- The Suzy Orman Show denies people's requests to buy expensive items and emphasizes the importance of saving for retirement.
- Many financial advisors may not hold specific credentials and may be paid on commission, potentially leading to biased recommendations.
- Annuities are often pushed by financial advisors, even though they may not be suitable for everyone.
- Financial advisors are not required to act in the best interest of their clients, unless they are fiduciaries.
- 401K retirement plans can have various fees that can significantly impact savings over time.
- Compound interest can work both ways, with fees eating away at future savings.
- Choosing low-fee index funds over actively managed funds may be a more reliable investment strategy.
- Even Wall Street experts struggle to consistently beat the market, as evidenced by a cat named Orlando outperforming them in a stock picking challenge.

- The video discusses the issues with managed funds and high fees in the retirement plan industry.
- The narrator shares their own experience with setting up a 401K plan and discovering high fees and a lack of transparency.
- The Department of Labor has issued a rule requiring advisors to act as fiduciaries, but there have been legal challenges to this rule.
- The narrator emphasizes the importance of understanding fees and making informed choices when saving for retirement.
- The video concludes with advice to start saving early, invest in low-cost index funds, and be cautious of advisors who are not fiduciaries.

- The speaker finds it strange when grown men wear class rings
- The speaker advises gradually shifting investments from stocks to bonds as one gets older, using the example of switching stocks as new James Bond actors are chosen
- The speaker jokes about Daniel Craig's attractiveness and mentions a person named Doris who finds him handsome
- The speaker advises keeping investment fees below 1% as fees compound over time
- The speaker makes a joke about dying and mentions a person named Kristen who is not actually dead
- The speaker ends by mentioning retirement and stating that no Christian channel was harmed in the making of the video.

- The Suzy Orman Show emphasizes the importance of saving for retirement and discourages buying expensive items.
- Financial advisors may not have specific credentials and may be biased due to commission-based payment.
- Annuities are often recommended by financial advisors, despite not being suitable for everyone.
- Financial advisors are not required to act in the best interest of their clients, unless they are fiduciaries.
- 401K retirement plans can have significant fees that impact savings over time.
- Compound interest can work against future savings due to fees.
- Low-fee index funds are suggested as a more reliable investment strategy compared to actively managed funds.
- Wall Street experts struggle to consistently beat the market, as shown by a cat named Orlando outperforming them.
- The video discusses issues with managed funds and high fees in the retirement plan industry.
- The importance of understanding fees and making informed choices when saving for retirement is emphasized.
- The Department of Labor's rule requiring advisors to act as fiduciaries has faced legal challenges.
- Starting to save early, investing in low-cost index funds, and being cautious of non-fiduciary advisors are advised.
- The speaker makes jokes about class rings, James Bond actors, and mentions individuals named Doris and Kristen. The video ends by mentioning retirement and stating that no Christian channel was harmed in its making.

Saving for retirement means navigating a potential minefield of high fees and bad advice. Billy Eichner and Kristin Chenoweth share some tips.

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You know, the thing everyone likes to think they're good with, despite the evidence provided in every episode of The Suzy Orman Show.

I want to get a Louis Vuitton to the L'EPM bag.

I would like to buy a study abroad in Iceland.

I want to go to the famous elf school in Reykjavik and get a certification as an elf spotter.

Because no 1 should be spending $4,000 to get an elf spotting qualification.

In fact, if you go to lastweektonight.com right now, you can print out a free official elf spotting certificate, which I promise you is every bit as valid as the most expensive elf-spotting education.

Now, 1 of the big reasons that Suzy Ullman denies so many people is because she thinks we should all be saving for our retirement.

And before we go any further, it is important to acknowledge there are people who just do not have the money to do that for systemic reasons that we've addressed on this show before and will doubtless address again on Johnny O's sad-tastical circus of misery and math.

But tonight, let's talk about those who can save for retirement, the target audience for ads like this.

How much money do you think you'll need when you retire?

Then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last.

I was trying to, like, pull it a little further, and I was trying to stretch it

Because it's basically people walking toward the date of their own death.

The only way it could have been creepy is if at the end of their ribbons, it said exactly how each person was going to die.

