‘Friends First’ Vs Social Services.

national | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis

Tuesday August 24, 2004 23:00

by Fergus

Woke up this morning.
Ad on the radio selling ‘income protection’.
What's that?
‘Friends First’ competing against the ‘Welfare State’?

I check out friendsfirst.ie on the net.
Download the pdf and read the sales pitch.

Note a few of the lines.
“Social welfare payments are not enough to cover even the basics of life.
Payments vary but are from 134.80 euro per week…
Even though we can’t predict what your outgoings will be we can GUARANTEE that the State Benefit will be significantly less...”

I break the sales pitch down: You need private ‘income protection’ because
[we can GUARANTEE that the State / payments are not going to cover even the basics of life]

Where’s this coming from? I check the company background:
“a subsidiary of Eureko BV a privately-owned financial services group with a total asset base of 92.8 billion euro…goal of becoming one of the leading European personal finance insurance groups.”

The numbers crunch:
[92.8 billion euro / 134.80 euro]

Eureko.net links to Mr Jim Power of Friends First.
Back to July 21st, 2004. Launch of the ‘Quarterly Economic Outlook’.

“The Minister for Finance… is in a very strong financial position going into Decembers budget and the two further budgets likely before the next scheduled election. This will facilitate… increased spending in politically sensitive areas.”

I translate this as:
Governments spend taxes on public services to buy votes – ‘facilitating’ re-election.
[the next scheduled election will facilitate / spending in politically sensitive areas]

Jim continues:
“A policy of sharply increased spending would be a major policy mistake that would have negative longer term repercussions on the economy”
“He warned that it would now be a serious error to panic and start spending public money indiscriminately and abandoning plans to reform public services.”

This is Capitalism issuing a warning:
Not to let spending for Citizens,
infringe on the private business plans to create Consumers.
[increased spending would / have negative longer term repercussions / on plans to reform public services]

As Jim warns the government not to spend.
His company, ‘Friends First’ attempts to sell in the emerging market of ‘income protection’.
A ’product’ you need because government spending on
[Social welfare payments are not enough to cover even the basics of life]

This suggests to me that
[A policy of sharply increased spending would be a major policy mistake that would have negative longer term repercussions on / Friends First]

Putting a whole lot of emphasis on the Friends First
[GUARANTEE that the State / payments are not going to cover even the basics of life]

Links
http://www.friendsfirst.ie/artman/uploads/incomeprotect.pdf
http://www.eureko.net/press/friendsfirst/index.asp