonna happen next? I mean, I was like, I was hoping, you know, this is like the song that never ends. Like this rule, you know, it just goes on and on and on. And I was hoping that, like, there was gonna be some miracle that, you know, if I could have pulled that off, like, that would have just been, you know, the end of it. But. But now I just feel like it's such a mess, like, mishmash of stuff. And so just. [1:03:49] JD: I think people are talking about putting it to bed, finally killing it off. And honestly, I think when you've been hearing about it for this song some, your natural human reaction is like, yeah, let's just be done with this. It. Let's move on, you know, well, so. [1:04:03] Lisa Gomez: But. But. But then, like, you know, I feel like you gotta just come out with, like, some kind of rule then that everybody can live with. So then we just have. [1:04:11] JD: We had one. Lisa. I'm doing that. The person against the rule. But we have one. It's in place. That's the rule. [1:04:17] Lisa Gomez: We'll use this test. It was great. [1:04:19] JD: Yeah. [1:04:20] Lisa Gomez: So when I was talking with somebody and I thought they had a great idea that we should just treat this now, you know, kind of taking off of Dan's idea of having a special Erisa court that we're now going to have specifically for the fiduciary rule conclave. [1:04:36] JD: Yeah, I like that. [1:04:36] Lisa Gomez: You're just gonna take, like, you know, the best Erisa. I got another one minds and stick them all, like, in a basement somewhere. [1:04:45] JD: You can't leave till they come to a decision. [1:04:47] Lisa Gomez: Until they've come to a decision. Then we'll get, like, the smoke signal out that they have. [1:04:50] JD: No. Yeah. [1:04:52] Lisa Gomez: The rule is going to be rogue. [1:04:54] JD: Guy can come in in his robe and create the smoke that comes out the chimney for Everyone to see that the decision has been made. [1:05:04] Lisa Gomez: That's my suggestion. When I'm allowed to speak with Dan Aronowitz, I'm going to talk to him about the fiduciary rule conclave idea. [1:05:12] JD: Well, hold on. [1:05:14] Justin: What? Allowed to speak? Is there like a timeline where you're not allowed to. What do you mean by that? [1:05:20] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, so back in the day when there were ethical requirements of people. [1:05:25] Justin: When there were. [1:05:26] Lisa Gomez: Yeah. Anymore for my qka, I, I am. I am not allowed to. I'm not allowed to interact with the inter. I'm not allowed to kind of appear before the department, before EPSA for one year. So January 20, 2026, I'm going to be right at Dan's door. If they're, if they're open, then. [1:05:55] JD: Oh, I want to go deeper on this. We don't have time. But you got help. You got help from Borsi. Borsi talked to you about how to do your job. [1:06:03] Lisa Gomez: He was more than a year out of her. [1:06:05] JD: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [1:06:06] Lisa Gomez: You have to be more than a year out. [1:06:08] JD: Well, I'm on a little. Not to like, brag to everyone or name drop, but I'm on a little text with Daniel Ronowitz, so I could chime in for you if you'd like. If you'd like. I sent him pictures. [1:06:21] Lisa Gomez: I can talk to him, but I can't, like, I can't formally. [1:06:25] Justin: Yeah, somebody tell him your message. [1:06:30] Lisa Gomez: No, you can't tell him. Lisa. Yeah. [1:06:33] JD: If you've seen Finn talk before, everyone, you know, it's a fun little segment we do tonight. Maybe not so much, but next time, tune in. Brandon, play another one because the other ones are more serious than the last one we just did. [1:06:48] Speaker D: Pulled out all of our money out of our 401k. Now I have an 18 million dollar portfolio that I grew triple. Everyone told me 401ks are the smart retirement plan. Put your money in it, don't touch it until you're old and great. That's cute. Until you realize what's actually going on. Your 401k is in a retirement plan. It's a 30 year hostage plan for your money. You can't touch it until you're almost 60. And even then, the IRS is standing there like, welcome back. Now pay up your taxes. Here's what most people get confused about. 