In as small of a nutshell as possible, this means "the government" is finally stumbling around trying to do something good, fair, and efficient about Wall Street's never-ending parade of shenanigans designed to enrich itself at the investor's expense.

But the Department of Labor's authority is limited to only money earned and invested while laboring. Since only this type of earned income can be contributed to retirement plans, the new rules only affect tax-qualified plans. This means they have no affect on non-qualified investing.

So a bottom line is most financial advisors will need to convert to some form of fee-only or fee-based business model, instead of being soley commission-based. They can do this by taking one of several new routes to becoming compliant.

Why? Because most everything most all advisers have been doing in the past, which means currently, which means none of it would change if the government didn't step in, would be out of compliance. In English, this means that there always has to be something in most everyone's retirement plan that's a "rip-off" designed to enrich someone in the process - at the investor's expense.

All of this makes more sense once you understand The Great Wall Street Cabal.

How to make financial planning simple and easy.

The majority of what's "bad" and what the government is trying to do, is stop "advisers" from "recommending" products and services in retirement plans that mostly benefit the adviser, their firms, and Wall Street; when they are peddled at the investors' expenses.

In short, by far the biggest offenders are life insurance company products sold by "financial planners." After that, 401(k) plans that are just a rip-off profit center, loaded mutual funds, B and C shares, and anything and everything that just costs too much (when these costs are basically just profit for the adviser, the life insurance company, and Wall Street).

It would be different if higher fees and expenses translated into more valuable products and services delivered from Wall Street, but has yet to ever happen. What actually happens is all "excess profits" from most all "brilliant financial innovations" just end up as bonuses for the Wall Street dealmakers at the top of the food chain.

Basically, the bottom line is if you're an adviser "peddling crap," then it's only a matter of time before a client calls shenanigans on you, and you get sued, fined, and booted out of the business. The new rules provides new mechanisms to do that.

So if your hat is black, then your days are numbered. If your hat is white, then you will prosper more (because your Black Hat competitors will be leaving the business by the thousands every year - which is what's been happening since 2000).

Examples: The number of CFP's is over 75,000 again in 2016. This is after falling from a high of over 125,000 in 1999. The number of BD Reps is still down by more than half since 2000. You get it - the whole Black Hat Broker Dealer business model, in its current form (focused on moving life insurance company products), is obsolete and will not exist at all a few decades from now. The DoL is now just helping that evolutionary process along by tightening the noose around the Black Hats' necks.

Hopefully, someday the SEC will follow suit, and extend the Fiduciary Rules to all investing.

About Financial Software When It Comes to the New DoL Rules

Overall, there's four types of financial planning software:

• Goalware that goes by the brand name of "goals." This is the "Black Hat" stuff the government wants to get out of the hands of the "evil-doers." If the vendor has the word "goal" anywhere around its description, then it's "goals-based," and therefore "fake."

The DoL is looking into this (they said they passed the buck to to the proper governmental agency in Aug '16), and if they have enough motivation to do right for the investor this time, then they will blanket ban this type of planware, so BD Reps won't be allowed to use it to dupe investors into buying unsuitable life insurance company products anymore. They'll do this by making Finra tell the BDs to not approve of its use. Simple as that, huge problem forever solved once and for all time.

• Actual cash flow-based financial planning software that generate real forecasting numbers that can be used to reliably and adequately plan for life in the Real World. This is the "White Hat" stuff the government wants advisors to use.

• Modules, AKA financial calculators, that only perform one or a small number of functions These are all "fake" because they only deal with a small portion of a financial plan.

• Pure retirement software, that just models and forecasts life in retirement.

Fake vs. real financial planning software is only relevant when creating an integrated financial plan BEFORE one retires. After retirement, then there is no distinction. This is because real vs. fake is about how pre-retirement annual cash flow surpluses and/or deficits are accounted for. In goalware, everything to do with incomes and expenses, cash flow, and budgeting is usually ignored. Everything is properly accounted for when one uses real planware.

After retirement, a completely different calculation methodology is used, so fake vs. actual is not an issue.

