Steve Bee Relates A Fearful Tale of Piracy, Loss and Despair From the Frozen Cape of Dead Hope
It is an ancient pensioner,
And who saved in S2P.
Was years in Serps and graduated, Aye,
But ne’er a GMP.
A consultant’s time comes at a prime
Cost, and that’s so dear;
But in he’d come to state his name
And make his point most clear.
The Age of Eldorado
‘The boardroom’s coffers once opened wide,
We were contracted-out;
The monies met, the funding set:
Gold-platedness devout.’
He holds him with his skinny hand,
‘That was the time,’ quoth he.
‘Hold off! unhand me, I care not now
For what they did in ’63!’
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The consultant young stands still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The pensioner hath his will.
The consultant young sits like stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus speaks on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed pensioner.
‘The scheme was launched, the profits staunched,
Our NI conts were dropped
Below the rate paid of late
By those whose schemes were topped!’
‘The sun shone then on all the men,
And women too who’d join.
That band of old with pensions gold
Guaranteed their future coin!’
‘The investments surged, the past was purged
On a sea of equity.
The future bright look’d right
Or so it seemed to me.’
‘Higher and higher every day,
Till the FTSE peaked at noon.’
The consultant young fair bites his tongue,
For he hears the loud bassoon.
The Curse of the Albatross
The pensioner paces round the room,
A pitiful sight is he;
‘To bust from boom, that was our doom.
And we got a GPP.’
The consultant young looks fit to run,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus speaks on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed pensioner.
‘Recession he came ere time, and he
With quantitative-like frown:
Struck and struck with his easing cuts,
And chased the rates right down.’
‘With falling rates and dipping yields,
No alpha yet set to pursue.
The markets seized, the sinews freez’d
Aye, and nothing any could do.’
‘And now there came another game;
When pensions start anew.
As into the fold, the auto-enrolled,
Joined our ancient crew.’
And sudden did come that thunderous day
Through budget unsuspected so;
And in a blink the annuity link,
That ne’er we thought would go.’
‘But go it did, and so it seemed
The yoke of ages too.
And we lost then the fear of men,
But stood and what to do?’
The Phoenix Launches
The consultant young now finds his tongue
His modern world is clear.
But the pensioner’s mind, looked from behind,
Two eyes so full of fear.
‘God save thee, ancient pensioner!
From the fiends, that make thee shot!—
Why look’st thou not good?’—
’As soon as I could
I cashed my pension pot!’.
