, Columnist
Fiduciaries, Rules and Progressives
Also business clichés and Snap's S-1.
The fiduciary rule.
Ignoring some subtleties, the basic goal of the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule is to prevent brokers who give retirement advice from giving bad, conflicted retirement advice. Everyone can agree that good retirement advice is better than bad retirement advice. The main objection to the rule is -- again ignoring some subtleties -- that bad retirement advice is better than no retirement advice, and that the rule might push people who would otherwise get bad retirement advice to instead get no retirement advice. That objection strikes me as moderately compelling, but it is hard to say with a straight face. It just sounds dumb. So the Trump administration found an analogy that ... honestly makes it sound even dumber?