Juggling Dynamite

Excellent article from the Globe today reiterating the horrendous conflicts in the investment advice business. The article focuses on Canada but the structure and problems are worldwide.

The financial industry continues to lobby-for-its-life against a fiduciary standard that would place the “best interests of the client” as the primary duty and objective in investment advising. There is no question that fiduciary duty is the only respectable standard of care for the advising industry and especially now, at a time when governments and employers are increasingly shifting the burden of retirement funding onto the shoulders of individuals.

The fact that most people unwittingly take their investment advice from the non-fiduciary sell side, is one of the more frustrating and damaging facts in the world today.  (Yes, yes, I know most brokers and advisors are very nice.  Sadly ‘nice’ is not the standard of care we need here).  See: The flaws in Canada’s [the world’s] financial advisor system

Jim Bianco and Aaron Task look at what Central Banks are really trying to do when they intervene to artificially support asset prices.  Here is the direct link.

A few good articles worth reading tonight if you are bored, or tomorrow morning over your fair trade coffee and green tea:

• The Japanese Liquidity Trap Revisited
• oops all this talk of Greek debt cuts has got the Irish rethinking, see: Negotiate new terms on promissory note before April
• A new study this week shows 84% of 400 foreclosures in San Francisco appeared to be illegal: “The audit in San Francisco is the most detailed and comprehensive that has been done – but it’s likely those numbers are comparable nationally,” Diane Thompson, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, told Reuters. [Recall that the $25 billion settlement announced last week will include no admission of wrongdoing by the banks–think about that for a moment].  There will be no real healing until there is admission of fault:  remember it is admit, repent, reform, recover. See:  Foreclosure abuse rampant across US, experts say.
• The truth about default:  Iceland (and others) have lived to tell the tale.  See:  Iceland comes in from the cold, three years after default, Fitch moves Iceland bonds back to investment grade. (psssst..Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain…read this one twice)