Sunday, January 15, 2012

What am I Missing Here?

I don't like Suze Orman.  Mostly because she is from the Dr. Phil "I won't help you until I've totally humiliated you and made sure you realize what a stupid piece of sh*t  you are" school of "self help" (which isn't self help at all) television.   I also don't like that she's always calling her viewers "Girlfriend"   Girlfriend, I am not your girlfriend.  I don't like her because she perpetuates the stereotype that all women are idiots when it comes to money and if it wasn't for her we would all be in the poorhouse.

Now I don't like her because I think maybe she's proving that we are all idiots.  She's hawking  her own pre-paid credit card that is the greatest card ever, if she does say so herself.   Its so wonderful because she's made a deal with one of the credit reporting agencies to report your usage of this card and maybe someday it will improve your credit score.

Um. No.  It won't.  Because a pre-paid credit card is not credit.  You can't miss a payment.   You can't screw it up.  So you can't prove that you can handle credit because it's um, NOT CREDIT!

Am I the only one that sees this?  I've heard this woman interviewed by half a dozen people on this and NOBODY has asked her about this little detail.  What am I missing?

5 comments:

  1. You are missing that you are bright and have self confidence and apparently most of the viewers don't. SHEESH. Like I've told my kids, if they are pushing something its not because it will help you; it's because it will help them ($$$). End of story. And why does Dr Phil and the pseudo-psyco-preachers on Chrisyian radio have the same accent?

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  2. I haven't liked her because my impression is that she encourages the cult of money, that gathering wealth is what is important in life. She's also too much of the "I have the answers you need" and the "Here is the formula" school. On the other hand, I've never thought, at least in the portions of her PBS shows I've seen, she treats people as if they are idiots, and that include women. She does seem to believe that people of all sorts lack financial literacy, and I can't say she's far off on that one.

    Her stock rose for me, if I can use that metaphor, when she came out and spoke of the financial side effects of the legal discrimination against same-sex couples enshrined in the tax code, marital law, immigration law, and the like. But, I still can't really stand to watch her TV shows.

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  3. She may tone it down on PBS but on her cable show anybody who calls in who isn't doing what she thinks is right or heaven forbid, is over their head in debt gets a scolding like a child and her whole schtick is about how bad women are when it comes to finances and that's why she's here ---to help us.

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  4. Oy, vey. You buy yourself a gift card, and call it credit?

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  5. I've only seen here on PBS or in an interview segment of another show. I didn't even know she had a cable show. Won't be watching it.

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