Mandatory Extortion for Wall Street

Investment of funds in 529 plans, 401K plans and medical savings accounts require control of the funds by irresponsible Wall Street investment firms or Banks.

529, 401K, and Medical Savings Accounts are tremendously beneficial programs for encouraging Americans to save. Then we immediately turn around and force Americans to be put at the mercy of Wall Street by regulating these accounts in such a way that they require mutual fund vehicles for investment.

This approach creates a pig's trough for Wall Street. This legislation, combined with overly protective regulatory approaches allow them to feed by forcing millions of Americans to put billions of dollars under the incompetent, irresponsible management of overpaid MBAs with no idea of how businesses are run, playing monopoly money at 1-2% or more in fees in order to invest our money. We do this in the name of Americans needing 'professional' advice in order to appropriately invest their own money.

The litney of offenses of these people and their firms, the 'professionals,' is long. It started with misleading advertising, mislabeling of funds, investing in areas not described in the funds' hype, and obscenely high turnover rates in portfolios – ensuring that these funds were engaged in rampant speculation, not investing in American businesses. Later, they proceeded to immoral granting of advantage to large customers and then on to illegal trading.

Most responsible Americans, even those with limited financial training but possessed of the practical common sense abundant in America, would do equally well or better directing their own funds into firms with products and services which they appreciate.

Mutual funds could be offered for those who prefer them, who knows, perhaps this competition would even sharpen the performance of the offered funds or encourage the firms to offer funds which mimic the values of America's individual investors – patience, research, and thrift.

Legislation that creates or maintains government sponsored savings programs should have the ability to manage one's own funds as a feature.

Please don't force me to dump money into the overpaid hands of the employees of Wall Street firms feeding at the trough of government sponsored savings programs.

The accurate reality is that this should be stopped and the choice of investing the funds in a self-directed manner akin to the IRA program should be made available.