Sunday, May 29, 2011

Suze Orman: if you take her advice, you're an idiot

There are so many financial gurus out there these days, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one of them.  Suze Orman has been making the rounds of late on the various liberal talk shows telling everyone who will listen to never own a house, just rent one. 

And of course, this is a complete one hundred and eighty degree about face from what she was telling those dopes who listened to her in the past: she touted home ownership, and said that renting a home was throwing away your money: buy the biggest house that you can qualify for, she said. 

Which Suze are you to believe?  The Suze Orman of two or three years ago?  Or the Suze Orman of today who is telling you the exact opposite advice she spewed earlier?  The truth is that Suze is just another popular financial 'expert' who will gladly tell you how to manage your money, as long as she makes a buck or two doing it.  Never mind that you may have taken her advice a few years ago, and invested heavily into real estate and now have lost the shirt off of your back.

Oops (which she never said).  Oh well.  Now believe her when she tells you the best way to achieving financial independence is to (fill in the blank, it's all garbage anyway).  At one point in her career, I recall her telling people that it makes sense to run up a big credit card balance, and that way you can improve your FICO score.  With advice like that, anyone who listens to this cretin Suze Orman now are themselves dumber than a bag of hammers.

Suze Orman, of course, is a classically trained financial genius, with a bachelors degree from the U. of Illinois in..... wait for it.....SOCIAL WORK!.  She's studied vigorously as to how to help people fill out food stamp applications, where to go to find welfare sign up sheets, etc., but has never once sat in a  college lecture about economics,  money or finance.  Yeah, listen to Suze talk about money.  To your peril...

My advice?  Save your money for a rainy day, don't live beyond your means and manage your financial affairs yourself.  Why pay these parasitic financial advisers a nickel when they have no better clue as to what the future holds than you do.

Especially Suze Orman.  She's got to be the dumbest financial 'expert' that ever came down the pike.

24 comments:

Christopher - Conservative Perspective said...

Fredd, I totally and unequivically concur!

My Dad taught me a saying eons ago about the word 'expert' that I believe applies here to your conclusion moreso than I thought possible;

Expert -

'X' is an unknown factor
'spert' is a drip under pressure

Put together you have an unknown drip under pressure.

Linda said...

Your advice is the best around. That is what we've tried to do throughout our lives, and have taught our kids to do the same.

It works for us.

Silverfiddle said...

See Fredd. Your advice is solid and sound, and you're giving it away for free!

Parents used to teach their kids such common sense, but we lost it somewhere along the way...

Fredd said...

Christopher:

Sounds like your dad had something on the ball back then.

Fredd said...

Linda:

It's also known as 'common sense.' Which is not all that common anymore.

Fredd said...

Silver:

Yeah, giving away common sense for free is like giving air away for free. Why not.

Kid said...

Couldn't agree more Fredd. I hear these people on the radio that want to manage your money for a fee. I immediately think about someone who pays someone else to watch the market go up and down with them. What a Yuk.

Just buy a S$P500 index fund and watch it go up and down without paying someone. As you get closer to retirement move more money into fixed income guaranteed investments like CDs - If they every start paying interest again. :)

When I was younger, an older couple told me to never sell real estate. I guess that renting your existing house when you want to move. Would be some work, but it would have payed off.

The Conservative Lady said...

I've heard of Ms. Orman, but never gone out of my way to watch her on TV. There are so many "experts" on TV, but people have to be responsible for their own decisions. Your advice is common sense...something Ms. Orman obviously doesn't have.

Anonymous said...

If people had lived within their means ten years ago, we would all be a lot better off today.

Fredd said...

Kid:

I especially dislike those radio money guys (Ric Edleman, Adam Bold), who slander every other finance guy out there, but encourage you to use THEIR services, you see, because unlike their competition, their motives are pure and clean as the wind driven snow: pure horse shit. The only difference between those radio money guys and their competition is the method as to how they suck fees and commissions from you. They are still parasites.

If you listen to anyone on the radio about money matters, then you are even dumber than somebody who listens to Suze Orman. And that's really, really dumb...

Fredd said...

Lady: I've only watched a precious fem moments of Suze, just enough prior to my frantic scramble to change the channel. Somebody gave me a book she wrote several years ago, and I remember yelling at the pages of her book as I read her idiocy.

My wife thought I was nuts, arguing with a book out loud...

Fredd said...

Trestin:

Yes, and those that couldn't live within their means and still qualified for subprime home loans almost destroyed our economy.

Kid said...

Fredd, Adam Bold, and the rest of those guys. There's a pair of them on every night that I catch once in a blue moon, like when I'm remodeling the basement and have the radio on. They sit around an BS, name dropping Ben Bernanke and such, making all these wink wink and a nod comments that are actually useless to humankind.
Honestly, they all sit around and BS for an hour long show and offer nothing that anyone could actually use.