It is true that as we all live longer, you should absolutely save for retirement if you can.

We currently have around 24 trillion dollars sitting in retirement assets.

And that figure doesn't even include the wealth we have in stockpiled beanie babies.

So, let's call it 24 trillion and 32 dollars.

And a lot of that money is in the hands of financial services companies.

So let's talk a little about how they work, which I know sounds boring, but as a favor to your future self, it is worth watching this for 20 minutes, because you could easily make small mistakes which could seriously cost you down the line.

They are the wholesome, friendly-faced experts that you see in ads like this 1 from Chase.

Through all life's milestones, your trusted advisors are with you every step of the way.

Thanks for helping me plan for my retirement.

Plan for your goals with advisors you know and trust.

That is a clear example of deceptive advertising, because nobody invites their financial advisor to a wedding.

If cousin Barbara finds out that she didn't get an invite but your chase guy did, she's gonna flip her shit on you!

♪ -But there is something you should know about financial advisors.

Even their name means less than you might think.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority warns customers to be aware that financial analyst, financial advisor, financial consultant, financial planner, investment consultant, or wealth manager are generic terms or job titles and may be used by investment professionals who may not hold any specific credential.

So, financial analyst is just a fancy term that doesn't actually mean anything.

Sort of like brand ambassador, or the John Oliver effect.

But even many well-credentialed financial advisors are paid on commission.

So, if they recommend something for you, it may be because they stand to make money.

In fact, Sometimes they're actively incentivized not to act in your best interest.

Now, certain types of those can be very complicated investment products that have high fees and would only be appropriate for certain types of portfolios.

But, some financial advisors push them hard.

Just look how Suzy Ullman reacts when a caller who had just inherited $80,000 asked for some advice.

We have talked to a financial advisor and he recommended that we put it in an annuity.

I was gonna say, wait, wait, let me tell you, I can tell you what the financial advisor said.

that advisor also say to you that if you put that $80,000 in there, I'm gonna make about $4,000 of commissions?

Did he or she happen to tell you that as well?

Thank you, Suzy Orman, for pointing out disingenuous financial swindlers can be women too.

--LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE --And, yeah, why not?

And brokers pushing annuities may not just be getting money.

Last year, Elizabeth Warren released a report on sales perks in the annuity industry ranging from free cruises to luxury watches to, and this is true, this tacky Super Bowl-style ring, which is absolutely ghastly, but I guess, at least it makes it easy to spot brokers that you shouldn't work with.

Hey, nice ring, Irwin, but I'm gonna guess that you didn't get that playing runny back for the Green Bay Packers.

Now, generally, it is currently legal for financial advisors to put their own interests ahead of yours, unless, and this is interesting, they are what's called a fiduciary.

Because not all financial advisors are bound to act in your best interest, but fiduciaries are.

It's like finding out that only some restaurant waiters are forbidden from ejaculating in your soup.

Hey, why is it up to me to ask you which kind you are?

But financial advisors are just 1 part of this.

If you are lucky, your job offers a 401K retirement plan.

And if it does, you should probably take advantage of it.

But you should also know they can be a goldmine for financial service companies.

And while it's not unreasonable for them to get paid for providing a service, there can be a lot of different fees.

There are legal fees, trustee fees, transactional fees, stewardship fees, bookkeeping fees, finders fees, and the list goes on and on.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they also had an elf-spotting fee, but remember, thanks to your new certification, you no longer have to pay it.

And look, seemingly tiny fees can really mount up thanks to something called compound interest.

Now, whenever retirement companies like Prudential mention that, it's always as a positive, that if you start with a really small investment, by the time you're ready to retire, it will have substantially grown.

It's hard to imagine how something so small can help with something so big.

But if you start putting that toward your retirement every week and let it grow over time for 20 to 30 years, that retirement challenge might not seem so big after all.

Is it just me, or did that last domino fall really hard?

That might be the most upsetting commercial involving dominoes that doesn't involve the phrase, -"Cali Chicken Bacon Ranch." -$1.50.

But compound interest works both ways, meaning while your money adds up, your fees can really add up, too.

Assume you're invested in a fund that is earning a gross annual return of 7%.

