I am now clear why so few pensions offer savers value for money, it is because so much of our money goes on buying Elizabeth Pfeuti champagne and fine food.
Delivering a 68 minute deluge of vitriol, her only brief moments of optimism are for the headonism that keeps her and London’s hospitality trade alive.
Of course this is all “back in the day” stuff and little champagne is being quaffed or fine dining being used as inducements by the public relations industry today. Though I suspect that the PLSA conference which Elizabeth is attending as a journalist, may prove a notable exception.
The high life plays an important part in this podcast , punctuating a stream of invective against the hand that quite literally – feeds. This may sound ungracious from a man who has find himself in glam destinations from Loch Lomond to Chepstow in the past week but I’m not making a living out of it.
Nico tries to distance himself from this luxurious life. He tells us he first met Elizabeth at the Veuve Clicquot tent at Lords. but it’s alright because he was reaching out to her over the little fence enclosed her.
From her privileged position as journalist/PR Elizabeth Pfeuti explains to us what is wrong with the pension system. In short – it’s everything and though her clients are blameless , the same cannot be said for anyone else. I assume that if we haven’t been buying Elizabeth fine food and champagne we are part of the problem.
“People aren’t stupid” she tells us, before explaining how stupid most people are – thinking that their measly £50,000 pension pot can provide them with the cruises and fine dining and champagne enjoyed by their parents and grandparents.
In this world “value for money” is anything that works for you, including presumably corporate expenses, so long as they get us the desired result.
Last week we had the modest Cinderella of PR, Louise Farrand. This week we have the brash and noisy voice of the funds industry, with all its entitlement.
There are many people in pensions trying to implement the innovation that Elizabeth is asking for but they are often unsung. If they did sing, I daresay, their voices would be drowned out by the amplification that Rhotic Media provides those with the depth of pocket to pay the fees and the restaurant bills
The podcast takes a welcome break from this nonsense and we’ll be hearing soon from Margaret Snowden and others who do get things done rather in indulging in a 65 minute moan-fest.
I am quite sure that this will make my sojourn of the Manchester press-room awkward, but I’m bored by the pension industry’s predilection for shooting itself in the foot.
