The Trouble With Suze
Generally, I think my fellow Yahoo! Finance Expert gives pretty solid financial advice. Sure, she's compromised somewhat by her endorsements like MyFICO.com, but she seems to genuinely care about helping people, the opposite of an irresponsible stock hustler like Jim Cramer.
However, after reading her profile in the New York Times Magazine, I realized that I think her priorities are totally screwed up. She seems to equate financial security with being rich.
I mean, maybe this is obvious, since she wrote a book called The Courage To Be Rich. But really, that's such BS.
If we learned anything from the past year's fiscal insanity, it's that financial security, financial integrity, and financial freedom have nothing to do with having a ton of money. You have financial security if you are able to cover your basic expenses and save for the future. You have financial integrity if you're not fronting by buying a bunch of crap you can't afford while neglecting your future. And true financial freedom, for life, means the ability to live well within your means, regardless of the fluctuations of the market. These are all dynamic ways of being in the world, not static numbers.
Okay, you might argue that "basic expenses" does require a certain dollar value per year, but I think it's all contextual. You could live on the beach in Goa for $10,000 a year, and as long as you play enough guitar to clear $11,000 in tips, presto, you have financial freedom.
This was the part of the story I found the most galling:
"She has been reluctant to work on school curricula on personal finance, because she says students can't learn empowerment from people who aren't empowered, and teachers, she says, are too underpaid ever to have any real self-worth."
Seriously?? Suze is suggesting that people who go into teaching aren't empowered and don't value themselves because they're too big of losers not to become a stockbroker or a TV personality like she did? Teachers, who do the most important job in our society, have no self worth because they're underpaid? Okay, you might agree that they are underpaid, but objectively in most places in the US they make a solid middle class living, with security and benefits that are unheard-of in most careers. Teaching is an enviable career to a huge chunk of the American public. This is incredibly out of touch.
Suze's right about one thing: young people shouldn't be learning about personal finance from her. This is the same kind of GOP-style, rich-person-worshiping BS disguised as "empowerment" of the common person that got us into trouble in the first place.
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Throughout my adult life we have operated under the assumption that people who are not well off financially are lazy, dumb and deserve their lack of status. All you need to be "rich" is "the courage" or to "want it bad enough". How laughable. Our society still needs teachers, police officers, fire fighters, bus drivers, day care providers etc, etc.. Are the people in these professions all eejits and cowards? Is this why they are not yet "rich"? How would our parents and grandparents who came up from similar "lowly" positions feel about this kind of wholesale slur and lack of respect?
At any rate, now we see how the worm has turned. As a society we prioritized rewarding the hedge fund managers, brokers, pro athletes, insurance ceos and slick sales people. See how they have responded to this adulation, lack of regulation and status. Meanwhile many of the actual middle class have allowed themselves to lose focus...to base their sense of worth on their address and the make of vehicle in their garage.
Where will these values get us in the current economic reality? Let's see who has the "courage to be poor" and who will be able to pull themselves back from the brink. Perhaps it will be the people who can find happiness outside of spending and material excess.
Orman is the Martha Stewart of finance. Nobody should need Stewart to tell them how to fold towels, just as nobody should need Orman to tell them not to buy a mansion when they can only afford a condo.
No, because Martha Stewart teaches people how to fold towels so they will know how to fold towels. And they can, and they do. Suze Orman tells people how to avoid being a complete idiot about finance so they will get rich. But getting rich isn't, and shouldn't be, everyone's goal, and all too often there are external factors (illness, etc.) that make her advice useless. Martha Stewart is far more useful to society than Suze Orman.
$30K or even $40K isn't a ton of money these days. Sure it's something, but it's the lower end of middle class and it guarantees both parents working. You could certainly have a thing or two to say about living within your means because that is all you could do.
She is the reason I became interested in personal finance. She and David Bach were the first I ever read and listened to. At this point, I have read so much and so many people, that I don't necessarily completely follow all of their ideas and thoughts, but I thank them for bringing me in.
We are now on the road to being debt-free and Suze got me started. I will always appreciate that as well as what I see as a GENUINE desire to help people become financially literate and responsible.
What is your definition of a HUCKSTER ? ? ? Do Cramer and Orman fit the definition ? ? ?
Yes HuffPo, Suze Orman is crazy. THESE are the folks who should be teaching your kids about the dangers of complex derivatives or how to renegotiate a mortgage:
Aspiring school teachers
fail in math
Only 27 percent of the teaching
candidates pass
MALDEN, Mass. (WPRI) - According to state education officials, nearly three-quarters of the people who took the state elementary school teacher’s licensing exam this year failed the new math section.
