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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: #280692 in Books
- Published on: 2012-12-27
- Released on: 2012-12-27
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.10" h x 6.30" w x 9.10" l, 1.07 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 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
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“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
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
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Loved this book. Gave it a four star because of attacks on Millionaire Next Door.
By Steve Schullo
Book Review of "Pound Foolish" by Helaine Olen.
I eagerly anticipated reading "Pound Foolish." It's right down my alley--another critique of the personal finance industry's dirty underwear and how this industry looks out for their best interests over our own. I was in heaven! I love these types of books. More needs to be written. I listened to her interview on a podcast and loved what she had to say about the financial industry and bought the book right away.
She talked about many of the gurus we all know: David Bach, Robert Kiyosaki, Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey. Olen points out that they say some of the right financial ideas to their followers while subtly encouraging spending and the wrong financial ideas through their endorsements and expensive follow-up classes (e.g., how to buy real estate with no money down, etc).
After all that has happened in the past decade, none of this should surprise us. For us regular folks, it is hard to imagine why for example, Suze Orman, who is worth $30 million, as Olen reports, and yet endorses a credit card company! And Orman started telling people about buying new cars. Why? According to Olen, when you have as big an ego as these gurus have, you only want to get bigger and richer. IMO, we have something that these gurus don't: we have "enough!" (Quoted in the introduction of John Bogle's book, "Enough").
The critique doesn't stop with the well know gurus. The author brought out the conflicts of interest by the boatload covering the entire financial industry. And there are plenty! Some I had not thought about. She covers many topics such as the financial literacy programs supported by banks. This was new to me. I was wondering how a positive topic as financial literacy programs could be a conflict of interest. The ah-ah came to me instantly: these same banks turn around and offer credit cards to clients with over-the-top credit terms and higher interest rates. Literacy "programs" apparently are paid for by the folks who pay higher interest rates so the risk in offering these positive image programs is borne by the customers whether or not they took a class. Is this is an example of moral hazard or just a response to a regulation that if you serve poor people, a bank must offer literacy programs? Then we wonder why so many of these literacy programs fail--the financial industry uses literacy programs to promote their business! And what is that business? Borrow and spend, of course. Now I get it. Duh!
Olen believes that the support for student programs, Junior Achievement and Jump$start, provide the brand name introduction of the big banks to teens. As a teacher, I have used both of these programs and have noticed the big bank ads all over their brochures. One solution that I always mentioned to my students is to use your local credit union. (As a side point, I never liked the Stock Market Game as it showed students how to compete and gamble as a game by winning or losing, rather than provide long term genuine saving and investing strategies. Investing is serious business--not a game at all!)
She also berates the financial information offered on many of the financial media giants 24/7. I loved Olen's description of Jim Cramer-- his frat-boy mentality, his testosterone bloated antics with the back drop of tacky sound effects initiated by huge buttons. What a show! Yet, millions watch that trash--it's highly rated since 2005. Cramer blew it big time with his support of Bear Sterns. How about his investment advice? Sure, invest in four or five individual companies in different industries and you have diversification! I KID YOU NOT!
I devoured Olen treatise like a kid with five dollars burning a hole in my pocket when walking around a candy store. However, my sweet tooth turned sour when she dragged in good people--authors that have successfully offered us regular folks objective financial information. For example I could NOT understand why she attacked the good authors of the "Millionaire Next Door" and "The Millionaire Mind" and their motives. She condemned the Millionaire Next Door author's profile of the American wealthy implying a disservice to readers that all you have to do to become a millionaire is to start your own business. Huh?
I read those books. Both are great--every American should read them. Millionaire Next Door and Millionaire Mind authors reported that the living habits of America's millionaires are available to all of us who have a modicum of discipline and can rely on our everyday common sense. American millionaires built wealth slowly by living frugally, sending their precious little ones to public schools, paying off debts quickly, saving and investing regularly, driving old cars and trucks for years and dining at home in their dungarees. Even Warren Buffet proudly announced in an interview in Time Magazine that "no Buffett in Omaha has ever attended private schools." Ben Franklin said two centuries ago "spend less than you earn."
My husband and I have never owned a business. We worked as public school teachers and yet achieved millionaire status through the good ideas found in the "Millionaire Next Door." Americans would still be surprised to learn that the average American millionaire is not, and never has been, the limo-chauffeured, tuxedo-wearing, patent superficial, mansion living, martini-guzzling, nitwit inebriate with the Gatsby values and physical attractiveness on their way to the Hamptons.
