August 17, 2010
I've been lobbying my profession's leaders since 1990 to push for a fiduciary standard. If not now, when? It's time to end the nonsense that stock brokers, bond salesmen, real estate salesmen, insurance agents, and others can give advice to their customers, refer to them in conversation and advertising as "clients," and have no higher duty to them beyond a possible sale/purchase. And it's really ridiculous for some of these peoples' industry representatives to hide behind the idea that the advice given is "incidental" to their sales. Advice is advice. The customer - especially if he's to be referred to as a client - should have a reason to believe his interests are the only interests which count. None of us would put up with this kind of silliness ("indicental" advice) from our doctors, lawyers, architects, dentists, or CPA's. Put the strongest requirement possible for fiduciary standards in this bill's final markup.