I used to joke that no matter what I did, I could never make my parents happy. The same can be said with any attempt to change the fiduciary rule.

This is going to be the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) third attempt at changing a rule that has been in place since 1976, way before 401(k) plans, 12b1 fees, and a whole host of conflicts of interests that promulgated the need to look at amending the rule.

Changing the fiduciary rule is one of those things that united us because it will please no one. You have brokerage firms that don’t want any fiduciary role for their brokers and you have registered investment advisors who don’t want a fiduciary standard to be watered down.

With an election year, it’s not likely that there will be any profound change. So everyone will be unhappy for quite some time.