Phil Cannella Complaints

The typical American Retiree has his retirement nest egg in a big basket called risk; however, safe alternatives exist that can prevent your retirement nest eggs from cracking. 

  If you are one the market, you know there is only one word to describe your experience: “unstable.” With market gyrations, do you really your retirement subject to such instability?

Accumulation-phase advisors attempt to grow your assets—but their preferred growth strategies entail high risk. In retirement, you need a financial planner who focuses on preservation. And there are, in fact, hundreds of financial vehicles hat can guarantee absolute principal security with growth. 

  Outstanding public debt hit about $15.1 trillion December 2011. How do you think this will get paid? By and large, who are the only people in America with substantial asset reserves: retirees.

The European debt crisis, Middle East unrest, a potential power vacuum in North Korea – all of these may hurt not only in your wallet but your retirement account as well. With increased globalization, what occurs overseas easily can be felt domestically. 

 Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase—which has made over $1 billion in settlements with the SEC in recent years—earns makes a net income of $42 million. That makes him the highest- paid “bankster” of 2011 and the twelfth-highest paid CEO in the country. The typical American teacher with 25 years of service earns $60-70,000 a year.

 There are two types of financial vehicles offered to the retiree: broker-driven and consumer-driven. Broker-driven financial vehicles are securities-based and charge unnecessary fees to benefit your broker. Consumer-driven financial vehicles have no market risk and are created by and large for the benefit of the consumer. Which vehicle do you prefer in your retired years? 

Companies like Goldman Sachs scam their investors and get away with it.  These people don’t have time to re-accumulate a nest egg, and often they are financially ruined by these scams.  The SEC should stand up for them but it chooses Wall Street over American retirees. 

  Over $700 trillion went towards bailing out failing companies in the TARP bailouts.  American taxpayers have seen no return on this money, and some companies even asked for a second bailout. 

 Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and others have designed investments to tank, then taken a short position against those investments.  Their investors lost millions, while the financial companies made billions.  This should be illegal. 

Brokers who sell stocks, bonds, and mutual funds are fee-hungry.  The ongoing fees make these types of investments a bad choice for retirees. Couple that with the high level of risk, and you’ve got a recipe for losing money. 

 After the SEC finds wrongdoing in its investigations, they reach a settlement with the company and close the case.  The companies who commit these crimes never even have to admit they did anything wrong. Ironically, though, even though they admit no wrongdoing, they often promise “not to do it again”as part of the settlement. 

 When the SEC settles with a financial company, they don’t hold the executives accountable.  The executives at Goldman, Lehman Brothers, and others should be held accountable for the actions of the firms they run. 

 Not only do these companies get off the hook without admitting to any wrongdoing, but they get to continue operating as if nothing ever happened.  They go back to business as usual and continue fleecing their investors. 

$50 billion and $8 billion: These are amounts lost in two of the largest Ponzi schemes in history at the hands of Bernard Madoff and Allen Stanford, respectively. How much bleeding could the SEC have stopped had it been minding the store?