A veteran of securities law killed his weekend reading all 1,000 pages of the DOL rule -- and has a takeaway to share

I would like to know Ron Rhoades’ and Michael Kitces’ take on this piece. I really want to know if this DOL COI Rule is going to help us muppets or not. Do we still end up in the kangaroo court? I am still of the opinion that we need an investors’ union and that all clients must start videotaping every face-to-face meeting with their so-called advisor and recording all phone calls. We muppets are never NEVER going to be able to protect ourselves on a one against a gazillion system. We are never NEVER going to be able to understand all the disclosures, all the acronyms and all the industry morse code. The obfuscation in the financial (dis)services industry is so thick that one can cut it with a knife, but it will need to be one very, very sharp knife!!!

Irvin Stein further confirms the worst fears of investors and advisors that financial services regulation is structured to advance industry interest not those of the investing public. Given there is no practical overarching consumer protection to resolve structural advisory services inefficiencies, is there a free market solution such as Mike Kitces, Ric Edelman or Ron Carson which would actually be a good steward in support of expert fiduciary counsel and professional standing in advisory services? B/ds, TAMPs and ROBOs will not touch it, custodians are too removed from the consumer; an entirely new vehicle is required to advance expert fiduciary standing.

SCW