In addition to badgering me yet again about attaching adjectives such as “genuine,” “authentic,” or “real” to the word fiduciary, John Hawkes raises a very important question about clients’ responsibilities in his comment to my last blog on political realities. Let’s start with the semantic issue first, and then move on to bigger things.
The reason that I and most other proponents of a fiduciary standard for all retail financial advisors feel the need to bolster the terms “fiduciary standard” and “fiduciary duty” with a reference to its authenticity is that its opponents have adopted a strategy of appearing to support a fiduciary standard in principle, and then actively lobbying to water it down to the point of adding no new investor protections at all.