America is a free land and pressing ur views is something that is rightfully urs if someone does not subscribe to one's view either do not frown over it or then be a good critic and voice your views in a proper manner. This will make for an excellent debate.

God bless you and keep up the good work.

Not all advice Suze gives is bad, but not all of it is good either. In the process of accumulating examples for a book, I've watched and noted specific advice Suze has given which is just plain wrong.

One caller wanted to help a friend with bad credit obtain a car loan so they could drive to work. Suze said don't cosign, instead buy the car, provide the insurance and let the friend make payments to the caller. Any insurance person in the world will tell you this opens up an incredible can of worms in the insurance area.

On a recent segment (April 2009) she took issue with other investment professionals who criticized her, by name, for suggesting people buy municipal bonds a few years ago. At the time the stock market was hot and bonds looked kind of dowdy. As it turned out, she was actually giving good advice and people would have been better off investing as she suggested. What she did not confess is she was guilty of the same thing herself in the late 1990s, as documented in the book Bull! 144 Stupid Statements From The Market’s Fallen Prophets by Greg Eckler & L.M. MacDonald. So, if you'd followed her advice all along you'd have been right 50% of the time.

She's also told people to buy individual bonds instead of bond mutual funds and then, when a caller asked about an individual bond she had purchased Suze told her she had purchased the wrong kind of individual bond. (Everyone knows the difference between a municipal and revenue bond, right?)

As I said, some of what Suze says is ok, but some is not. Make sure you sort it out before you implement it.

This is just another face of the Oprah machine. She and "Dr" Phil and that Best Life Bob guy and James Fry are all part of the same problem. We want a magic bullet to fix the complex issues in our lives so we turn to the people who offer the easy answer. Instead of going to a medical professional to discuss treatment options to resolve emotional issues we might have we watch "Dr" Phil for a few hours a week and listen to him yell at us with his "get confident stupid" approach. Suze Orman is no different. Rather than studying the complexities related to financial instruments and products in order to make an informed decision about how to invest our money we want someone to yell it to us from the idiot box. Then we want to hear that we are broke because we need to get beyond our emotional hang-ups that stop the wealth from pouring in. Sounds to me like a move to distract us from the fact that Orman and her corporate overlords are getting paid millions for work that doesn't really have much value. If you want to know what products you should buy you can just watch Oprah with her endless stream of "favorite product" shows and shows about how great Oprah is. Perhaps we as a culture should starve all of these fools for ratings and profit by just doing a little work of our own. I also wanted to respond to an earlier comment about sexism in the article. While it's true that the identifying comments about Orman are unrelated to the finance issues around her, they are the sort of comments often used by Orman (and Oprah) to play up the idea that she should be listened to because she used to be something like the stereotype of a lower-class American woman. Orman furthers these stereotypes in her attempts to create the illusion of empathy for her viewers.

"...and Suze Orman's Organize and Protect Financial System ($66 plus S&H; Easy Pay! Installment plan available)." What I'm surprised you didn't acknowledge is that she is essentially advocating purchasing something you don't have the money. Why offer installment plans if your goal is to help people manage their money better? Wouldn't it be smarter to SAVE $66 plus S&H than to spread it over time???

This article disappointed me in myriad ways - but I will focus on its sexism in this comment. I won't be the first reader to flag its fetishizing of Orman's "bottle-blonde" hair, her former job as a waitress, her odd self-characterization as a virgin (but interestingly NOT her status as an out lesbian and advocate for gay marriage rights). Not one of these identity labels is relevant to the financial advice that Orman provides; however, every one of them is gendered. The implication, of course, is that Orman must be a bimbo with nothing of value to say about finances because she is a.) a woman who does something to alter her appearance cosmetically, b.) a woman who once occupied a "pink collar job", and c.) a woman who chooses to discuss her own sexuality in unconventional ways. All of these objections to her advice can be boiled down to the following: she is a woman. Never mind the fact that part of Orman's professional program is to provide financial advice TO women who have previously been discouraged from managing their own finances (either directly, through educational programs that slated women into Home Economics rather than Econ 101, or indirectly, through subtle cultural messages that suggest the financial markets are for men only). Whether or not you agree with the details of her advice, a better and more balanced way to critique Orman's financial bonafides would be to acknowledge the service that she is (at the very least) trying to provide to an underserved majority of the population. This is not a market which she is trying to exploit. This is a demographic to which she belongs. Of course, by the logic of this article, that is the problem.

