Gosling's Grouse: What price security?

"Yes, I am a millionaire," a fund manager told me recently. He wasn't boasting, he wasn't showing off, and he is hardly what you would call the unacceptable face of capitalism.

He is not, in tabloid speak, a ‘greedy banker,’ and that is not just because he is not a banker. We were having a debate about the economic and social value of fund management. It is a discussion that does not happen enough in the industry or the wider economy, in just the same way as there is not enough debate about the value and cost of financial advice. His argument was a simple one: fund managers can be valued in one of two ways. How much do they contribute to their parent company in terms of fees generated, and what kind of ‘value’ do they provide to their individual investors? ...