Donald Trump ran as a populist enemy of the global financial elite. In other news, Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge-fund manager who has somehow secured a position as a key Trump economic adviser despite being a member of the global financial elite Trump has vowed to crush, tells the Financial Times that Trump will eliminate a rule requiring financial advisers to follow their clients’ best interests. The rule came about in response to a long-standing practice, exposed most blatantly in the wake of the housing crash, by which advisers would dump products onto their clients in order to get them off their own firm’s balance sheet. The Obama rule requires financial advisers to follow their clients’ fiduciary interest.
Scaramucci prefers a “self-auditing process,” which, he promises, will lead to “better client safety, less governmental oppression.” One might complain that Trump is sucking up to the powerful interests his voters seem to believe he will fight. On the other hand, scamming vulnerable consumers is one of Trump’s most cherished business practices. It would be rather hypocritical for him to stand in the way of the business of scamming vulnerable Americans out of their money.
