Dialogue: Easy money bus left me standing

By JOE BENNETT

Well, that's another bus missed. There it goes, rattling up Rich Man's Avenue, and everyone on board except me.

I keep missing buses to Richville. I missed the physiotherapy bus. Up it rumbled some 20 years ago, all flexible and rubbery, and I said "fad". I was wrong.

I went on to miss the marriage celebrant bus when all I needed was a hat and a smile. I missed the management consultant bus despite my love of jargon. I missed the aromatherapy bus, the personal trainer bus, the designer jeans bus, every bus, indeed, that has carried people to the nicer suburbs.

And now I've missed one of the best and biggest buses in the history of making dosh. I suppose I could still run ahead up the street and leap on board, panting, but there's little point. It's packed now, standing room only, and the fares have risen and the profits thinned.

I must face the truth that it's gone. I have missed the financial adviser bus, and I am left on the sidewalk of lamentation.

I had all the qualifications for advising financially: a crisp shirt, a genial manner and a face that isn't actively repellent. I couldn't have gone wrong.

What a clever business, financial advising. How I wish I'd thought of it.

Your customers are lovely. They all have money. You never see the poor. You never have to chase a debt. You never have to summon the men in leather with baseball bats to call on addresses that smell of baked beans at dawn.

No, you glide through Niceville, raking off your 1 per cent and never having to offer a guarantee. No wonder they've proliferated.

As far as I know the financial adviser was a rare bird until the 1980s rolled in with their torrents of wealth, and consumption so conspicuous you could see it from Fiji. Queen St was awash with lolly and nobody knew what to do with it.

Enter the financial adviser, oozing sagacity. The newly rich came flocking. The crash brought some hairy moments, but financial advising was here to stay.

Since then the business has straightened its tie and polished its nameplate. There are exams you can take, and letters you can put after your name and professional organisations to belong to. But at heart it remains simple.

There is nothing immoral about it. And there's not a lot that's financial about it. To advise financially the first thing you must know is people.

People with money want more money. But people with money are also frightened to lose it. So they are frightened to do anything with it. To the little man the world of money looks like a pool of sharks and he is scared to swim.

If the little man lost his money, he would feel sad but, more significantly, he would feel foolish. He would have to admit that he had invested unwisely, that he had proved gullible, that the sharks had got him.

So the adviser must inspire the little man's confidence. He must take from the little man the terror of making decisions. He must lead him into some degree of risk and he must give him someone to blame if it all goes wrong.

But it is only the client that takes the risk. That's the beauty of the business.

The rest is obvious. Does the adviser need to know about derivatives? Hedging? Junk bond leveraging? Not a bit of it. He needs nothing but a chunk of common sense. He needs only to have listened to his gran.

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket," said Gran. "Diversify your portfolio," says the financial adviser and he means the same thing.

"There's no such thing as a free lunch," said Gran. "Steer clear of the dotcoms," said the good financial adviser. The dotcoms looked so much like a free lunch, there just had to be cyanide in the sandwiches.

And, finally, "Money makes money," said Gran, and the adviser knows that is true.

The wealth of the Western world increases. Look at graphs for the past 100 years and they go up. The World Trade Centre falls and the graphs fall with it, but then up they go again, up to where they were and beyond.

They climb at a set rate. Put money into secure places and it grows. If you owe money, pay it off. If you've got money, spread it wide and safely.

You won't beat the market, but if you go with the market, your money will gradually grow and it will compound and the growth will accelerate and that is financial advising.

The financial adviser is someone we employ to embody our own common sense. Plus a crisp shirt and a reassuring manner and a little jargon and 1 per cent. Any honest adviser will tell you so himself.

But I missed the bus. I shall go fishing.