Obi-Wan Kenobi once said that only Siths deal in absolutes. Having an ERISA expert saying publicly that there is a 95% that the recently proposed new, new Fiduciary rule (or is it new, new, new?) will be implemented, it’s not an absolute, but it’s certainly inaccurate. I would say that there is a 95% chance that the new new rule will be implemented when there is a 95% shot that President Trump will be re-elected. Even my old Professor from Stony Brook, Helmut Norpoth, only thinks that there is a 91% chance that Trump will be re-elected and he has a pretty good track record on Presidential predictions.
The point here is that any type of discussion regarding proposed regulations or proposed legislation is that there is so much depending on politics. If Hillary Clinton would have been elected in 2016 like almost everyone predicted (not Norpoth), the Obama era rule would have been implemented and this discussion here would have been moot. This new new rule will live or die based on a certain Presidential election this November. I’m not 95% certain who is winning in November, so I’m not 95% sure about any proposed regulations being implemented after November.
