It was eight years ago this month that Congress approved a $700 billion emergency bailout of Wall Street.  The finger pointing hasn’t stopped since but one thing is clear, the 2008 financial crisis was not brought on by the insurance business which has gone on to prove itself, once again, a uniquely stable component of the financial sector.

If you’re a Democratic policy maker worried about retirement savings for the little guy, would you deny millions of small savers access to financial advisers in ways that could cost them $80 billion in the next market downturn? Would you ask working families to pay more to keep the adviser they have?

The obvious answer to both is no. But the White House and the Labor Department have teamed up to propose a new “fiduciary rule” on brokers and advisers serving individual retirement account investors, which would produce precisely these unintended consequences.