401k. Same thing. They're free when you withdraw. [1:07:22] Lisa Gomez: No, no. [1:07:22] Speaker D: 401ks are penalty free after you're 60, not tax free. You're still paying Uncle Sam just decades later, when taxes are likely higher. Also, let's not forget the 401ks that are managed by somebody else underperform the market average, meaning your money barely growing in it. And if that's not bad enough, they have so many hidden fees, even the most seasoned financial advisors can and get their heads around them. You think you're saving for retirement, but you're really just kicking the tax can down, Lisa, straight into the face of your future. [1:07:56] Lisa Gomez: I stopped. I stopped listening about two minutes ago. [1:07:59] Speaker D: By the time you get to touch [1:08:01] JD: that money, well, you're missing out half [1:08:03] Speaker D: of it for breakfast. So, yeah, I put my money out and instead of waiting, listen to her strategy to touch my own money, I built listen. Million dollar portfolio with triple compound. [1:08:13] JD: Triple compounding. [1:08:15] Justin: Oh, I like money. [1:08:18] JD: I like money. Triple compounding is the new strategy on social that got her to $19 million. Lisa, I'm actually not going to go to you right now because as someone who just ran the employee benefit secure administration, that's got to be very depressing to see. Rope guy. Triple compounding sounds like a Strategy. She's got $19 million. [1:08:44] Justin: Yeah, she's bought. She's balling. I mean, I don't know why she's living in an apartment, it looks like, but it looks like she's balling. [1:08:49] JD: She's only got three eggs in her carton. [1:08:52] Justin: And by the way, that, that screenshot right there looks totally legit. Like you can't make that on Excel and put it in a PDF. [1:08:58] JD: I think she put the comma in the wrong place, actually. [1:09:01] Justin: Yeah, no silent J. Yeah. [1:09:06] JD: Well, I don't know if you follow [1:09:08] Justin: the, you know, drunk stop ticks. Yeah, that's actually got the 19 million. [1:09:15] JD: Yeah. I don't know if Lisa knows this, but robe guy picks stocks for a living. He's kind of like the. The Susie Orman that everyone actually listens to and he crushes it like he's got his own crystal ball. But yeah, she's gonna say 19 million there. Apparently. Triple leverage. No, triple leveraging. Triple compounding has to do with like, cryptocurrency, which I want to get to. Okay, let's move on. Brandon. Let's actually just listen. [1:09:47] Lisa Gomez: I think this person may be the next, you know, the next policy advisor at the employee benefit security Administration. [1:09:54] JD: Well, the funny thing we talked about before the show, Lisa, was not to get all serious. A lot of people listen to these influencers and that that woman has like a big following. And. And so, yeah, people do listen to this and people are very skeptical of 401k plans on social media. So not to. Here we go. Here I go again. Up this bit. [1:10:23] Lisa Gomez: It. [1:10:23] JD: But no, let's do it. They there. What? Some things she said were true or [1:10:30] Justin: at least she said so she had some really good. [1:10:33] JD: Like, yeah, people paid. [1:10:34] Justin: Yeah, yeah, I. I'll agree with that. Yeah. [1:10:37] JD: It is true that you potentially will have higher Fees in your 401k than your individual retirement account. [1:10:43] Justin: Right. [1:10:44] JD: Especially if you went to Schwab or E Trade and set it up. Maybe we should change that as an industry. Maybe we should make the employers pay for more of the fees instead of participants. I'm sure Lisa could chime in on that, but let's not do it now. She talked about investments being shittier. I don't know if that's true. I feel like a modern day 401k plan has a lot of diversity and options in terms of investments. But remember, all these people want to invest in bitcoin and different things. I can't. I'm actually. Lisa, this is the point in the show where I have been drinking alcohol. This is not fake. Like I'm starting to get drunk. Let's go. Let's go to the next one. Let's go to the next one. Brandon, play the next one. [1:11:29] Speaker E: Can we like stop making fun of people for investing for retirement? Here's why. [1:11:32] JD: Me. Yeah. [1:11:33] Speaker E: My 401k actually makes so much I love you. I should be investing more into it. [1:11:36] JD: Here we go. [1:11:37] Speaker E: My taxable income by 10. Actually, I just logged into my account and it's 11 now because I have it set to automatically increase my contributions by 1% every year. Or if I don't want to take that tax tax advantage today and I want to take it in retirement, I now have that option with Roth