THE PROBLEM, is when a financial adviser "makes a financial plan" for a non-retired client, it doesn't have accurate numbers. A financial plan created via goalware is not a financial plan. The word "plan" is in the string "financial planning software" because its accurate numbers track reality enough to allow one to make realistic plans for the future - as a human in the 21^st century here on Earth - not on goals-based BizarroWorld.

Goals-orientated goalware is not capable of performing that valuable function. It's just a fancy way of estimating how much money it costs now, or in payments, to reach a future goal(s). EVERYTHING else is in the "plan" ignored. Other data is usually inputted, but it's not used in the calculations for anything meaningful. You just "can't do that."

Therefore, a new name should be created for goalware, and the fake financial plans they create, so they can be distinguished from actual real financial plans.

So the DoL, and several other regulators, need to do that too. All that needs to be done is make up a new name for goalware and fake financial plans so investors and consumers will know the difference.

Just like hedge funds - they started out doing what they were supposed to do, which is hedge. Then the Black Hats smelled the money, deregulated, and morphed them into a Wild Wild West free for all that ending up as yet another huge financial services debacle just waiting to help end the world, again.

All that needs to be done is make up a new name for the fake hedge funds, and there wouldn't be anything to whine about. Why? Because if you renamed them "Casino gambling funds for stupid rich people," then even the dumbest rich person would think twice before investing. There's no way to tell the difference (because if you call and ask them, they will lie and say they hedge), so stupid rich keep people falling for their shenanigans, and lose billions annually.

The same concepts should apply to financial plans, financial planning software, and financial planners. If goalware vendors, and the BD Reps that abuse them, were to rename their products and services to what they really are, then everyone would know what they're buying, instead of buying an empty bag with a bill of goods inside.

So instead of calling their software "financial planning software," it should be called, "goals-only software."

Instead of calling their reports a "financial plan," they should be called, "goals-only estimation reports."

Instead of calling themselves "financial planners," they should call themselves, "goals-only financial advisers."

When using goalware, it's okay to say, "This is what it's going to take to reach your goals."

Etc. and so forth. Just call things what they really are, and there would be much less to whine about, and things for everyone would be much better in too many ways to count, except for the Black Hats.

What's not okay is saying, "This is your financial plan, a roadmap of what your financial future will probably look like."

This is because goalware is not capable of projecting financial futures. That's not what it's programmed to do, so it cannot perform those functions. All it can do is dress up various ways of presenting how much money it would probably take to fund goals. Therefore, it is a deception - with goalware the client was told they were getting a financial plan, and they did not.

What needs to be whined about until fixed, are these life-ruining deceptions from "professionals" extracting maximum income from their clientele. So just wrap, label, and call things what they really are, and that would fix that. Then clients would be getting what they paid for and thought they were getting, and not a fake version, that could "ruin their lives."

If that were done, then investors could better choose which type of adviser they want to work with, which would stop dozens of thousands of American lives being ruined annually by Black Hat "financial advisers."

The bottom line is ALL of the numbers are from BizarroWorld using goalware. So all of that needs to go the way of the dinosaurs ASAP. So the new DoL Fiduciary Rules are just the first step in finally, after over a century of Wild Wild West shenanigans on steroids, attempting to at least do something about these deceptions, instead of nothing.

So look for more and stronger rules and regulations to come from other governmental agencies over the years. Over time, the government will eventually force financial advisers to knock it off with their Black Hat shenanigans, and will force everyone left to wear a White Hat. There won't be many Black Hats left either.

Why? Because the vast majority of "financial advisors" are just Black Hat life insurance company product salesmen - that are dropping like flies. Most are just in it for the big easy money (which shrinks daily), and couldn't care less about the well-being of their clients. If they can't use goalware to dupe their sheeple into giving them big easy money, then their job will become "too hard" for them to process, and they'll eventually just quit on their own.

That's the core of The Problem the DoL is trying to fix: Dummy financial advisers that should not be allowed to practice, and need to go back to their day jobs of asking their customers if they want the combo meal or just the sandwich.

