Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we welcome you to the Financial Services Circus! Please step inside our big tent, where you will see wonders and entertainments beyond the normal human imagination. Admission is your life savings. Step up! Don't crowd; there's plenty of room for everybody!

As you approach the main attractions, please stop at one of the sideshow booths, where you can sit down with one of our fortune tellers, the remarkable mystics with their wizard hats and business suits. They will predict the next day's, week's or month's stock prices, interest rates or future investment returns simply by gazing into their macroeconomic crystal balls-or, in the case of those who appear on cable TV, by doing nothing more than staring intently into the air above the host's well-manicured head. Let them predict your financial future or scream a hot tip at you as you pass.

CLOWN ALLEY

Over there, toward the middle of the midway, see the clowns and their hilarious routine of throwing pies and squirting one another with seltzer water. They are actually the police of our big tent, in charge not only of entertaining you with their wacky antics, but also of protecting you against predatory Ponzi schemers and unscrupulous investment product manufacturers.

See? They've caught one now, a senior executive whose arms and pockets are so stuffed with your hard-earned retirement savings that hundred-dollar bills are falling to the ground as he frantically runs around the front of the tent. The clowns are squirting him with seltzer water. Hilarious! It's all in good fun!

Before you head for the main attractions, notice on your left the Amazing Jugglers. Those professionals somehow manage to keep track, second by second, of your ability to afford to retire, based on ever-shifting future investment return and tax expectations, your evolving goals and objectives, changes in financial circumstances and employment (or-ha-ha!-lack thereof, in this wacky economy!), variables like inflation and the various economic statistics here and abroad and insurance for your home, car, disability and life. Well, somehow all of these dozens and sometimes hundreds of complex objects of all shapes and sizes are kept up in the air by the agility, expertise and long practice of perhaps the most remarkable of our Big Tent performers.

As you pass into the main arena, you may notice that the skilled performers in our juggling act are far too preoccupied with not dropping anything to stop and ask you for money. Hilarious!

THE BIG TOP

And here we are at last! There are two doors at the entrance to the Big Top: One of them is actually part of the show, as many of you will see when you take your seats.

Years ago, Ring One was our famous, incredible lion taming act.The most exciting part of our show! Whip cracking galore!

But somewhere along the way, the brave and famous FINRA team of lion tamers became increasingly friendly with the lions. Today, they are paid entirely by the lions themselves (and frankly, much more than our circus could afford). Now as you take your seats, it's time to watch the brave and famous FINRA team pet and groom their feline masters and generally do whatever they are told, including-and this has become the core of our entertainment in Ring One-advocating for "choice" on behalf of those who attend our circus.

Yes, choice! You, our customers, have the "choice" of taking your seat or, if you walk through the second door, entering unsuspectingly into the cage-where at this very moment you can see consumers walking among the lions, which are hilariously dressed in sheep costumes. See how they drool! And-oh dear! You might want to cover the eyes of the children as the lions ... well, here come the clowns, hilariously rushing in to clean the blood and internal organs off the floor with their seltzer siphons, and to wag their fingers sternly at the lions in sheep costumes. Not too close! Ha-ha, ha-ha!

TRAPEZE ARTISTS

So let us now direct your attention to Ring Two, where we present the Flying Insurance Agents! See these daredevils soar through the air with investment products that are guaranteed never to touch the ground! Watch how they flip and glide! Every time the projected cash value of their products goes into a free fall, they replace them with an entirely new contract. New commissions! New, more optimistic projections! Some of those puppies are now heavier than bowling balls!