A lot of Wall Street’s headaches—the executive compensation issues, the accounting scandals, the options backdating, the subprime mortgage mess—can be chalked up to misaligned interests created when there’s too much reliance on outsiders who don’t have a stake. Similarly, a lot of people who get burned by depending on Wall Street analysts, or hedge fund managers, or their local stock picker discover quickly that the advice they’re getting isn’t coming from a committed owner—it’s coming from a professional who is collecting a fee. After all, it ain’t their money.
