Distribute THIS!
In true Soviet command economy style, Tony Blair and his henchmen designed Stakeholder Pensions.
They wanted everyone to have one, especially the rich.
So they cunningly designed it so that there was no provision in the cost structure for distribution.
Of course, the wealthy signed themselves up thinking they'd got a bargain. But the poor were completely forgotten.
With no provision for the cost of distributing the product, nobody distributed it. This was a blessing in disguise for the great unwashed because otherwise they would have been denied their benefits at retirement, just because they'd somehow managed to avoid the betting shop for a few weeks and put a few quid into a pension plan.
More state dependency and a lucky escape for the conshoomer!
RU64
At the FSA we don't let minor considerations such as no provision for the cost of distributing a product get in the way of how we feel the conshoomer should be treated.
We require financial advisers to PROVE they've considered Stakeholder for every pension customer, even though to sell one would drive their business into the ground.
We call this RU64.
A really nice touch is that despite Stakeholder providing no income to the financial adviser, he is still fully responsible for selling it!
Not even Joseph Stalin could have thought up a more efficient way to bugger up the distribution of pensions to those who need them most and thereby create more dependency on the state.
One of our computer boys scribbled down the formula for us:
(Socialist agenda) + (conshoomerist language) = a disastrous lack of provision by people for their retirement.
Bingo!
People asked us to reconsider our position on RU64. But we never will. After all, it's an absolutely fabulous way of making sure people don't save for their retirement, wouldn't you say, Darling?
Two steps forward, one step back, one step for the Party.
For the unitiated, that's dialectical thinking. It's what's kept us going.
Fragmentation Grenade
Stakeholder has become a real headache for the financial services industry.
Bare bones plans, inherently unprofitable, coupled with a requirement to offer them to employees of every company above a certain size has caused insurance company's books to be stuffed with fragmented arrangements which are subsidised by other more profitable business. Impossible for the client to cost-effectively assemble into any sensible plan on retirement.
The less well off who accumulate a few shekels in Stakeholder plans before moving to another job will probably be forced to abandon them as, under our new RDR rules, the cost of rationalisation will exceed the aggregate value.
So, it has all been for nothing! Sorry.
So cheap, nobody wanted it
Buy cheap, buy twice. That's one of the the best pieces of advice anyone can receive. We've put that addage into practice in the very nice cars in which we swan around London.
Now, there's a reason why good cars, sorry, products cost what they do. 'Built down to cost has never delivered the promise of performance, quality or on-going service. If there's no money in it, the rest is just fiction.
Even we know that!
But in true socialist tradition, we've never let common sense stand in our way. Stakeholder must be cheap and our highly inflated salaries must be, well, highly inflated.
What's wrong with that?
Charity begins at home, right?
Well, not your home, of course. Our homes, which are duly palatial. Sorry to hear about yours.
Oh, bollocks! Now you're making us feel guilty.
Sell the sizzle, not the sausage
So, we've been telling the punters about how cheap Stakeholder plans are for over a decade now. But no one seems to want one.
Oh, misery!
The limited range of funds - typically a fairly dreadful Managed Fund, a broken With Profits fund and a few other cast-me-downs, has really put the mockers on Stakeholder.
Nothing there to whet the appetite, I hear you say!
Of course not! The best advice with that bag of nails would be hari kari.
If you want something good you have to pay for it.
That's why we don't buy those basics sausages in Sainsurys. They're crap. Instead we go to Waitrose for the best Cumberland Pork Sausages money can buy because they taste nice and, well, to be honest, if we happen to bump into our old chums from HSBC at the checkout we don't want them to think we can't afford the best. Pass the gravy. Mmmm.... Nothing like some good Bisto on the bangers!
We didn't mislead you on that cheap is good thing, did we? Of course not.
We've never mislead anyone.
Never, never, never, never.
Guidance Notes
No. 1. Every socialist government ends in financial disaster.
No. 2. Every socialist policy damages the people it claims to protect.
No. 3. Socialists tell us what they are doing by accusing us of doing it.
No. 4. Socialists are socialists first, before anything else.
No. 5. To learn the motive of any policymaker, FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Once these principles are grasped, a true understanding of what socialists have planned for you, your loved ones and your money can be fully appreciated.