Danny Wright said...

Live within your means, save some money for a rainy day. Suze, like all the other "experts" were simply looking at the past few years to determine what to do today, which is what she is doing right now.

Good old fashion advice Fred, well worth taking.

El Cerdo Ignatius said...

What??? Suze Orman actually advised people to run up a big credit card balance??? Okay. And the reason anyone still calls her and invites her on a radio or TV show to ask her questions is... what, exactly?

Fredd said...

El:

Considering Suze is dumber than dirt, the talk shows like her on because:

1. She's openly gay
2. She's abrasive and obnoxious
3. She'll say anything to get ratings.

Liberal media love all of those charming traits in a guru...

Joe said...

Susie is nothing more than a glorified snake oil salesman.

kitty said...

I used to watch Suze's show for her "can I afford it" segment: you listen to some idiots asking her if they can afford something (really if you have to ask....). But looking at this segment is good for one's self-esteem: because you are smarter than callers and actually know what you can or can't afford, you feel good about yourself.

I also heard her give a blatantly wrong advice about taxes. The question was about Incentive Stock Options and taxes. She said that as it's ISO's they aren't taxable at the moment of exercise only when the stock is sold so people could wait for a year to sell and have long-term gains.

This is true except for the little thing called the AMT. Her advice is what a lot of people did during the internet bubble, except for the stocks crashed but they still owed money for non-existing capital gains under the AMT. This destroyed some lives.

Fredd said...

Kitty:

I just got done watching a glancing segment of Suze, and she's still at it: blabbing gobbledegook to those who think she's a guru.

When you put your life savings into the hands of some TV bimbo's hands, God help you.

Jad said...

Sometimes when you give and you give, people never have the ability to rise and see what they can do on their own. In a very strange way it keeps people down. It keeps them thinking that they can’t do something unless someone sends them money.”
by Suze Orman in the following article:http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/36975/parents-should-never-tell-a-child-they-h
I wonder if she feels this way about the welfare state because this is EXACTlY what conservatives like myself (and a Filipino as well) have been saying for years about Democrats and Liberals and their policies

Cara said...

Why would I take advice from someone who has filed bankruptcy three times? And she also had the nerve to laugh at some poor guy who had student loans because he was out of work! I would never listen to any of these frauds!!

Unknown said...

Dave Ramsey is the only one to listen to for financial matters like this. Because he is he only one who had money, literally lost everything and had to start from the ground up with little no no resources outside of a job with a low salary.

Brooke and Company said...

I can't stand Suze Orman, but I think you were way off base by saying getting a BA in Social Work means you learn how to fill out food stamp applications. People who do that work in the eligibility dept, and are NOT social workers - genius! There are many SOCIAL WORKERS who go through as much schooling and get paid as much as psychologists and psychiatrists with an M.D. behind their name. Also, it's pretty apparent that you never went to college because everyone know that economics is a prereq for just about any degree and is usually taken as a freshman or sophomore regardless of your major. You are an idiot, just like Suze Orman.

Fredd said...

Brook and Company:

Sounds like I touched a nerve with you and your social work pedigree. As a do-gooder, you are fairly sensitive when people bad mouth your chosen field. Even as a BA holder in social work, with your measly one class in dumbed down economics as part of a core requirement, how does that make you an expert in guiding somebody's financial future? IT DOESN'T, Einstein. And it didn't qualify Suze to give anyone advice about anything not pertaining to social work. Get it? I suspect not, but I will continue...

Since it's obvious that I never went to college ( in fact, I obtained my B.A. in Business Administration and an M.B.A., both from Pac-12 univerities), I can't possibly know what a social work B.A. qualifies Suze in. I beg to differ, oh brilliant one.

Sure, if someone goes on and gets an M.A. or a Ph.D in social work, that's different. Suze didn't. But even with those credentials, it still doesn't qualify anybody in FINANCIAL ADVICE.

I also got the same Series 7 and 66 financial advisor licenses as Suze. Those didn't make me an expert in fincial advice any more that the idiot Suze Orman.

Unlike Suze Orman, I actually have a piece of paper that proves I am not an idiot: a Masters of Business Adminsistration degree from a Pac 12 univerity. They just don't give those out to idiots. Everybody knows that (except you).

They do, however, give lots of social work B.A.s out to idiots who subsequently try to pass themselves off as experts, such as yourself (and Suze Orman).

You are a pathetic social worker moron. But at least you have one redeeming quality: you can't stand Suze Orman. Keep up the good work in that department, it will serve you well if you shun her and her advice.