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is releasing the results Tuesday. They say that only 27 percent of the more than 600 candidates who took the test passed. The test was administered in March of this year.
The teacher’s licensing exam tested potential teachers on their knowledge of elementary school mathematics. This included geometry, statistics, and probability.
Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester was not surprised by the results. He told the Boston Globe that these results indicate that many students are not receiving an adequate math education.
"The teacher"s licensing exam tested potential teachers on their knowledge of elementary school mathematics. This included geometry, statistics, and probability."
Since when are statistics and probability taught in elementary school (and proper geometry, for that matter)?
Proficiency in math is a magical antidote to economic naivete? Oh really? But that just buys into the very culture of rarefied math formulae that created the mess in the first place! Oh, if only our nation's school teachers could have prepared our youngsters to spot the hocus pocus in the fanciful equations that amoral mathematicians were using to upend the financial system, then we could have saved ourselves. Please.
Kamenetz's criticism is fair. Orman's message goes beyond prudent frugality; it panders to the same greed impulse that is at the heart of this crash, as her views on teachers indicate. Your bottom line is your real worth, and that bottom line can never be too big? Yeah, that's crazy.
Love her or hate her, Suze O. hasn't always been rich. The bottom line is this: spend less than you make.
it always seems patently obvious, whenever i see her pontificating through the media, that Suze's top priority is feathering her own financial nest .........
"Teachers, who do the most important job in our society"
Nope. Pastors have the most important job.
Pastors = teacher of superstition. Maybe the most harmful job...
Horse puckey.
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."
-Thomas Jefferson, Dec. 6, 1813.
Madness is just throwing chum into the mix to rile some of us. He got what he wanted, attention.
Pastors cannot help stupid people
But they can seriously mislead ignorant people.
I like Suze.
My FICO score is around 800, and I have never been in financial trouble in my adult life.
I do not need her advice, but I find her very entertaining.
I find her advice sensibly conservative, and often recommend her to people who do not really understand how the money world works. There are LOTS of these kinds of people, and they need some sound advice.
I do not get the vitriol here on this board.
I wouldnt consider teachers underpaid !! Its never about how much you make, but how much of what you make, spend.
Keep your spending under control. stop shopping those expensive sneakers, stop eating out, if you are single - share an apartment. plenty of ways to save !!
Another way to look at it:
-A teacher and a hedge fund manager have about the same education.
-A teacher contributes more to society and more to the future of an economy than a hedge fund manager.
To add to my other comment, I do not understand how a single teacher with no kids can live any kind of life on a teacher's salary.
And anyone who is not a teacher cannot imagine the hours they really work, nor the stress they are under.
I studied to be a teacher. I could not handle it.
It would be difficult to overpay teachers, in order to retain the most highly qualified. This is the most essential job in any country.
I can't stand this woman.........LOL. I have tried to watch some of her infomercials and her "know-it-all-you're a fool if you're not wealthy" attitude just turns me off. LOL
This is the American problem. We think having a lot of $=happiness. Many have $ (millions+) +are the most neurotic/least generous. They don't know how to live on very little, so they worry all the time. Plus, they have a lot to lose and expect to be happy, but are confused - why aren't they happy? Do they need billions to be happy?
Making enough for your own lifestyle is important. Unfortunately, the rules keep changing, so having more feels like you're more secure. The truth is, you need to learn to adapt, be flexible, have a good sense of humor and be confident. Create a strong, broad base of support.
If you've the skills for self-reliance and a fulfilling career path, you're way ahead of the game.
Suze's really out of touch with most of us. She thinks everyone has a substantial nest egg, second home +extra cash. She also assumes that those having trouble are just bad at managing money.
Devastating events occur, hard to prepare for or cope with. Illness, job loss, enormous house and investment devaluation, rising expenses +cut benefits.
Insurance is a scam, employers demand more for less. Everything is rising in cost. Meanwhile, salaries aren't.
If you're rich like Suze, she assumes you're doing everything right. Not true - many inherit, are overpaid or take advantage. If you're poor, she thinks you're foolish. Not so - many're tapped out, overwhelmed +UNDEREDUCATED.
Say what?
Teacher don't care enough about jackets. Ha. Really never thought this lady gave advice that normal people could use.
Forget Suze. Listen to Anya. I've read her writings for a few years now and it's clear she's working to help her generation avoid the mistakes of the Boomers (my generation). We kicked consumerism into high gear.
The paragraph beginning with "If we learned anything..." is about all there is to it. I didn't figure this out until I was well into my 30s and saddled with credit card debt, but better late than never. And when I started to think about renting self-storage I realized my stuff was running my life.
Stop wanting. Start living. Use it up. Wear it out. Keep it simple.
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