Over 50 years, the difference between your net of 5%, the red line, and what you would have made without fees, the green line, is staggering.

You've lost almost two-thirds of what you would have had.

Two-thirds of what you would have had is gone.

They're tiny, they're barely noticeable, and they can eat away your f-king future.

And 1 place where your 401K can be full of termites is the funds themselves.

Generally speaking, you can choose between low-fee index funds, which basically just try to match the average returns of the stock market, or for a higher fee, you can get an actively managed fund, with experts who will pick and choose stocks for you, trying to beat the market.

And companies that sell active funds really believe in themselves.

At MFS Investment Management, We believe active management can protect capital long-term.

Active management can take calculated risks.

Active management can seek to outperform.

Because active investment management isn't reactive, it's active.

That's not so much a coherent commercial as it is a drinking game where you do a shot every time he says the word active.

But the problem with active management is that even many Wall Street experts find it difficult to consistently beat the market.

And there is sometimes embarrassing evidence of this, like when a group of professionals were pitted in a stock picking challenge against a cat named Orlando.

He throws a toy mouse at a grid of companies.

Last year, Orlando's picks returned nearly 11%, while the pros, he gained just 3.5%.

Let's all agree that the Wolf of Wall Street would have been way better starring that cat.

Of course, you know, instead of drugs, there's a plot hole, because instead of drugs, his downfall would come when someone busts out a laser pointer in a meeting.

There is growing evidence that over the long term, most managed funds do no better and often do worse than the market.

It's basically the plot of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

If you stick around doing nothing while everyone around you f**ks up, you're going to win big.

Even some of the people charging those fees know that this is the reality.

1 of the ultimate dirty secrets of the fund industry is that a lot of people who run other fund companies own index funds in their own accounts and don't talk about it.

Unless you put a couple of beers in them.

Sometimes I invest in index funds, might be the least interesting secret anyone has ever divulged while drunk.

It's right up there with, my favorite movie is The Constant Gardener.

And 1 time in college, I got totally wasted and read the entire Wikipedia page for rope.

So between financial advisors, high fees, and underperforming active management, the entire retirement plan industry is a potential minefield.

And the reason that we know about this is earlier this year, we actually decided we wanted to set up a 401K for our employees.

And you might want to learn from our experience, because here's what happened.

We reached out to the production company behind this show, Avalon Television, and we asked them to take care of it.

A couple of months later, they told us, we have your plan, it's provided by John Hancock.

And we said, okay, fine, and we went back to work.

By which I mean, we went back to Googling teacup pigs eating ice cream.

But, but then, but then, in March, Representatives came to our office and gave our staff presentations on their new plan.

It's the kind of thing no 1 in their right mind wants to sit through.

Honestly, most of us spent it on our phones, Googling teacup pig, comma, top hat, comma, shopping, comma, beer, and boom.

But, unfortunately for John Hancock, our researchers started going through the documents and started adding up the fees, which came to a combined 1.69%.

And that was before we paid a $24 per person per year fee and the fees on our funds.

So, they asked John Hancock why the fees were that high.

And we were told that it was normal for a start-up plan at a new company and Hancock gave us a lower number that it would come down to over time.

And we said, okay, okay, that sounds fine.

And our researchers said, wait, no, that is not fine.

That number is still higher than experts have told us that we'd want it to be.

Why don't you all just go back to Googling teacup pigs in teacups, or whatever the fuck it is that you do all day," and we went, -"Oh, my God, is that a thing that exists?" And yes, it was!

That was the rest of our afternoon right there.

Meanwhile, our researchers took the Hancock contract and sent it to financial experts who flagged an intermediary fee to a broker.

1 percent the first year and half a percent after that.

We did some very rough estimates and with 35 employees contributing just $6,000 a year, after 30 years, half a percent could add up to roughly a million dollars.

That number was so high, you'll never guess what happened.

Janice in accounting actually gave a f**k.

She bought cupcakes for the break room yesterday, and she adopted a kitten.

So, anyway, we asked, who the fuck is this broker?

And it turned out he was a guy Avalon had agreed to pay to help them set up and support our plan.

And we asked him, why didn't you present us with low-cost, low-frills plans, like the 1 from Vanguard, and what are we paying you so much for?

