Fiduciary Books

Josh has been able to write a very "readable" book on a complex and difficult topic. Our nation faces a major retirement savings crisis. This book outlines how fiduciaries, including plan sponsors and quality advisors, can make make prudent decisions that will help fix this problem. This book is a must read for anyone involved in helping retirement plan participants achieve investing and saving success. The time has come for fiduciaries to thoroughly understand and prudently manage their responsibilities. Ignorance should no longer be excuse now that a resource like Josh's book is available to anyone. I would encourage every plan fiduciary to buy this book and refer to it when making their retirement plan decisions.

Josh Itzoe has done a great favor to plan fiduciaries and financial advisors across the country. He has succeeded in simplifying a very complex subject, providing a much-needed resource to the financial services community. This book is not only valuable to plan fiduciaries; it is a very helpful tool for all financial advisors who provide investment services in the 401(k) arena. I've ordered copies for every financial advisor on my team.

It is clear that Josh Itzoe is committed, not only to excellence in his personal RIA practice, but also in helping other advisors achieve this same level of excellence. Thanks, Josh, for making us all better at what we do!

Joshua Itzoe's Fixing the 401(k) covers numerous important topics and should help 401(k) plan fiduciaries better appreciate the scope and nature of their responsibilities. Mr. Itzoe also offers candid opinions based on his expertise as a principal of a registered investment advisory firm. At the end of each of the first 11 chapters of the book, Mr. Itzoe supplies practical questions that focus on fiduciary responsibility and fee disclosure. Whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Itzoe's conclusions, every one of his questions is worth asking. The final chapter nicely ties together the concepts of the book with a case study that could easily be a real-life example.

The ERISA legal language isn't the quickest read and Josh does a great job of breaking out the concepts into easily understood segments. The book offers a great overview of the players involved in the 401K, the fees charged, and most importantly ways to lower the fees passed through to participants. I read this book and quickly applied the concepts to some prospective 401K client presentations that were received well. Anyone looking to identify the major flaws and issues affecting 401K participants should read this book. The timing of this book's issuance couldn't be better!!

Itzoe is right on. The fiduciaries (who are the plan sponsors) carry a ton of liability and exposure. Under the new DOL rules it will be the plan sponsor carrying the ultimate burden of lack of fee transparency and hidden costs that ultimately affects the performance of the participant's account. It's about time critics are speaking out and informing plan participants.

Anyone trying to understand the enigmas of our minds, will find this book an engaging and engrossing read.

This book is an easy to follow and effective guide to mental fascination. This was the first book on the paranormal I ever read and it impressed the SKEPTIC that I AM. There are a lot of corny and gimicky books that I have found on powers of the mind, but none explain or instruct or give exercises to help you obtain the focus required. This book is wonderful for anyone who has an open mind, interest, or curiousity for the paranormal. This is so, because it is not some flim-flam, hocus-pocus described by a psychic who has no real understanding of his/her abilities, but data collected by various occults and scientificly tested. I was only in the seventh grade when I practiced the methods in this book which allowed me to astonish my parents with mind reading, establish a strong report or link with my younger sister and convince my aunt to use me in card games. The most unexpected paranormal effects that are unrelated to mind reading or mind control resulting from the exercises in this book are always the most amazing.(I am actually the son of David B. Jones. Forgive my computer incompetence in taking his name in this review but I am still a minor and legally it probably should be his name. My father, a scientific man, was the hardest to convince. What he saw he did not understand and continually thought there was some kind of trick until I preformed the book's exercises on him and him on me.)

THE BOOK BY WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON THAT I HAVE READ IS ENTITLED "MINDPOWER-THE SECRET OF MENTAL MAGIC". IT IS NOT AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON, HOWEVER I HAVE ORDERED EVERY OTHER ATKINSON BOOK THEY HAD. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS RARE BOOK. AS FAR AS I CAN TELL IT WAS HIS LAST WORK. ANYONE WHO HAS ANY INFO ON WILLIAM ATKINSON I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM.