Along with the idea of reducing spending, she distorted that "latte millionaire idea" offered by David Bach by implying that you don't save a million by giving up lattes. Of course, any fool knows that and she accurately pointed out Bach's erroneous statistics. But statistics are beside the point--it's an attitude of spending that makes the difference. If people spend frivolously on lattes, they will probably spend frivolously on new cars, big houses, private schools from preschool through college, the latest fashion, expensive cosmetics, etc. The latte habit is only a point to look at your daily spending and how maintaining the image of "looking rich" damages your financial status while enduring needless stress of trying to keep up with the Joneses.
I agree with the other reviewers who report that she left out solutions. But that was not the intention of this book! The subtitle is very clear: "Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Financial Industry." I don't begrudge the author when there are so many negative financial issues that we consumers need to know and address--high costs that are hidden, conflicts of interests, "safe" retirement products that don't keep up with inflation. I agree with the author's intentions of "exposing the dark side" 100%.
If you want solutions to address the conflicts of interest of the financial industry, you need to read elsewhere. And there are plenty of books that offer solutions: John Bogle's books or the books by his followers, Ferri, Swedroe, Roth, Burns, Bernstein and the Bogleheads. John Bogle passive investing strategy and low costs bypass all of the Wall Street shenanigans that Olen accurately points out and learning this simple strategy address financial literacy 100%. This alone does require more regulations, although, I am not totally against more regulations to demand more transparency.
I highly recommend the book with four stars, despite some distortion of the latte idea of reducing spending and attacks on the Millionaire Next Door authors.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Get a used copy
By Harlan
Ms. Olen reviews some of the leading figures in personal finance and trashes most of them, sometimes with good reason. Her reviews of efforts of Suze Orman and the Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy to tie in other products with their seminars are revealing, as are her summaries of the tactics aimed at selling annuities to the elderly. I think, however, that she is too dismissive of Dave Ramsey: for example, she criticizes his Debt Snowball approach by simply saying that interest rates matter, then on the same page cites a study that offers some support for Ramsey's approach. Yes, interest rates matter but so does resolve, and that is what Ramsey emphasizes with his approach. Another deficient review in this book is that of David Bach and his connecton of lattes to bad financial health. Olen counters that stagnant incomes and rising costs of housing, health care, and education are responsbile for poor household financial health. She is right to mention these factors, but I think Bach's point is that frivolities like lattes, iPhones, expensive cable plans, etc. eat up a lot of what could go into savings, as does buying more house than is needed.
The only figure who appears in this book without snarky commentary is Teresa Ghilarducci, a noted 401(k) skeptic who wants to replace 401(k)s with Guaranteed Retirement Acounts - guaranteed by the same government that brought us the Social Security Trust Fund. Olen also approvingly mentions a California law that ostensibly provides retirement security, courtesy of that state government, but she neglects to mention that the California government faces its own massive pension crisis.
It's not a bad book if you read it knowing that Olen is biased. Get a used copy.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Must-Read Book More Relevant Today then Ever!
By Nomi M. Prins
With the market at record highs (again), ordinary Americans continue to get bombarded with messages, “experts” and various business shows urging them to enter the investing ‘game’, if they have not already done so, or else they will miss out on all this euphoric upside.
The problem with that is - as Helaine Olen expertly reveals in Pound Foolish with a compelling and authoritative mix of facts, figures and anecdotes from real people - that there is almost no way an ordinary citizen -- or anyone advising him or her -- is going to outsmart the market. Even on the occasional off chance that the stars all align in that regard, the person “beating” the market is more likely to be trading from a yacht on the tax free seas, than sharing secrets in a seminar, or on CNBC. The self-proclaimed aficionados of personal finance bestowing their pearls of wisdom to the general population are therefore gross manifestations of the problem.
Since no individual can control his or her financial destiny against a backdrop of far bigger players, the idea that he or she is responsible for related pitfalls is a fallacy that ignores the actualities of today’s financial environment.
The reality, as Olen points out, is that there are broader issues affecting people’s financial lives. These aren’t fixed by foregoing that regular morning latte. Disposable incomes of individuals have drastically lagged the profits of the financial industry and many of the financial-self-help gurus that profit from the disparity in policies, and subsidies that the larger players in the market place are awarded, as average citizens are repeatedly shafted. The brilliant take-away from Olen’s must-read book is that wariness of get-rich-quick schemes is an important ingredient toward preserving economic stability, but more than that, we need stricter regulations on all aspects of an industry that controls our savings, retirement and every element of our economic future.
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