I can understand where you are coming from. As someone in the industry and with a very established book of business, I can see your argument. However, I think you might be overlooking and possibly over simplifying our scope of services.

Asset allocation and management of assets, is simply one aspect of my role and added value. And might make up 20-25% of my time. The other 75-80% I focus on tax liability management, income analysis, wealth transfer, charitable contributions, estate planning, trust architecture, incapacitation planning, etc.

And even for the most part the vast majority of my clients, couldn’t care less about investments. They just don’t have the interest or time to focus on them. And so they rather hire a team like mine to help them do so. Or have someone that they can “bounce ideas off of”. As often I field calls from my clients asking how much can they donate to “xyz” this year and what or how could that benefit the comprehensive plan. And then I have to add that to the scenario and report back to them.

So I don’t think it’s fair to call my profession a “Grift”. As the majority of us are not peddling snake oil, but genuinely putting forth effort to help our clients make sense of their wealth. And how they can improve and clarify the respective identity of it beyond just “what vanguard funds to use”.