Alan Johnson is right: the boss should make the decisions; the experts should advise

I have an independent financial adviser. I can recommend him. He gives me expert advice. But I decide, and sometimes I disagree. Nobody would question either the propriety or the commonplace nature of this arrangement.

Recently we were discussing what to do with my maturing pension fund. His suggestions looked shrewd but were predicated on a measure of resumed economic growth and the persistence for some years of low interest rates.

His assessment was well-informed and would be widely shared. But I just have this hunch that all is not well; that Western economies including our own are rather weakly placed in the grand global scheme of things; that the respite bought by pumping money into the system will have to be paid for; that the consequence might be a stunting of recovery, or inflation, or both, followed by higher interest rates again; and that it could happen within three years. This is probably total balls, but it remains my hunch and I can’t (or won’t) discount it.

So having read my financial adviser’s investment recommendations, I asked if he might revise them somewhat in the direction of the scenario I’ve outlined. He said politely that he thought my fears about interest rates were misplaced, but that I was boss and he’d offer me an adjusted portfolio. In the end we’ve resolved to split the difference. My adviser feels under no pressure to resign, nor I to dismiss him. I’m going public, here, on this page, with my thoughts and he would be welcome to go public with his — including his opinion of my judgment, which is that my judgment is wrong.