Sophisticated clients don't necessarily need an adviser to do basic trades, and it is also much cheaper to do it on their own.

WSJ: FUND TRACK: Merrill Is Launching

The basic decisions were made by then President Bush and his secretary of state and national security adviser (interestingly, the main sceptic at the time was Mr Cheney, who argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union was not against America's global interests).

ECONOMIST: The world in their hands | The

Finally, my thesis adviser in grad school has researched Russian demographics for over 30 years, including during the Brezhnev period when basic demographic indicators were state secrets (he had to painstakingly assemble estimates by laboriously pouring over specialized virology and immunology journals which had a few data points scattered throughout them).

FORBES: A Case Study in the Fecklessness and Idiocy of Russian Liberalism