Fundsters interested in retirement plans should keep an eye on Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin). That's one of the takeaways from Steve Butler's newest column in the San Jose Mercury News.

Butler, himself a veteran retirement plan advisor, shares Kohl's skepticism of bundled target date and target risk funds and their cookie cutter approach and use of proprietary component mutual funds. And he offers a good reminder that Kohl is trying to impose a fiduciary standard on target date fund managers (a boost from the current suitability standard), which would force the managers to act only in the best interests of the funds' shareholders.

"The real downside of these funds is that they offer an excuse for 401(k) participants to remain financially clueless," Butler writes. "Any concept heavily promoted by the financial services industry should be immediately suspect." 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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