Reality Radio for a really great future.

We're talking real money.

Wouldn't it be nice?

Wouldn't it be nice if there was some sort of a designation, an organization that you could depend on to carefully vet those people

who provide investing advice to all of us. You would, it would be so much easier. Your life would

be easier.

If you could know without a doubt that a person was always required to act in your best interests in a given set of circumstances with a particular regulator's blessing or a letter designation behind their name. I'm Don. Tom's over there. We're here

to talk real money with you. And one of the things we talk about a lot is the difficulty of finding

good advice that is always in your best interest.

And you might think, because the CFP people,

they're telling you that that is the gold standard of letter designations behind a name.

Certified financial planner, CFP, the CFP board has said publicly that you must always act in the client's best interest to have the CFP designation behind your name.

It requires education, testing, and supposedly good behavior.

I say supposedly because it doesn't appear that's the case.

It doesn't. And we'll give you the numbers of that in just a minute. But there are more than

100 certifications available to professionals. And out of those, if you ask the public, and this is

part sales job by the CFP board, if you ask the public in a

general sense, they would tell you, the CFP designation stands out.

And this from Investopedia, which I generally trust, it says one of the most notable

requirements of the CFP is the fiduciary or trustworthiness aspect.

This mandates that every CFPS put their

clients needs ahead of their own, which is really, that's what a registered investment advisory

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