March 27, 2013
I can attest, from direct experience, that investors and investment decision makers (such as board members of endowment funds) do not know or understand what standard of care they can expect from various financial services providers, specifically that they do not understand that a registered representative who hands out business cards with the title "Financial Advisor" (or "Financial Consultant") is in fact merely a broker who may act according to his/her own financial interest. Broker/dealer firms continue to solicit business without fully disclosing the potential conflict of interest inherent in their business methods. The only question is, are the broker/dealers, in a way that closely parallels the "too big to fail, too big to jail" banks, too powerful, too entrenched to be touched by the SEC? If this is the last I hear from the Commission on the issue of applying a uniform, fiduciary standard, then I will have my answer: yes, you are still not willing to stand up for what is right.