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If you’ve ever bought a personal finance book, watched a TV show about stock picking, listened to a radio show about getting out of debt, or attended a seminar to help you plan for your retirement, you’ve probably heard some version of these quotes:
“What’s keeping you from being rich? In most cases, it is simply a lack of belief.” —SUZE ORMAN,�The Courage to Be Rich
“Are you latte-ing away your financial future?” —DAVID BACH,�Smart Women Finish Rich
“I know you’re capable of picking winning stocks and holding on to them.” —JIM CRAMER,�Mad Money
They’re common refrains among personal finance gurus. There’s just one problem: those and many simi�lar statements are false.
For the past few decades, Americans have spent billions of dollars on personal finance products. As salaries have stagnated and companies have cut back on benefits, we’ve taken matters into our own hands, embracing the can-do attitude that if we’re smart enough, we can overcome even daunting financial obstacles. But that’s not true.
In this meticulously reported and shocking book, journalist and former financial columnist Helaine Olen goes behind the curtain of the personal finance industry to expose the myths, contradictions, and outright lies it has perpetuated. She shows how an industry that started as a response to the Great Depression morphed into a behemoth that thrives by selling us products and services that offer little if any help.
Olen calls out some of the biggest names in the business, revealing how even the most respected gurus have engaged in dubious, even deceitful, prac�tices—from accepting payments from banks and corporations in exchange for promoting certain prod�ucts to blaming the victims of economic catastrophe for their own financial misfortune.�Pound Foolish�also disproves many myths about spending and saving, including:
- Small pleasures can bankrupt you:�Gurus popular�ized the idea that cutting out lattes and other small expenditures could make us millionaires. But reduc�ing our caffeine consumption will not offset our biggest expenses: housing, education, health care, and retirement.
- Disciplined investing will make you rich:�Gurus also love to show how steady investing can turn modest savings into a huge nest egg at retirement. But these calculations assume a healthy market and a lifetime without any setbacks—two conditions that have no connection to the real world.
- Women need extra help managing money:�Product pushers often target women, whose alleged financial ignorance supposedly leaves them especially at risk. In reality, women and men are both terrible at han�dling finances.
- Financial literacy classes will prevent future eco�nomic crises:�Experts like to claim mandatory sessions on personal finance in school will cure many of our money ills. Not only is there little evidence this is true, the entire movement is largely funded and promoted by the financial services sector.
Weaving together original reporting, interviews with experts, and studies from disciplines ranging from behavioral economics to retirement planning,Pound Foolish�is a compassionate and compelling book that will change the way we think and talk about our money.
- Sales Rank: #285131 in Books
- Published on: 2013-12-31
- Released on: 2013-12-31
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.40" h x .80" w x 5.50" l, 1.04 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 304 pages
From Booklist
“The personal finance and investment industry is a juggernaut, a part of both the ascendant financial services sector of our economy and the ever-booming self-help arena,” states Olen, personal finance writer. Readers learn about Sylvia Porter, whom Olen describes as the “mother of the personal financial industrial complex.” Porter, by the 1960s, had a daily column in which she explained stocks, bonds, and budgeting to millions of Americans. From that beginning mushroomed financial therapy (psychotherapy, life coaching, and financial planning), which originated in the 1970s and caught substantial media attention after the 2008 financial debacle. Explaining the shortcomings of financial therapy, the author cites bias toward individual demons, errors in comparing financial problems of the rich to those of average and poor Americans, and “a dysfunctional relationship with class, specifically the lack of class mobility in a country that prides itself on the American Dream.” This thought-provoking book alerts us to important issues in today’s postrecession economy and thus will enlighten many library patrons. --Mary Whaley
Review
“It's rare to come across a realistic and readable book about personal finance. Most are laden with rosy promises, followed by acronyms and turgid advice. Helaine Olen, a freelance journalist, offers an exception with Pound Foolish.... It’s a take-no-prisoners examination of the ways she says we have been scared, misled or bamboozled by those purporting to help us achieve financial security.”
—The New York Times
�
“Have you ever met anyone who has grown rich just by saving? Probably not. But you may well have met someone who has grown rich looking after other people’s savings. That dark secret lies at the heart of ‘Pound Foolish’, Helaine Olen’s excellent book, a contemptuous expos� of the American personal-finance industry.”
—The Economist
“A cautionary tale that you need to read.”
—The Washington Post
�
“Dishy dirt on the ‘financialization’ of American life and the hordes of carrion-pickers who swarm us in the hope of lifting still more dollars from our pockets.”
—Kirkus
�
“This thought-provoking book alerts us to important issues in today’s post-recession economy.”
—Booklist
“A highly readable antidote to the snake oil of the personal finance industry. Suze Orman, watch out!”
