Logically, the belated discovery that financial consumer protection needs to be increased might have led to increased powers for the S.E.C., which was created to protect investors. But it stumbled badly in recent years, and that idea does not seem to have occurred to anyone.

Ms. Shapiro’s move this week was to do something that sounds just like what Ms. Warren would propose for banks: bring fees out into the open, so everyone can see them.

The S.E.C. proposed rules to change the cozy system that lets “no load” mutual funds charge sales fees, known in the business as 12b-1 fees, that are taken from an investor’s profits year after year. Under the proposal, the fees would be above board, and differing brokers selling funds could discount them if they chose to compete that way.

The commission will soon move to consider the issue of whether to require brokers to have a “fiduciary duty” to investors, meaning they would have to offer advice they believed to be in the customer’s best interest. Such consideration is required by the new law, and how far the commission goes could help to determine just how consumer-oriented it is.

The most notable enforcement case of Ms. Shapiro’s tenure can be read as an indication that she cares deeply about such issues.

Under current law, brokers serving retail investors are held to a limited standard requiring that investments be “suitable” to the buyer. But brokers for institutional investors have not faced even that minimal rule. That freed brokers to let clients view them as trusted advisers when pitching an investment. If and when the product blows up, the broker disclaims any responsibility for the bad investment decision made by the customer. The broker was simply a “counterparty” who took the other side of a trade that the customer wanted to do.