The 'Foreword' says this book was from a series of articles in the magazine "Trusts and Estates". They are more than human interest stories, they remind us of the need for estate planning to minimize taxes when property is transferred. [Only living people can own property; upon death it is transferred to other living people. There is usually a tax involved in this transfer of property.] Jacob Fisher graduated from a law school, later joined the IRS in the Estate and Gift Tax Unit. The 'Preface' explains how this let him see "greed, avarice, chicanery, cruelty, trickery, perfidy, and vengeance" (p.vii). A death opens views into a person's life previously kept closed. A will can be a plan to provide for inheritors, a mandate that affects the lives and welfare of others. There is the problem of conflicts between family members. There is no limit to tax evasion schemes! There are also examples of unselfishness, honesty, justice, and compassion. The names and locations were changed to protect the people involved. You will be amused and educated by the stories in this book, even if you are not a tax accountant or lawyer.

Chapter 2 explains why changing technology can harm closely held corporations and negate valuations of property. Property transferred within 3 years of death is counted in the decedent's property (p.11). A scheme to avoid a gift tax ultimately backfired (p.22). Chapter 4 suggests that heirs should be kept informed of the will. There may be a problem with property held in joint ownership with right of survivorship (Chapter 6). IRS agents do not like to agree with the taxpayer (p.35). There is a hidden danger in gifts to a spouse (p.38). Chapter 9 has a strange story that led to a taxable estate. Can death on a vacation affect the estate tax (Chapter 13)? There is a happy ending in Chapter 14. Chapter 15 gives an example of squabbles among heirs. Chapter 16 gives another example of Section 2035. Can tax savings create a hardship (Chapter 17)? What can be learned about a businessman after death (Chapters 18,19, 20, 21, 22)?

Virtue and justice do not always triumph (p.111). Does a will name an alternate beneficiary (Chapter 23)? How do you measure success (Chapter 24)? Your will should be kept up to date (Chapter 26). Can a will be changed after death (Chapter 27)? Can the elderly be swindled (Chapter 30)? Chapter 31 has sad stories about the elderly. Can a spouse elect against a will in NJ (Chapter 33)? What can you buy at an estate sale (Chapter 34)? The longevity of the rich is examined (Chapters 35, 36). There is a problem with an annuity when estate taxes are owed (Chapter 37). Murder too (Chapter 38). Do not delay filing returns (Chapter 39)! What if a provision in a will violated public policy (Chapter 41)? The example in Chapter 41 is not rare. Chapter 43 tells of the importance of a will for survivors. The weirdest story is in Chapter 49; it is stranger than fiction. Could a spouse fail to receive a marital deduction (p.249)?

Procedural prudence is a legal term that has evolved to describe the appropriate activities of a person (or persons) who is responsible for the retirement assets of others. Such person is a fiduciary because of his (her) discretionary authority or management responsibility for these retirement assets. State and federal bodies have legislated conceptual "procedures" that must be followed by persons responsible for the management of retirement assets. Since the enactment of the Employee Retirement and Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), the federal courts have issued numerous decisions that have slowly molded these procedures into a broad body of law governing fiduciary conduct. This handbook translates these conceptual procedures into practical guidelines that can be followed by the fiduciary.
--- from book's introduction

I am pleased to share these kind words from Marcia of Bay Area Women Against Rape, Oakland: "What a powerful, beautiful book. It has been circulating throughout the office. Thank you for doing the work that you do. I hope this gets out to lots of people"

If you are like me and find that any discussions of a financial or legal nature make you feel stupid or scared, then this book will put you at ease immediately. At a time when grief interferes with comprehension and yet when you MUST be able to perform the duties of executorship capably, this is THE book to help you. It takes you step by step calmly in plain language. All duties which an executor has to be familiar with are covered comprehensively yet in a manner that is down to earth. All legal terms that are not fully explained in the text of the book are explained in even more detail in the excellent glossary at the back of the book. Without being facetious, The book could also be called" Executorship for Dummies." It is THAT easy to follow and use.

This book is very helpful and gave a lot of information we needed. We would buy it again.

The author does a good job of explaining the Prudent Investment Practices and how these are incorporated into his investment advisory process. This will be a good book for investment consultants who are looking to define a disciplined investment process for their practice. This is a clearly defined picture of the future of high quality investment advice.