And He said, well, first of all, our plan was probably too complicated for Vanguard, and that he did a lot of things for us, like acting as our financial advisor.

Although, as we now know, that term doesn't necessarily mean much.

In fact, if you go to our website right now, you can print out a free, official financial advisor certificate, and there you go.

And although our broker has other credentials, when we asked if he was a fiduciary, he, unsurprisingly, said no.

As for his fees, he said they would come down, and last night he sent us an Excel spreadsheet showing how they could come down as our fund assets grew.

Unfortunately, in that spreadsheet, he made an error which meant that our fund's interest didn't compound correctly.

And when we pointed that out to him, he sent a second sheet showing that his original math had been off by more than 10000000 dollars.

Which does not inspire confidence in the man who, as he repeatedly reminded us, was helping us navigate our very complicated plan.

Now, our lawyers at this point say that I have to tell you that both the broker and John Hancock claim their fees would come down, that they're competitive within the industry, and worth it for the services they provide.

Although you should know, We decided early on to pay almost all of the fees for our employees, because we were so...

...Embarrassed about the situation that we got them in.

And we're going to be leaving both Hancock and the broker, and I'm guessing after they've seen this show, they will be happy to let us go.

Just so you know, we'll be replacing both of them with that stock-picking cat, because he seems to really know his shit!

The whole point of telling you this is If you don't pay close attention, all of this can really get away from you.

It doesn't actually have to be that complicated, and it might be getting simpler.

Back in April, the Department of Labor issued a final rule requiring that all advisors handling retirement accounts act as fiduciaries beginning next year.

And that is great, because the financial services industry fought this rule hard.

It's these new regulations they're pushing in Washington that worry me.

They want to make it really hard to get advice from our financial advisor.

Oh, we'll never get the information we need.

To be honest, my only takeaway from that ad is that that guy is definitely f*****g Anne.

You need to leave him non-threatening wife character.

And while the rule has gone through anyway, 5 lawsuits have been filed by financial services groups attacking it, and legislators in the House and Senate have passed a resolution trying to overturn that fiduciary rule.

Although, just a few days ago, the president did veto it.

And by the way, that is something I think we're probably going to be seeing a lot more of, because President Obama's last year in office seems to be moving from bipartisan solution to, buy Felicia.

And look, I am not saying all of this is not complicated.

We spent weeks just trying to understand our own 401K plan.

But for your average person trying to save for retirement, it doesn't need to be this confusing.

The truth is, as long as you remember a few key things, you're probably going to be fine.

So whenever you are ready or able to save for retirement, please come back and replay this video from this exact spot.

Hi, I'm Billy Eichner, and I'm here with a bunch of f***ing ribbon.

And I'm using it to show people how much money they needed to save for retirement.

That fee goes to some middleman you don't even know about.

And that's your fee for not knowing about a fucking fee fee.

And here's what you've got left to retire on.

The problem is that idiots like Karen here make shitty choices when it comes to what to do with their money.

Karen, if you had $4,000, would you invest it in your 401K or would you go to the elf school in Reykjavik?

The only elf you should be studying is Kristen Chenoweth.

And who wouldn't want to go to Reykjavik?

The point is, The best advice most experts can give you is to do 5 things.

Invent a time machine, use it to go back, and start saving money.

Next, average people like you, and let's face it, you're very, very average, should probably just invest in low-cost index funds and leave it alone.

You should check on it about as often as you Google whether or not Gene Hackman is still alive.

Third thing, if you have an advisor, ask if they're a fiduciary.

If they say yes but they're wearing a tacky Super Bowl ring, run.

If they say yes but they're wearing a class ring, run!

when a grown man is wearing a class ring.

Number 4, as you get older, gradually shift your investments from stocks to bonds.

Every time they pick a new James Bond, gradually switch more of your stocks into bonds.

Then go back to wondering if Daniel Craig is actually attractive.

He looks like a blonde chimpanzee in a tux and you know it.

Finally, try to keep your fees like your milk under 1%, because just like interest compounds, so do fees.

And even 1 10th of 1% can really f*** you.

No Christian channel was harmed to the filming of this piece.

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