Your Money or Your Life: Growth for Whom?

Now is a great time for bad actors. But who gave them the green light?

For the slick-suited product pushers and the private equity vultures circling our pensions—this is their moment. The government’s growth agenda and the FCA’s deregulation playbook have teamed up to roll out the red carpet. But let’s be honest: this isn’t growth for the people. It’s exploitation, plain and simple.

While ministers talk up prosperity and the FCA sings about smarter regulation, the truth is hiding in plain sight: consumers are being sacrificed on the altar of economic growth. This isn’t a slip-up. It’s a strategy.

🚨 A Perfect Storm for Exploitation

Let’s start with the Autumn Budget rumour: slashing the cash ISA allowance from £20,000 to £4,000. Why? To herd public savings away from the safety of cash and into riskier investments. Investments that, conveniently, generate juicy fees for traditional advice firms. The ones owned by offshore private equity houses. The ones who see your retirement pot as their business model.

But wait—it gets worse.

Enter the FCA’s latest sleight of hand: “targeted support.” Sounds helpful, right? Don’t be fooled. It’s code for deregulated flogging of investments to the underserved—without full advice, without accountability, without comeback. It’s guidance without guidance. “Rain down products on the masses,” they say. “Let the market decide.”

Meanwhile, scandals like fee-for-no-service and defined benefit pension mis-selling are being quietly swept under the rug. The regulator claims things have improved. Redress liabilities? Overestimated. Surpluses? Return them to shareholders. Justice? Optional.

🏦 The System Works—for Them

Let’s be clear: the government doesn’t want your savings under your mattress. It wants them under management—so City firms can clip the ticket, year after year.

And what of oversight? A Treasury Select Committee that spends just 1.5% of its time speaking to consumer advocates. The rest? Lobbyists for the very firms profiting from the chaos.

A system that fails to protect victims… was never meant to.

⚔️ So What Now?

Here’s the part they didn’t plan for: you.

Because when people understand the game being played with their money, they can choose to stop playing. To get off the treadmill. To stop feeding a machine that thrives on confusion and compliance.

Yes, the system is rigged. Yes, it favours the few. But knowledge is power—and power changes everything.

So here’s the question: who’s really in charge here?

The unaccountable hierarchies of profit and power?
Or the consumer armed with awareness, insight, and a plan?

🛠️ Rebuild and Thrive—On Your Terms

At the Academy of Life Planning, we don’t tell you what funds to buy. We show you how to reclaim your agency. How to build a life plan that works for you, not for the shareholders of a wealth management firm. We help you become your own adviser. Your own protector. Your own master.

Because the real scandal isn’t just what they’ve done.
It’s how long they’ve got away with it.

📢 Now Is the Time

Now is the time to unmask the profiteers.
Now is the time to challenge the deregulation myth.
Now is the time to put consumers back in control.

Because it’s your money.
It’s your life.
And they’re not entitled to either.