The High Price of Nice Dinners

After enjoying a free dinner, the WSJ tells us, a retiring tour bus driver bought an annuity. Several years later, after another nice dinner, she paid a heavy penalty to ditch her annuity and invest in a portfolio, including other annuities, pitched by another retirement "adviser."

The DOL effort to impose a fiduciary rule dampened annuity sales for a time. Now the rule is gone, and sales of annuities – some paying 6% commissions – are booming.