This is a must read book for fiduciaries and investors everywhere. Tim Hatton, President of Hatton Consulting, a registered investment advisor in Phoenix, does an excellent job of explaining why there is a standard of conduct for fiduciaries, what that standard is, and how to incorporate this fiduciary standard into our everyday business models. He begins by reviewing investors' behavior during the late 1990's, and uses this example to show what happened when investors abrogated sound investment principles in favor of wild speculation in search of above market returns in the stock market. He makes a case that investment return is far more dependent on investor behavior than fund performance. His solution is to make sure that investors are in alignment with sound investment principles, and to manage the investment process by not straying from these principles during the twists and turns of the markets. This is the essence of what a fiduciary does.

A fiduciary puts his clients' interests first. That should be standard operating procedure for each of us and is the clearly stated goal of the AICPA. That is why they have endorsed Tim Hatton's new book "The New Fiduciary Standard."

There are more than 5 million fiduciaries in the U.S. today. These may include investment advisers, trustees, accountants, attorneys, and consultants. It is possible that you might be considered to be a fiduciary and you don't even know it!

The first part of the book is an excellent discussion of the history of modern portfolio theory. This section is a good read and will appeal to those who have an interest in investments. I particularly enjoyed his discussion of the Fama-French 3-Factor Model. Mr. Hatton concludes this section by saying that "the best way ...is to use the investment tools that have been developed on the basis of the principles of Modern Portfolio Theory." These tools represent a sound investment strategy.

The second part of the book is a discussion of the 5 steps and 27 practices of the fiduciary standard and how he incorporates these into his practice. He systematically goes through each step and each practice to show what his firm does to implement each of these steps of the fiduciary process. This part of the book is very much about "process" and the proper execution of this appropriate process. Hatton walks us through the steps of analyzing the investor's current position, achieving diversification through asset allocation, formalizing an investment policy that is appropriate for the investor, how to implement this policy, and how to monitor the portfolio and supervise money managers in order to better accomplish the investor's investment objectives. I was able to apply his discussions about "Best Execution Policy" and "Monitoring the Portfolio" to better explain what our firm does. These are responsibilities that we should take seriously.

There can be no question that we can benefit from seeing how we measure-up in our roles as fiduciaries. What a great way to get better at what we do. Tim Hatton and the Foundation for Fiduciary Studies not only provides a standard, but also tries to make it real for us, so that we can apply it in our everyday work lives. I would challenge each of you advisors to improve your process. This book will help you do it. Investors should now know what to look for when hiring an advisor. Does your advisor measure up? Does he put your interests first? Or are there conflicts of interest?

This is an interesting book for anyone interested in modern, market and investor driven corporate governance solutions. The strength of the book is the analysis of the classical finance model of corporate governance (Bearle & Means) from an institutional - fiduciary - owners' perspective. For the most part it is an easily accessible book that is useful for anyone in the investment field.

Many have chronicled the shift from owner-founders to managerial capitalism and on to fiduciary capitalism but Hawley and Williams are among the first to spend the majority of a book on the implications of fiduciary capitalism and where this recent development might lead. In 1945 corporate equity was valued at slightly less than $120 billion; more than 90% was owned by individuals and about 4% by institutions. The value of corporate equity has grown enormously to $7.8 trillion in 1998. While the share of individuals has fallen to 44%, the proportion owned by institutions has risen to 48%. State and local pension funds owned about 1% of outstanding corporate equity in 1969; by 1998 they owned more than 10%.

Ironically, although the Employment Retirement Income Security Act has been interpreted by the Department of Labor to require proxy voting by ERISA funds on behalf of beneficiaries, the authors point out that the Employment Retirement System Act (FERSA), established for federal employees, provides that voting rights are delegated to the administrator, appointed by the trustees. We don't trust our federal trustees to vote the shares of what is likely to become the world's largest institutional investor. Fortunately, other funds, such as the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), are not under the same restrictions and have become effective owners whose monitoring has added value.

Hawley and Williams review the record of corporate governance interventions. A few of their observations are as follows:

Board independence does matter for some tasks such as replacing poorly performing CEOs and not overpaying for acquisitions.
Visible and aggressive activism results in substantial increases to shareholder wealth but quieter activism doesn't yield the same results.
Binding bylaw amendments are potentially one of the most important new tools for institutional investors.
Tying director compensation closely to firm performance may have the unintended consequence of making the board more risk adverse and deferential to the CEO because, unlike the typical diversified shareholder, board members will be subject to the fortunes of one firm.