contributions. [1:11:50] JD: 2. [1:11:50] Speaker E: I'm investing 100 in the stock market just like I am in my Roth IRA in my brokerage account. Like you can change the funds that you're invested into in your 401. And three, let's take a look at those fees because the fees that I'm paying on the funds in my 401k are actually lower than the fees that I'm paying on the ETFs that I'm investing into in my Roth IRA. And my brokerage. Half is in large cap, half is in small and mid cap expense expense ratio.011%. All in mid cap expense ratio.023%. [1:12:19] JD: She's probably got a wrap fee on that. She's probably got a rap fee on that. Though, to be honest. You know what you need to do, Lisa? [1:12:25] Lisa Gomez: Or. [1:12:25] JD: And I guess now you need to have a meeting with Rona Wentz to do this. Taylor Swift. Yes. Influencers like this, let's give them some of the government money. Let's fund her. Let's like, let's pad her wallet. Let's. Let's wire funds to her account and let her spread the good news of 401k to everyone that's out. [1:12:45] Justin: I think before we get there, we should have her on the show. [1:12:49] JD: Okay, I'll look it up. I'll look it up. [1:12:53] Lisa Gomez: Well, I, Well, I tell you, like, you, you joke, but I like, when I was there, I kept saying, you know, and then like, tick tock was not. Was not everybody's friends, you know, in the federal government. But I kept saying, like, we just need to go viral on TikTok. Like, you just need. We need to have. We need to have like fun videos in Fun Tick tocks. Now I'm sounding like an old person, but fun, you know, so then people and influencers, like, get people to be in. [1:13:22] JD: Well, there you go. So just so you know, Lisa, not that I know this. I'm a 53 year old man, but no, you're never gonna create your own viral videos because you're the government and we're old people. So it's not going to happen. But you, yeah, you get behind these influencers and get them what is. Okay, Boomer, [1:13:43] Justin: I want to get to [1:13:43] JD: one more subject before we wrap in. Jesus Christ. You tell me, Lisa, when was it? 2022, when the employee Benefit and Security Administration came out with this guidance. There's a proper term. You'll let me know this, this piece on cryptocurrency, the compliance systems release. Thank you. And you basically said, hey, I mean, the way I read it, and I think the way most people read it was like, probably not a good idea. I realized you didn't use those exact words and that it was a little more just informative and letting you know. But I will say, you probably would have been mad at me if you dug into the old retireholics library. I was at the time saying, what is the employee Benefits Security Administration doing? Like, when are. When have they chimed in on what's an okay investment and what's not? Like, we have rules around that. And it wasn't just me, the dumb surfer. There's a lot of people, a lot of thought leaders in the industry were like, wait a second, this is not the role of the. I just want to drink the vodka now, the ebsa. And so obviously it's recently been, I don't know, for lack of a better term, rescinded or kind of kiboshed. So just your thoughts on that. I did not want to leave the show without talking about that because I would imagine that irks you a little bit. I mean, this kind of, this is, this is your clear example of the back and forth. [1:15:20] Lisa Gomez: Yeah, no, so doesn't irk me as much because this happened while I was in, in waiting. So I was not there. I did not issue that, that you [1:15:31] JD: did not do this. [1:15:33] Lisa Gomez: I didn't do it. But what bothers me is, is the back and forth, you know, and, and there were some people who came to me at, while I was still there and were saying, like, please just leave that there because I don't want to put crypto in my plan. And I like having something that just says I can't protects it. Then I could just, just tell my, tell my participants, yeah, look at this. We're not doing it. But so, you know, so I wasn't there. So I'm not feeling super, like, offended by it, you know, personally, but I am, you know, I do think it's a problem with this back and forth, back and forth. [1:16:12] JD: And, but can you answer my specific question about even though you weren't in charge, is that weird for me to say, like, we don't get investment direction from the ebsa? [1:16:26] Lisa Gomez: No, but I don't think that it was an investment