TLPTP - Make us laugh edition

@Mike here in the US they use fake owls etc in the same way to keep birds etc away, they have learned that if you don't move the fake predators then the animals you are trying to scare away quickly learn they are not a problem.

For years London's Trafalgar Square had problems with feral pigeons. The trouble was that it was a popular tourist attraction to feed them, so they reasoned that if they weren't there, then they wouldn't get need to get fed! But the green wellie brigade moved in.

STTSP

The only vaguely similiar retirement product in Australia is superannuation. This is one of the worst designed schemes ever devised in the world that would go by such a title. It has, and still is, subject to casual pilfering by all & sundry 'stakeholders' except the person whom is the alleged ultimate beneficiary. Initially setup in the early 1990's as provision for retirement self-reliance in an age of increasing over-65 demographic fraction ( those greedy Baby-Boomers ). Much later it was disclosed - by admission in the relevant Federal Treasurer's memoirs no less - as simply a budget-of-the-day measure ( taxing 15% of input funds ) without significant electoral impact ( employers to pay ).

It had, and still has, little or no regulation on fees, type of investment risk or other parameters normal to any lending proposition. And it is lending : the money is deeded to the super fund with the expectation of subsequent return*. If you had a long term bank deposit and instructed the bank to do entirely whatever they pleased with it, including no expectation of any monies to be returned ( nor any actionable tort for the failure ) then you would have the correct economic model. Or put another way : there are regulations, plenty of them, however each of which was written by the investment industry.

It was thought at one stage to be a good ( semi tax-deductible ) form of life insurance ie. a death payout. However claims experience is otherwise : you have to pry the money from the cold dead fingers of the super fund, not the deceased. No contractual obligation to payout, as with typical life cover, upon receipt of a death certificate that excludes foul play. Likewise for income/disability protection. So yes, you are quadriplegic in a wheelchair, but hey ! Stephen Hawking does very good theoretical physics so why don't you ? Hence if you are after such cover then get those products distinct from super.

When properly amortised, various taxes applied ( on input, ongoing franking of profit, and then on exit ), then the gain is appalling and if properly compared to whatever else you could have done ( even after income tax deduction day one ) then really appalling.

In nett terms it is the mother of all indirect tax schemes. Many are now purchasing annuities. These have the major benefits of actually paying something back with a given input, a common law tort actionable in the breach etc. Companies offering those have to provide stricter probity than the super crews.

Cheers, Mike.

* A number of cases were tried by those who thought exactly that, only to be informed at judgement that no expectation would be deemed to apply ie. did you read the fine print upon application ? The fact that such an obvious investment risk ( you may lose everything including all inputs ) only became widely known by said cases, is a sad indictment upon the level of disingenuity of all parties proposing such schemes from the get-go.

A reasonably accurate description. This is probably the key point :

"Initial financial discussions determined that the Australian economy would be at risk if citizens were allowed to immediately access and withdraw Superannuation."

..... aka the scheme is way broke from the beginning, pretty much by design as a taxation device and not an investment instrument, not unlike any fractional lending system where the same bar of gold is promised several times over to different people. The taxation load was/is too high to be recovered by any subsequent reasonable commercial profit.

The first well documented fractional lending scheme I believe was the colony of Virginia, east coast of North America before secession etc. Tobacco was used as a currency in a good deal of trades. Foreign scrip eg. English banknotes were not of interest as they lacked ready redemption. Now some tobacco warehouses would issue receipts for storage of the tobacco. Hence the receipt, a note entitling the bearer to retrieve a given amount from the warehouse, was often used as a currency.

Then the inevitable happened. A warehouse owner would issue a receipt for some work/favour done for them, but without a corresponding deposit of tobacco. After not-too-long all receipts circulating in local communities totalled a greater tobacco amount than physically held by that tobacco trader. Effectively he had printed free money and as the first to pass such into circulation would be the major, and possibly the only, beneficiary of that act. It is a simple leap to predict that if every receipt holder wanted 'their' tobacco at once, then disappointment* would abound. This fractional lending ( you have only a fraction of what is promised ), and suitably morphed variants, is a grave root of much pain in the modern world.

Cheers, Mike.

* My guess is that the best initial investment by such a trader, using such supernumerary receipts, ought be in a fast horse. 

( edit ) One can also create a fractional lending scenario while using entirely legitimate receipts. Just steal tobacco .... :-)))

Where oh where are my manners ! Foaming Running off at the mouth again ....

Cheers, Mike.

( edit ) Well I think this is funny : you can get software add-ons to pretty up charts and graphs to XKCD style eg.

( edit ) Sigh. Like good chocolates, with XKCD I can never stop at one :

Like it :-))

@David - believe it or not there are many ways to amuse women, try it!