Two Great Articles on Regulation: Larry Doyle and John Lounsbury (They Share a Low Opinion of Our Regulators)

Must reads!

Larry Doyle’s Sense on Cents

 Dodd-Frank: The Devil Is In the Details

 We note one of their shared topics which we have been speaking much about these past months: Fiduciary Responsibility.

We have written the SEC specifically, and written in our public work about the need for Brokers and Exchanges to have Fiduciary Responsibility with regards to order flow, as opposed just the brokerage firms having a weak Suitability Standard (which basically says we can do whatever we want so long as we dont have retirees buy tax exempt munis in alread-tax-exempt 401k accounts).

These gentlemen present the issue very well, and we urge you to read the articles in full. We specifically are chagrined and saddened to hear how, upon being presented with recommendations to strengthen the standards to take on fiduciary tones, the two republican commisioners, Casey and Paredes, balked:

“The two Republican commissioners on the panel, Kathleen Casey and Troy Paredes, balked at the findings. They issued a joint statement that said there wasn’t enough evidence from the study to authorize a total overhaul. They argued that the SEC needed to do further study and analysis to make certain these changes wouldn’t hamper investors.”

How very very sad.