All fees are conflicted

Common sense and logical. Is this why regulators struggle to understand it properly?

This is truthful. The politicians and their media propagandists will try to ignore the truth for as long as they can.

good un conflicted article

Excellent piece, well articulated. Thank you Jonathan.

Agree with the others.
A well thought out and articulated article.

And what would have been your response if your surgeon had offered a performance fee option?

Jonathon your article is on the money.
I've been advocating your rationale for years. No one can even tell me what the fair fee for service rate should be. Is it $100 per hour, $300 per hour? Does someone with 2 degrees charge twice as much as someone with 1 or none?
Is the advice from someone with 2 degrees twice as good as someone with 1 or none.
You brought up the conflict of billable hours and the fallacy that generates.
I raised all these issues with the FPA several years ago when this debate on Commission versus Fees for Service was going on.
My solution was quite simple.
Have a scale of fees for each service and how its paid for, becomes irrelevant.
Then which adviser is selected by the client should depend on the quality of the advice.
Isn't that the best outcome for any client?

I don't buy into the banning of commission argument. A conflict of interest exists if one product pays a higher commission than another. If commissions are the same across all products (like they are now with Life Insurance products) then there is no conflict on the basis of potential earnings for an adviser to recommend one product over another. It then comes down to product manufacturers structuring/costing their offering better than another provider.

If the regulators had gone down this road from Day 1, we wouldn't have all this political nonsense and the 'cancer' that is destroying our industry!

You are correct Jonathan.
A scale of fees for each service and how it was paid for, would make payment conflicts irrelevant.

So does this mean all fund managers and platforms will now charge a flat fee as well.....if not, that is very hypocritical. If Advisers need to change from % to $ fee, so should the rest of the industry....

As for removal of grandfathering commission, does this mean the above parties will reduce their fees as well, because after all, is this all about the consumer.....so the fund managers and the platform providers should all reduce their fees too..