Is this supposed to be an article on personal finance or a listing on match.com? Your first paragraph is a weak attempt to reduce Orman to nothing more than a phony old maid. How many of your other articles begin with a physical description of the subject along with an assessment of their virginity? I agree that Orman often comes across as a wanna be psychologist. I happen to agree with a lot of her views on the relationship between people and money, but I'm not looking to her to be my therapist. And while often I can't tell the difference between Orman and Kristen Wiig's impression of her on SNL, I realize Orman is meant to be entertaining, and she is. We wouldn't watch otherwise. That said, your article was grossly misleading on many levels: Orman's mantra is people should live within their means. What she spends her money on is irrelevant--she can afford it! She's not in a position where she needs to grow her nest egg; she just needs to protect it. So her investments should be different than the average person, because she is not the average person. You say Orman "blames the victim" which is another way to say she is strongly in favor of personal responsibilty. One reason people get into debt is they are in denial about what they can afford. When people do that, they are not victims, they've made poor choices. They need someone to point the finger at them to get them to examine their spending habits. Dollar cost averaging is not about investing in companies that are doing poorly and throwing good money after bad. Suze Orman would never advocate doing that. It's about picking solid investments and buying them at set intervals so you will pay an average price rather than timing the market so you only invest at peak times. Anyone who has watched Orman's show knows that she tells her listeners to be suspicious of any advisor who stands to make money off the advice they give. I'm sure she would lump herself into that category and encourage people to do their research before buying a product she has advertised. But she would be crazy not to make money off her name--Orman is a businessperson. That doesn't mean her products are any less useful. Your article comes across as a personal attack and leaves me wondering what personal vendetta you have against Orman. Comparing her to Bernie Madoff is ridiculous and irresponsible. It would serve you well to get over Orman's on air persona and listen to the substance of what she is saying, boyfriend.

Very informative! I've never heard of James Scurlock and have studiously avoided learning anything about Suze Orman. I can now say for sure that I hate both of them! A treasure trove of intellectual laziness.

She's a fraud. A modern day snake oil salesman. She's brave enough to get rich off others' stupidity. What a scam...

Not to diminish the shrill and sheer awfulness of Suze Orman to anyone with half of a cerebrum and ears, but the latest and most methodologically sound bankruptcy study suggests that catastrophic events are only the nail in the coffin for people who spend beyond their means throughout their lives: http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/02/what_causes_persona...

James Scurlock, I started reading your article today, "Stop listening to Suze Orman," on the MSN Money web page expecting to gain an informed opinion. The first paragraph told me all I needed to know about you. Your ugly attempt to belittle the lady based on her "bottle-blond" hair, a "former waitress and self described 55 year old virgin" was resprehensible! You immediately destroyed any sense of authority or respectability as a --whatever you are-- to judge anyone or to be taken seriously by discerning, informed readers. I quickly learned that I don't care what you have to say about anything based on that first paragraph! Step back and read it again. It's obvious you have a very strong dislike of anyone you find charming; you are disarmed and threatened by it. It annoys you and makes you cringe to see someone like Suze Orman so happy and in control of her destiny. Perhaps the problem is, you don't feel that way about yourself. I am not a follower but I respect this very pretty, well prepared and informed lady. She obviously is an excellent and intelligent speaker. You owe Ms Orman an apology for being so unprofessional in your personal attacks! You definitely convinced me to "Stop listening to James Scurlock".