—GREG CRITSER, author of Fat Land
“Wow, does personal financial advice need debunking. And Helaine Olen does it like an old master. Clear, witty, takes no prisoners, and right as hell. Olen will wake you up. There is no financial trick to make you rich.”
—JEFF MADRICK, author of The Age of Greed and senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute
“Helaine Olen explains in simple language why most Americans are never going to understand the myriad complexities of investing and borrowing, leaving us all vulnerable to being ripped off in oh so many ways. Combining thorough research with passionate writing, Pound Foolish tells us what to do to protect ourselves and our hard-earned money.”
—DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Fine Print
“As Helaine Olen shows in this powerful expos�, ‘personal finance’ is the ultimate oxymoron. The financial challenges that most Americans face are not simply personal—they reflect the failure of our polices and our leaders to tackle growing middle-class insecurity. And the advice that self-proclaimed money experts provide is far from sound finance. Too often, it’s snake oil that only adds to the problem.”
—JACOB S. HACKER, director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, and author of The Great Risk Shift
“Pound Foolish is a fabulously well-reported, lucid, and witty tour of the train wreck that American finance has become. Olen has the rare ability to demystify the countless swindles and frauds that lately comprise the basic operations of the investment scene. As a kind of bonus, she depicts with verve and intelligence the panoramic freak show of personalities who infest the money scene.”
—JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER, author of The Geography of Nowhere and Too Much Magic
“In this gripping account, Helaine Olen pulls out the rug from under the finance industry, and does so in time for at least some of us to find alternative solutions to financial security.”
—DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF, author of Life Inc. and Present Shock
�“The world of personal finance is an economic sideshow filled with illusionists, conjurers, and snake-oil salesmen of every stripe. Thankfully, Helaine Olen has spent enough time inside the circus to be able to guide us wisely and wittily through the hall of mirrors—and come out smarter on the other end.”
—JAMES LEDBETTER, opinion editor, Reuters, and author of Unwarranted Influence
“The cult of ‘personal finance’ sells itself—and preys on pocketbooks—with a wildly false message: that American middle class families only have themselves to blame for their economic troubles. With wit, simple math, and relentless sleuthing, Helaine Olen shows how the personal finance industry has led savers and investors astray, and what you can do to avoid its traps.”
—ALYSSA KATZ, author of Our Lot
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
HELAINE OLEN�is a free�lance journalist whose work has appeared in�The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, Salon, Forbes, Business�Week,�and elsewhere. She wrote and edited the popu�lar Money Makeover series in the�Los Angeles Times. She lives in New York City with her family. Follow her on Twitter at @helaineolen.
Most helpful customer reviews
184 of 201 people found the following review helpful.
An expose' of more than the personal finance industry
By Dave 12211
Freelance writer and former LA Times journalist for the Money Makeover series, Helaine Olen, has written a lively expose of the personal finance industry but if you are looking for advice on how to run your own finances, look elsewhere. A good story-teller and a little gossipy, Olen single-handedly takes on the likes of David Bach, Robert Kiyosaki, Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, and many others, with a somewhat more balanced treatment of Sylvia Porter and Jane Bryant Quinn--not that more balance would save the first four from her expose' of their inconsistencies, platitudes, self-serving claims, hypocrisy, and sometimes outright lies. And at the same time, she has debunked some of their schemes and advice like investing in individual stocks, purchasing indexed annuities, giving up your lattes, thinking rich, investing in real estate, spending $3000 or more on get-rich seminars, and a lot more nonsense that passes as sound financial advice. By two-thirds of the way through this book, I was ready to cash in my 401(k), stuff in all in a Mason jar, and bury it in the back yard. Fortunately the ground was frozen by then.
Some of the later chapters of the book take a somewhat different tack. Stereotypes of women supposedly incompetent as financial managers are exposed as the bigotry that they are in a still sexist society though she says it more nicely than that. She shows the futility of financial literacy curricula for school children as well as the trend toward financial therapy. She argues that there is a link between the rise in obesity and the increased impoverishment of many in the middle class--but neither causes the other. In fact, in the past few decades, there has been much greater income inequality with more people becoming relatively more impoverished while working longer hours (as long as they had jobs) while at the same time relying more on high calorie convenience foods. In the final chapter she recognizes that there are some structural issues within the American society and economy and that "personal finance can't do it all. . . . there is no personal finance or investment scheme that can fully protect us from the downward spirals or just plain ill luck." (p. 235).
So where to from here? I hope that she uses her writing skill, dry sense of humor, and keen analytical ability to begin to point the way out of the present situation, and I look forward to her next book along this line.
219 of 253 people found the following review helpful.
Hits and misses
By Scott Vincini
Helaine Olen has taken years of research and exposed many, as she describes, "dark" issues in the financial services industry. As someone inside the industry, I was impressed with Olen's ability as a financial lay person to get under the hood and examine the inner workings of complex financial products and pitches. Conflicts of interest and hypocritical advice abound. Selling without informing is common. Yet I had mixed feeling while reading the book and certainly about the conclusion.
