Consider just one typical exhortation, derived by Ms. Orman from the given importance of people over money. She recently told the daughter of a mooch that she ought to leave her father to his bottomless debt, just as the woman's mother had done.
Speaking of the mother, Ms. Orman said, "She had the courage to look at the man that she loved and say, 'Sweetheart, you're going down the drain, but you're not taking me with you!' " This, she told the tremulous girl, is what she should also say to her father: down the drain with you.
Heffernan doesn't resist referring to "her hectic manner and garish appearance" and "the kick she gets from divining the straits her guests are in - "Crossing Over"-style."
Orman has invented a pretty cool TV niche for herself, hasn't she? What do you think? Can't switch channels fast enough? Or do you mean to click past but find yourself strangely fascinated?
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13 comments:
I don't watch or care about the show. However, I once had to work with Suze Orman on a professional basis -- a couple of meetings that might have led to a licensed product but didn't. The woman is only slightly less intense off camera than she is on the air. Holy mackerel, were those a couple of exhausting meetings.
In the course of conversation, she discovered that my colleague had just leased a car. You would have thought he had confessed to drowning a sack of kittens. She laid into him with full ardor, and he may in fact have been a good three inches shorter when he left than he was when he came in.
I like strong personalities like that... for a while. I wasn't too displeased when the potential business alliance went south.
Eric Berlin
http://www.ericberlin.com
Suze had one good book that I recommend called The Road to Wealth. I like the Q&A format and for the most part her advice is right on.
I lost a lot of respect for her once she started advertising for GM. It wouldn't have been so bad if she wasn't always preachng about getting out of debt. Anyway, that just didn't sit well with me.
JLP at AllThingsFinancial
I too don't watch the show. However, you can't avoid Osman if you watch PBS. So, what gives with that? How many hours per week should PBS devote to one commodity? It's shades of the Bill Moyer production group- I believe in capitalism but Orman must be making a bundle off of PBS exposure! and that's a little questionable to me- It appears the PBS producers are lazy and don't actually produce much of their own original programing.
I have a problem with the name Suze. It feels incomplete.
Just another crummy and hectoring media personality among a myriad dedicated to profiting off the misery of others.
That's all she is. Deep down, she's shallow.
I have had the chance to watch a few shows while running on the treadmill. I don't like the glee over taking apart the dire financial situations of others that she seems to have. However, like many of the other help shows out there, I acknowledge that there are some people who really need to be told, gruffly, the truth in order to act.
Personally, I get more of a kick from listening to Mad Money while running -- Jim Cramer cracks me up.
Lori
Suze Orman was just a name to me when, a few years back, my wife and I saw her on Oprah Winfrey's show. Winfrey announced that her production team had sent Orman to consult with a Chicago-area couple who had evidently found it difficult to save money in spite of their both being professionals of substantial income. (I forget what profession the woman pursued. The man was a lawyer.)
Orman went to the couple's house and almost immediately opened their closet. She found it to be lacking in neatness and professed in this, to have found the key to understanding their failure to save money. "Money," she told the couple, "doesn't like to go where it's not welcomed. Your cluttered house doesn't welcome money." (I'm paraphrasing, here.)
The couple greeted this stupid counsel with all the credulity of four year olds.
My wife and I rolled our eyes and turned off the television.
There have been two long-term results from that brief exposure to Orman:
(1) Whenever we see her face on TV, we switch the station.
(2) We made mental notes to remind ourselves that no matter how educated people may be--including ourselves, they can still be suckered.
My thoughts on Ms. Orman,
The advice to spend less than you make shouldn't be novel. The advice to not buy on credit shouldn't be novel.
So I don't understand why she's on TV, which means she's never on mine for more than 5 seconds.
I find her intensly boring mostly because everything she says seems like common sense to me. After all I do work in the finance world.
However, I am grateful that she reaches many others who are dismal on money and economics. Most are clueless.
I challenge anyone on this board to explain in one paragraph where money comes from.... if you don't know maybe you should start listening to Suze too.
When she was growing up she was "Susie," and Suze is pronounced the same way.
Having grown up in a relatively financially ignorant blue-collar area, I saw a lot of folks who could benefit Suze’s tough truth. I think it's near criminal that there schools don't provide some sort of “Handling Your Money 101”. It would be more useful long-term than much of the other course work.
All I can say is I pity the poor sumbi*** whose lot it is to be MISTER Orman.
My 2¢ worth..
America has a recond amount of per person debt. There are record amounts of bankruptcies, credit counselings etc. People are drunk with debt right now.
You would think that common sense would prevail in this situation. Obviously if people are that much in debt, they aren't using common sense. Actions tell the story.
Suze Orman is merely speaking out to a very sick country financially. If interest rates all of a sudden went up to 12-15% where they were in the 80's, bankruptcies, defaults on loan and credit card payments, mortgage defaults would go through the ceiling.
Suze Orman, love her or hate her, is trying to fill the market niche of bringing the message to the masses.
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