Under the U.S. Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, financial advisors will have to do more to distinguish themselves as “true” fiduciaries, according to a leading financial commentator and author.

Speaking on Thursday at the 2017 Inside Retirement conference in Dallas, journalist Jane Bryant Quinn told audience members that the rule, likely to pass in a watered down form, will lead to many firms applying the term “fiduciary” to their work, though they may not fully embrace the current rule’s best-interest standards.

“We might end up with a fiduciary rule, but in name only,” said Quinn, an ardent supporter of more stringent standards for retirement advice. “In that situation, we would have true fiduciaries competing with fake fiduciaries, because the SEC is enabling fake fiduciaries.”

Quinn explained that the SEC, in guidance rendered after the passage of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, reported that it could not distinguish the difference between a strong best-interest standard for retirement advice, and a standard of full disclosure for retirement advice, a ruling that neuters the term “fiduciary.”

Currently scheduled to become applicable on June 9, Quinn believes that attempts to block the rule in Congress will ultimately fail, though another delay is likely because the Department of Labor’s decision to delay the applicability of the rule’s litigious enforcement mechanism until January 2018 gives non-compliers an opportunity to continue their behavior without any consequences.

“All of these newly minted fiduciaries are on their honor,” remarked Quinn.

The debate about retirement advice comes as the developed world experiences political upheaval and aging populations become the dominant long-term demographic trend

Quinn told advisors in the audience not to worry about partisan political debates.

“I bet you’re all happy that the topic today is money and not politics . . . don’t let political cage fights that go on in Washington influence your investment decisions,” said Quinn. “The U.S. economy is not really growing faster, but it’s not falling apart since the U.S. elections.”

Despite the mixed economic signals, Quinn believes the long, slow climb of the economy since the 2008-2009 financial crisis will continue, perhaps punctuated by a growth spurt should President Donald Trump and Congress agree to some form of fiscal stimulus.

This slow economic growth coincides with the aging of society and waves of baby boomer retirements that threaten the stability of social programs and may lead to rapidly rising deficits, said Quinn.

“I’m still an optimist,” she added. “I’m not the kind of person who smells flowers and looks around for a coffin.”

Yet Quinn did sound alarm over the U.S. healthcare system and the state of healthcare reform. Congress will probably succeed in repealing parts of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, she said, including taxes that helped fund Medicaid expansions and rules requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions without inflating premiums.

The immediate impacts of these changes will be deep cuts to state Medicaid programs and large premium increases, said Quinn.

“Planners who have not paid attention to insurance might want to take note,” she said. As almost all insurers, and many policyholders, leave the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges, the entire insurance market will be severely disrupted.

The aging trend should have more Americans considering long-term care coverage, said Quinn, but advisors must help clients sort good providers from the bad, as much of the long-term care industry is unstable and many of the holders of LTC coverage will experience “massive losses.”

With longer lives and muted investment returns, retirees and near-retirees should consider higher allocations to stocks in lieu of bonds and other asset classes, she said.

Quinn urged advisors to keep an open mind about using low-cost insurance products—like some annuities—to help create a more diversified income stream in retirement.

She also panned the trend of replacing a portfolio’s traditional income stream, via bonds or bond funds, with other  income-generating products like MLPs and REITs.

“I don’t see what the point is, all that should really matter is a portfolio’s total return,” Quinn said. “We’ve all seen high income investments that attract the eye. Junk bonds, for example, over the long run lose more money via defaults and dividend cuts than they create via higher yields. Investors never capture the income reported. Concentrating on dividend payers cost you diversification. Bond alternatives are not bonds.”

Moving forward, she opined, advisors will have to differentiate themselves with the services they provide, not the investments they use.

Quinn is a proponent of the simplicity of passive investing in index funds for its low costs and ease of use.

“My sense is that a rising number of RIAs are going passive to make rebalancing easier,” she said. “Index investing allows them to distinguish their services. It’s efficient, inexpensive and to be honest, better. It’s becoming a mark of sophistication to manage money simply.”

Indexing works especially well for younger investors, said Quinn, but as clients age advisors will have to broaden their areas of expertise to create personalized solutions to their financial needs.

“The RIA who has a forward-leaning practice will deal with clients who want these solutions,” she said. “The simple ‘how are my investments doing?’ conversation is so 1980s. The new conversation is ‘what do you want for your money?’”