The Hits
1) The discussion of Dave Ramsey, David Bach and Suze Orman et al was enlightening as it gave readers that may not have read their books, attended their seminars or bought their products an in depth view of what to expect and what to avoid. In my opinion, many of these financial gurus have worthwhile messages for the masses for getting their finances in order. Yet they also have the entrepreneurial spirit and strive to achieve higher and higher success. The desire for more fame and wealth leads them to do things like create upselling opportunities for higher margin products and provide contradictory advice to sell products and services. Olen does a good job of pointing out the skeletions that all these gurus have in their closet.
2) The reality check that doing all the right things and following all the rules may not lead the investor to financial success is a useful lesson. Yes life has many curveballs and it is hard to avoid all of them. Olen identifies the problem well, but is light on solutions. Life happens and almost everyone needs to respond to adversity.
3) The financial literacy discussion was one of the most thought provoking for me. I had been of the opinion that more education would make a difference. I still do, but the number of financial literacy experts that Olen highlights cautioned that financial literacy education has great limitations. Some products are too complicated and the education may be long forgotten when it is really needed. The average consumer can not become enough of a financial expert to truly protect themselves.
4) The Road to Pas Tina was very entertaining and is one chapter that every financial consumer should read. There is a lot of caution provided from AARP and other consumer advocates that reminds us to be aware of the free lunch or dinner seminar. Olen takes you through the whole process of free seminar meals in an informative journey from the invitation in her mailbox to the restaurant. Buyer beware!
The Misses
1) My overarching feeling as I read the book, was that Olen was complaining about many things but not offering any solutions. Many other reviewers had similar thoughts. There are some good tidbits of advice, but they are not offered in any coordinated way. Most people do not achieve success by avoiding things. Ultimately, they have to take action. Olen's attitude toward the financial consumer is that their lot is beyond their control. It is hopeless. You don't affect change that way.
2) The political undertones were not needed or helpful. It appears that Olen wants more regulation. I don't disagree that better regulation could help but I am also fearful of the resulting cost that would be bourne by consumers. The cost of more regulation usually gets passed on to the consumer. Olen's advice is also very general. No specific recommendations are offered. Perhaps it will be in Olen's next book.
3) The language in the final chapter was also not necessary. I am not offended by bad language but I thought it was so out of place.
4) The final conclusion that government should do more was a big disappointment. Surely financial success is not going to occur because the government does more for us. If managing finances is not the area where we need to take some personal responsibility then what is?
Pound Foolish does a good job of warning consumers of the many pitfalls that could befall them in their pursuit of financial security. However, It is not a book that will tell you how to get there.
167 of 192 people found the following review helpful.
A book that needed to be written--extremely valuable
By Jeanne
I read a lot about personal finance because, like most everyone else, I am not in the kind of tip-top financial shape that received wisdom says I should be at this point in my life. What did I do wrong, I keep wondering? What can I do now?
I've read and admired the works of Barbara Ehrenreich, particularly "Bait and Switch", which demonstrates that the current high rate of unemployment--especially for older, experienced workers--is not in fact due to inferior resume-writing skills or failure to compose a zippy enough "elevator speech." In other words, it's not our fault, but rather a much larger, societal problem. The deck is stacked against us as corporations continue to outsource, shed experienced workers, and make clever use of temp workers to reduce payroll costs.
I see Helaine Olen's "Pound Foolish" as an extremely valuable companion to Ehrenreich's work, one that puts the focus on the financial industry and the ways in which it is designed to profit from our financial misery while making us believe it is all our fault. I recall one financial advisor telling my husband and me that the problem with our finances amounted to "lifestyle" issues. He cited the fact that we own smartphones as an example. As if that could be viewed as a shocking indulgence, comparable to, say, frequent weekends at the Four Seasons. There is little mention of the fact that expenses for basics like healthcare and education have ballooned as wages have stagnated or even fallen and employment has become frighteningly tenuous and sporadic, which is our real problem.
Olen makes an enormous contribution here. I was surprised to read in this book, for example, that financial companies have backed academic research that is used to help sell complicated investment approaches like variable annuities. This just hadn't occurred to me. There were many things revealed in this book that surprised me. I found myself wondering why a book like this had not been written before. Olen doesn't have any magical solutions for the problems she exposes, but she does a terrific job of showing us the truth behind the illusions we have been fed. Every newspaper article on personal finance advises us to "consult a financial advisor," as if that were a simple matter, as if competent, helpful, and impartial financial advisors are easy to find. This book shows us just how false--and even dangerous--this assumption can be. I recommend this book read as an eye-opening form of preventive medicine that may help you protect your financial health.
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