Reply #47: Suze Orman has focused on how one family can organize its finances,

[JDPriestly]

but for years she did nothing to educate people about the need to fight for your economic rights with your voice, your letters, your vote, your efforts to make sure the right people get elected to office, people who do not have huge campaign debts to the banks. (Bush's big donor was MBNA now part of Bank of America.) It was the ignorance of the American people about the politics of their economic lives that lead so many Americans to lose their jobs and to be unable to pay their bills and afford a future that is prosperous and, let's face it, healthy. Suze Orman was silent about the ticking time bomb of horrible legislation aimed to put working people in misery for many years to come.

As Michael Moore pointed out, our country is awash in money. We never have too little little to pay some of the highest CEO salaries in the world, to fund wars or to pay for political campaigns. Suze Orman never pointed out the injustice that caused some of her viewers to be in such awful financial straits.

I would advise you to watch the movie, Maxed Out. It is several years old, but Suze Orman is featured for a short cut in the expose on the credit reporting industry. The narrator informs us that, while preaching to her viewers about the importance of credit ratings, she failed to say that she received money from one of the ratings companies. The narrator then proceeds to explain some of the problems with the credit ratings system and how extremely much power it has. We Americans should have been shutting that system down, curtailing the excesses of the banks and credit card companies and ending the horrible influence that banks have in D.C. Where was, where is Suze Orman on these issues?

Do Americans need good advice about personal financial choices? Yes. But even more, they need to be told the horrible truth about how the bankers and mortgage companies and free trade advocates, the IMF and the Republicans have sucked the American economy of its life.

Orman's words of "solace" (Americans will learn to enjoy life with less money) leave a very bitter taste in my mouth. That is because having left the American people to stew in their own ignorance about how our economy really works, she walks off into the sunset of her life well fixed. Many of her viewers will grieve the rest of their lives, suffering horrible guilt because they failed to listen to Suze Orman and make the right decisions way back when. "I really shouldn't have bought that $50 collector's item plate. I should have saved that money."

People who followed all of Suze Orman's advice, lived within their means and saved money for retirement, but lost their jobs at 55, never to find another will most likely have spent all their retirement funds by the time they qualify for Social Security. Those over 65 who also followed Suze Orman's advice and lived frugally are now finding that the money they put aside in savings accounts and 401(K)s pay nearly no interest. Might as well have spent the money and enjoyed life when they were young.

The plight of Americans was not necessary. Had Suze Orman alerted her viewers to the macroeconomic realities as well as the limitations of their personal situations, we might all be much better off.

Oh, well. The good news is that Suze has put herself out of a job. Thanks in part to her silence on the real decisions that Americans needed to make, it will be a long time, perhaps never, before our economy improves. Her shows were interesting as long as people had enough discretionary income and credit to need to make choices. But most people don't have enough discretionary income or credit to need her help in making choices. Goodbye, Suze Orman.