That's also what this website is about - selling 100% White Hat actual real financial software to people that want and need real numbers to work from - not fake fantasy from BizarroWorld, just so "financial planners" can get rich peddling life insurance company products at the clients' expense.

So over time, financial software vendors like us will prosper, and goal-whatever vendors like MGP will wither and die.

What color will your hat be in 2020? If you choose black, then not only will you be lonely, but the government will want to put you back where you belong - which is your old day job asking, "paper or plastic?"

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be an AIG agent peddling whole life insurance or variable annuities to little old ladies these days. Nor would I want to be a mutual fund salesman peddling what's essentially index funds with maximum commissions (AKA American Funds).

You're just going to screw up, get busted, sued, booted out of the business; and then the only job you'll be able to get is selling used cars in Detroit. If you think that's just an amusing exaggeration, then let me know, because I have peeps in Detroit that used to peddle fixed annuities to 401(k) participants, and now they're stuck for life selling used cars in Detroit. He pokes me monthly for ways to partner up, and we're trying to find a marketing position for him, but it doesn't look good.

Eventually, the goal is to reach a point where it's just not worth it anymore to wear a black hat on Wall Street. HAAA, just kidding, that will never happen!

The Great Wall Street Cabal the government is finally trying to tackle(?)

Lastly, it needs to be pointed out that there's no such thing as "DoL-ready / approved / friendly / compliant" financial planning software.

Black Hat money software vendors just made all of that up to fool you into thinking such things exist, so you'll give them your money.

Money software are just the tools one uses to do whatever it is they do. Just like a hammer, one (a fee-only financial planner) can use it to construct something good, honest, fair, and useful; or one (a commission-based Broker Dealer Rep) can use it bop you on the head so you'll be stunned enough to allow them to "steal your money."

The Black Hat financial software vendors are now in the process of using every lie, deception, and dirty trick in the book to get you to believe that their programs are DoL compliant, approved, friendly, fit for use, will keep you out of trouble, etc. and so forth.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The more they tout their financial plan software as being "DoL friendly," the more their deceptive goalware is exactly what the government is trying to ban. They're just making up new combinations of words to fool you.

Why? Because they know most people are exactly that stupid! These shenanigans have always worked in the past, it's working now, and it will work in the future. Like PT Barnum did not say, "There's a sucker born every minute!"

So just don't fall for their latest round of shenanigans. The best thing you can do to protect yourself, your clients, and therefore your practice, is to learn how financial planning software actually works.

Then you may be able to see for yourself that the most egregious offenders of truth, justice, and the American way (e.g., PieTech / MoneyGuidePro / Riskalyze / and even Advicent trying to sell more of their goals software) are just desperately trying everything they can to survive without changing in this new anti-shenanigans world.

They're doing this to try to dupe you into believing that they have something nobody else has - and what we've been offering since day one - actual financial planning software that produces accurate numbers to the point that one can rely on it to plan their financial futures.

Regardless of how much lipstick you put on a pig, goals-whatever software is just slick marketing deceptions, faked numbers, and just one part of a financial plan taken out of context; all wrapped up in the usual financial services shenanigans in order to move commission-based products. It's just as simple as that.

Financial Planning Software Modules For Sale
(are listed below)

Financial Planning Software that's Fully-Integrated
(the IFP is the NaviPlan alternative for 1/6th the price)

Goals-Only "Financial Planning Software"
(the MoneyGuidePro alternative for 1% of their price)

Retirement Planning Software Menu: Something for Everyone
(the RWRs, RP, and SRP)

Comprehensive Asset Allocation Software

Model Portfolio Allocations with Historical Returns

Monthly-updated ETF and Mutual Fund Picks

DIY Investment Portfolio Benchmarking Program

Financial Planning Fact Finders for Financial Planners Gathering Data from Clients

Investment Policy Statement Software (IPS)

Life Insurance Calculator (AKA Capital Needs Analysis Software)

Bond Calculators for Duration, Convexity, YTM, Accretion, and Amortization