Financial Finagling

Here is a post by Scott Adams of Dilbert cartoon fame. He is having a hard time understanding the value added of financial "advisors":

Yesterday a financial institution offered to help manage my portfolio for a fee of only .75% per year. With that fee structure, they get ten times as much in fees from a client who has ten times as much in his portfolio, even if managing it is the same amount of work, which it presumably would be.

I assume at least part of the money these professionals propose to manage would get directed toward funds that are managed by yet other professionals who take even more of your money no matter how well they perform. And they too will get higher fees when you invest more, despite their workload being the same for any amount.

Part of the pitch for this financial service was that I would get to approve any adjustments to the portfolio they recommend.

Pause to digest that.

If I were smart enough to override the advice of experts, why would I pay the experts for advice? The entire system depends on me being dumb enough to think that concept makes sense. And what exactly was the opposite of that arrangement? Do other companies propose to invest your money against your will?

I sympathize. But it is hard to know what to do. I compare this to lawyers. They tell you that if you go to court to represent yourself then you have a "fool" for a lawyer. But my experience with lawyers is that any fool could do a better job. Financial "advisors" seem to fall in the same category. But, as you can tell, I've not had the courage to go lawyerless. Nor have I had the courage to go advisorless. My ultimate justification is that I'm buying somebody I can blame when things go wrong. I don't want to have to blame myself.

At bottom, life is absurd. There is no "right" answer.