direction necessarily. It was more telling fiduciaries that you have to be, you know, extra careful when it comes to that. This, this is something, you know, that, that is, you know, it's like it was like an extra warning sign on it. But you definitely came out, like, wasn't that like, it came out right after the super bowl when they had like the big QR code like invest in crypto. [1:16:56] JD: Well, don't, don't forget the kid in the. Did he wear a beanie? I don't think so. But the kid that's in jail now that, like, had just, you know, mixed up with celebrities and got huge. I've already forgotten what the name of the company was that went under. [1:17:10] Lisa Gomez: But, but, but I will tell you, like in the, in the list of things that drive me bananas, it was that, you know, when, when the department rescinded that guidance, they said in the, you know, the secretary of labor said, we're rescinding this guidance so that we can take our thumb off the scale. [1:17:30] JD: Yeah, right. [1:17:31] Lisa Gomez: And let. [1:17:31] JD: You've been wronged. You've been wronged for decades that you haven't had access to these investments. [1:17:36] Lisa Gomez: But that's exactly what we said in the ESG rule, that we were taking the thumb off the scale. And so I'm like, all right, so you've got these two thumbs on what. So it's okay to put. Take the thumb off the scale here, but when it comes to the ESG rule, we're gonna put them like, yeah, Lisa, hard on that. [1:17:54] JD: Lisa, come on. Because that was. That was woke. That was. [1:17:59] Lisa Gomez: Somebody told me that they could tell that I was not from Washington because I had not been inoculized against. Hypocrisy. [1:18:11] JD: Yeah, hypocrisy. Yeah. Right. It's huge. It's massive. It literally runs the. That's. That's the best word in Washington. Okay, I. We're not going to get into it tonight because I. I can already tell the audience. And although Lisa will shut me down if I'm wrong, you're not against crypto in 401k. You're not against private equity and foreign K. Really, you're just saying, hey, let's tread carefully. Let's make sure we do this properly. Let's make sure we, you know, measure three times before we cut. And I think that I'm not trying to kiss your ass because you're on this show, because I'm kind of. I've been sort of pro that stuff. We've had some guests that have taught me some lessons that I wasn't aware of, that maybe pull me back a little bit, that we need to be a little wary of some of this stuff. But in general, I've heard you several times say, like, hey, I'm not against it. I'm just saying, like, let's. Let's tread carefully. Right? Am I. Am I speaking? [1:19:12] Lisa Gomez: No, you're exactly right. And. And that they're not for everybody, you know, and that you have to really understand. You have to understand what you're getting into and, like, what this, you know, but I. And I. Yeah, no, I. I don't think any. Any of this is, like, inherently bad. You just, you know, you have to understand they may be bad for some people, and hopefully for those people, you know, they understand before they get into it that, you know, that's not the. That's the best thing for them. But that, you know, can apply to lots of. Lots of different things. [1:19:44] JD: Well, I think. I think crypto is very different in that crypto could possibly be a Participant decision. We all know Fidelity is doing it. I think they've capped it at 5 or 10%. Fact check me again. But. So that is a participant decision. I don't believe there's any 401k plan that's thinking about putting private equity in the core menu as a choice for participants to choose in. I think private equity is actually going to go into managed accounts. It's going to go into slivers of target date funds. And the fact that of the matter is, most plan sponsors aren't looking at, you know, what the underlying investments are in those funds anyways. I know that's. That's maybe not kosher to say, but if they could diversify a little bit and do 3% in private equity and. And who knows how that works out? I'm not suggesting it's going to be positive all the time. No one has that has that foresight to know that, but. Yeah. Anyways, I'm getting drunk. Okay, let's finish it off. Let's. Let's vote for Chap, our champion, and let's wrap this thing up. My vote for chat bar champion is Will Hackler, because he gets overlooked all the time because he used to win all the time, and now he's like, no one pays attention