Conflict of interest?

I'm not quite sure why Conde Nast Portfolio would publish Michael Lewis' profile of Dimensional Fund Advisors -- Wall Street's biggest nightmare -- and the transformation of ex-trader Blaine Lourd, but I'm sure glad they did. The fascinating analysis of DFA, and their rather intuitive efficient-market theory, eviscerates the very concept of money managers. At least if you buy into, you know, capitalism. Ellis, who had spent 30 years advising Wall Street firms, went on with charts, graphs, and more evidence than he needed to convince Blaine of the truth of that statement. The problem wasn't Blaine; the problem wasn't even the firms he worked for. The problem was the entire edifice of modern Wall Street, in which some people—brokers, analysts, mutual fund managers, hedge fund managers—presented themselves as experts and were paid fantastic sums of money for their expertise. But essentially, Ellis argued, there was no such thing as financial expertise. "I read this book," Blaine says, "and I thought, My whole life is a lie, and everyone around me is facilitating this lie." A must read, as they say in the trade.