Hawley and Williams argue that many large funds have become "universal owners," since 1/3 of the assets of the 200 largest defined benefit funds are invested in indexed portfolios. As such, they should not only be concerned with monitoring individual firms but also with portfolio-wide effects. Universal owners will still need to pay attention to the alignment of manager and shareholder incentives but that won't be enough.

For example, the authors argue that universal owners have a responsibility, derived from the duty of care, to oppose policies that create negative externalities, like pollution, and support policies that produce positive externalities, such as corporate education and training programs. In contrast to single firms who may find it advantageous to throw off the costs of pollution to society, universal owners will suffer the costs of cleanup through deteriorating infrastructures, higher taxes and other costs to their other holdings.

At the same time, universal owners are able to capture nearly the full benefit of positive externalities, like corporate training programs, because even if trained employees subsequently leave the firm where training occurred, they are likely to find new employment with another universally owned firm. Since the size and breadth of universal owner portfolios expose them to economy-wide risks and rewards, their programs must increasingly be concerned with the long-term growth and economic efficiency of national and world economies.

Universal owners who want to maximize shareholder value will need to develop "public policy" positions to ensure a well-trained labor force, effective infrastructure, legal and regulatory environment, as well as monetary and fiscal policy. They want to ensure the corporate environment encourages efficiency and doesn't externalize costs.

The authors provide several examples of such public policy activities, most of which appear to be drawn from CalPERS. These include:

policy guidelines on issues such as the environment;
surveys of firms on particular policies, such as high-performance workplace issues;
monitoring the lobbying efforts to ensure one firm doesn't put others at a competitive disadvantage;
grading portfolios on particular issues, such as adherence to corporate governance guidelines;
targeting firms on specific issues, such as the controversy surrounding logging ancient forests or producing defective products.

They envision that institutional investors will develop areas of expertise and "coat tail" off each other to create a more efficient division of labor.

Of course any volume on the cutting edge is bound to raise as many questions as it resolves and The Rise of Fiduciary Capitalism is no exception. Their troubling conclusion discusses the problem of who will watch the watchers. While a growing professionalism at corporate boards and institutional investors may prevent the most egregious abuses, the authors believe that trustees holding tremendous power and wealth may soon face a tremendous backlash from the public if such power is perceived as being abused.

They end with a series of unanswered questions concerning the growing concentration of wealth in the hands of a relative few professional owners. Who will monitor the monitors? Government? The market? How do we protect beneficiaries from institutional abuse? Is fiduciary duty enough to assure appropriate behavior?

These are important issues that we are likely to grapple with for the foreseeable future. While government certainly has a role in monitoring the monitors, it is too often a captive of the very interests it is monitoring. As for the market, it doesn't respect ecological and other needs ignored by current pricing structures.

While some, like myself, believe the impetus to act as universal owners will probably come from the ultimate beneficiaries, Hawley and Williams have their doubts. They see beneficiaries rising up and demanding more input as unlikely, since beneficiaries are "even more diffuse, disinterested, and disenfranchised" than the traditional Berle-Means shareholder. "Thus it is unlikely that beneficiaries as a group will ever be able to effectively `watch' the fiduciary institutions." Our "best hope for effective monitoring is transparency coupled with competition between the institutions."

Visionaries, such as Robert Monks and Mark Latham, have proposed a heightened role for proxy monitoring firms to monitor and provide guidance to the management of portfolio firms. Maybe the rise of such institutions will provide the competitive core that Hawley and Williams see as the best hope for effective monitoring.

My own assessment is that such new institutions will play an important role but that we also need to rebuild our fiduciary institutions so they are more democratic.

CalPERS provides an excellent model of an institution that legitimates the enormous power of its fiduciaries by holding them accountable to members and stakeholders. Six of its 13 board members are nominated and elected directly by its members and beneficiaries. Four others serve as ex officio members based on their position as State Treasurer, Controller, Director of the Department of Personnel Administration and a designee of the State Personnel Board (SPB). Two members are appointed by the Governor, an elected official of a contracting public agency and an official of a life insurer. One is appointed jointly by the Speaker of the Assembly and the Senate Rules Committee.