to him. And I'm actually playing golf with him in a few weeks. And when he comes to San Diego, and by the way, I will be at aspa. Look for me somewhere out in front of the venue in the gutter. I'll be wrapped up in, like, newspaper with, like, a beanie on. And I'll have a little. Yeah, I'll have a little, like a. What do you. What do you protest with a sign that will say, like, anti. Papa. I'll be covered in bourbon. Just go look for me. [1:21:44] Lisa Gomez: Are you gonna be in an. In an inflatable costume? [1:21:47] JD: No. Is that a thing? Oh, we've heard about this. No. I wanted to ask you so many questions about Brian Graff tonight, but I didn't. Okay, my vote is for. My vote is for Will Hackler. Silent J. [1:21:59] Justin: Your vote, Ray Greenfield. [1:22:02] JD: G. Lisa, I'm with a little bit of vodka in my mouth that I ask you, who impressed you in the chat bar? Who do you want to win, like, a hundred chicken wings next week? Like, who do you vote for? Because there's a prize. [1:22:22] Lisa Gomez: There is a prize. [1:22:23] JD: Yeah. [1:22:24] Lisa Gomez: I think. I think Greg Greenfield said the most nice things about me, so I'm gonna vote for him. [1:22:29] JD: Okay. That's fair. [1:22:31] Justin: Hand does work. Yeah, I just want to Say the name like this. I'm sure it's not how you say it, but that John Lest. [1:22:41] JD: Yes. Do you know that? I think. I think John. John. Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe John is like, a. A plan sponsor. I feel like he actually represents, like, an actual company. Maybe I'm. Well, I am drunk. [1:22:58] Justin: I don't know. [1:23:01] JD: He works for Boeing, bro. Dude, Roby, did you say buy or sell on Boeing? I forget. I think he said buy and then their plane crash, like, the next day. That's what happens. Okay, well, I was gonna go to finish the sentence with Robe guy, but we don't have time for that. Greg Greenfield, congratulations. You are this week's chap. Our champion. Last week's last show's champion was Kate Clark. And Lisa. I bought her a cow for her farm, so that was a big win for her. [1:23:37] Justin: No, you didn't. [1:23:37] JD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I bought her account. [1:23:39] Justin: No, you didn't. [1:23:42] JD: Thank you. [1:23:43] Lisa Gomez: Did you get to. Did you get to name the cow since you bought it? [1:23:46] JD: No, I haven't named the cow. I'm just trying to. I've been struggling to get it there because. Doordash. I can't figure out where to buy the cow pen. So. So it's slaughtered already. [1:23:57] Justin: So you sent. [1:23:58] Lisa Gomez: I think it's on Amazon. It's on Amazon prime. [1:24:01] JD: With Prime Day, I think you go to McDonald's. Okay, thank you, everyone out there for tuning in, and obviously, thank you to Rogue Guy. Thank you to Silent J. But in all seriousness, you know what happens, Lisa, when. When people get drunk, they get very emotional. And I do want to say to you, like, shut up, hippie. From the bottom of my heart, thank you very much for taking a chance on us. I know that we can be a little hard to swallow and not great for the personal brand for yourself, but. But we appreciate someone of your stature that did what you did for 401k. And hopefully you know that everyone in the chat bar, everyone who's going to watch this over the next few weeks, months, years, are. A lot of them are 401k lovers, 401k advocates, 401k nerds. And so, on behalf of myself, the retireholics, and all of those people, one, thank you very much for your service. And you've blown my mind tonight. You're a very, like, intelligent, thoughtful, balanced, the type of person we need in a role like that. And. And then additionally, thank you for joining our show, man. Like, we really appreciate it. So thank you. Lisa Gomez. [1:25:30] Lisa Gomez: That was so nice. [1:25:32] Justin: And for a crushing some Jack Daniels fire. Was that what it was? [1:25:37] Lisa Gomez: Yeah. [1:25:38] JD: Here. Cheers. I'll drink my vodka, you drink your Jack Daniels. Brandon, play us on a song. Thank you. [1:25:45] Lisa Gomez: That was fun. [1:25:46] JD: Next. Next show. Next guest is Eric Dyson. What do they call him? The. He goes into the courtroom from the vacuum company. Expert witness. Expert with witness. And Brian Bashaw is no longer with Mosaic. Brandon, play music. Let's go. Or next Wednesday. What? I don't know that. See you later. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. See you next time.