CalPERS is far from perfect in providing mechanisms to let its members hold the board accountable - incumbents have several advantages over challengers, such as use of CalPERS funds for traveling to meet constituents while campaigning, and members have no initiative or referendum process. However, it is far more democratic and participatory than most institutional investors...and more successful. While many large institutional investors have become universal owners, CalPERS is one of the few to begin to look at the larger policy issues that Hawley and Williams argue will make corporations more democratic.

The Rise of Fiduciary Capitalism provides the best synopsis to date of how fiduciary capitalism developed but less of a guide concerning the difficult subject of "how institutional investors can make corporate America more democratic" than its title might imply. Still, the book is important as one of the first to recognize that fiduciaries, acting on behalf of universal owners, have a duty of care that extends to influencing public policies in order to generate both wealth and a healthy environment. Wide circulation of The Rise of Fiduciary Capitalism could accelerate that recognition and the ultimate shift towards more democratic corporations.

I primarly use *BSD and was hoping to learn about NFS/NIS from this book, more than what I had already gleaned from the man pages. However this book is very heavily geared towards the Solaris OS. It does give exlamples of where the filename(s) or folder structures under a different flavor of Unix would be, but exept for these small tables, the rest of the text uses only the Solaris names/folders.

This book is quite outdated. For example, it predates NFS version 3, NFS over TCP (mostly the default these days), or autofs.

If you are a beginner and are looking for fundamental information this book might be useful if you remain aware of its shortcomings. It covers the fundamentals of NFS V2 over UDP, and NIS quite well, and has a good troubleshooting section, which might help beginners negotiate the interoperability and tuning issues that are common in today's multivendor environments. It covers automounting issues quite well, from an "automount" (SunOS 4) perspective.

Hello, My name is Mike Eisler, and I am one of the
co-authors of Managing NFS and NIS, Second Edition.
I'm writing this note to offer additional information
to potential readers.

At the time I submitted this note, most of the
customer reviews for this book referred to the first edition.
One of the reviews states that the book is focused on NFS
version 2 over UDP and the old style automounter.
Actually, you'll find the second edition of our book
is more modern. New topics in the second edition
include NFS version 3, NFS over TCP, modern autofs-based
automounters, Kerberos V5 authentication for NFS, NFS Access
Control Lists (ACLs), and client side fail over.

Another difference is that first edition of this book
used SunOS 4.x as a reference for examples. The second
edition uses Solaris 8.

The second edition provides information you won't find
in NFS product documentation, such as using tools like ethereal
to debug NFS problems. This book will give you the benefit of
insights from people who probably wrote some of the code for
your clients and servers. You may find (and I hope) that
it will save you the trouble reporting a problem to
your vendor's customer support line.

Thank you for considering our book.

Anyone who has ever administered a network of at least 3-4 servers (if not more) will find individually updating accounts, software and such to be a burden. I found myself in this situation not too long ago, and then I picked up this book, and found the answers I was looking for.

Most Unix admins have heard of NFS and NIS but might not have considered using them together. This book gives a very thorough discussion each topic, how to set it up, how to deal with advanced issues, and how to troubleshoot. Admins will really develop an appreciation for how useful these tools can be, especially when used together.

Though LDAP is gaining prominence, a network utilizing NIS, NFS, and automounter is still a very nice network to administer. Even just learning NFS/automounter is time well spent because it is a service not likely to go away. I really felt this this book was worth the time and money because it really helps the intermediate to advanced admin better gain control of the network (instead of the network controlling him :). Definintely give this book a try. Enjoy!

O'Reilly puts out so many well written books and the quality of the authors is usually the highest, and this book is no exception. Both of these subjects are covered in more than enough detail for anyone need to setup NFS, NIS, or both. It is written in such a way that you son't have to read straight through, but can use it as a reference for the information you need. I would recommend this book for anyone neededing a decent to thorough understanding of this topic.

This book tells the story of how a small Indian Band in Vancouver, Canada sued to recover compensation for the lease of one third of its small reserve to an exclusive golf club on terms to which it did not agree. The case went to the Supreme Court of Canada and resulted in major changes in the law that benefitted all Aboriginal peoples in Canada. The book describes those changes and compares the law in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The author was one of the lawyers for the Band and describes what was involved to achieve justice for the Band.