A Book A Week - Week 10: Pound Foolish

This week's book:
    Pound Foolish     by Helaine Olen

Grade:    A++    

I love Helaine Olen.  Seriously.  I love her so much I want to have her children.  That she and I have never met, that she is already married with kids, and that I have no womb are just tiny bumps in the road along the way to my goal.  I will bear her offspring.

Let me 'splain... I love Helaine Olen because I love this book.  Every sentence in it, every thought, every revelation, every well-reasoned conclusion.  Love, love, love, love, love.  Whoever you are reading this, you need to go out and buy this book.  Right now.  Go ahead, I'll wait here.

Okay, now that you have bought your own copy or put yourself on the long waiting list at the library, I'll give you the reasons for my uncharacteristically gushing appraisal.
   1.  The author asks tough questions.
   2.  The author answers those tough questions.
   3.  The author has done the extensive research necessary to back up every one of her positions.
   4.  The author is an amazing writer of distinct - perhaps unique - talent. 

 Ms. Olen used to be the journalist behind the 'Money Makeover' feature at the LA Times newspaper.  She spent years on the front lines of the personal finance movement and has unique insight into the commonality of money problems for Americans of all means.  Every class from pauper to millionaire has gone through the Money Makeover wringer.

After years of doing this reporting, she noticed what everyone eventually does, that those financial gurus dispensing advice did so under a heavy burden of conflict of interest.  Those people telling Americans how to fix their finances made their own money not by following their own advice but by selling us their personal-finance products.  The difference between the author and everyone else is that she's a reporter, and had the gumption, resources, and prodigious talent necessary to expose the financial self-help and financial services industry for the frauds they completely are.

There is a clarity of thought and presentation in 'Pound Foolish' that I've seldom seen anywhere else, but especially not in most of what passes for financial 'reporting' these days.  The author is a clear thinker and so insightful almost every page made me want to cheer.  There's not a wasted sentence in this book, and any rehash I make of her points would be a poor retelling.  I can tell you she takes on Suze Orman, real-estate gurus like Robert Kyosaki, the myth of the financially-promiscuous American, the myths about women and money... the list goes on and on and on.  The author does what all reporters should do, ask tough questions and let the answers lead her to more questions.  No one gets a free pass here.
 
The only people who are going to find fault with anything in this book are the people the author exposes as behind the massive frauds of the last thirty years and the subsequent money grab.  This book should be held up as an example of the best kind of critical thinking, a standard for all of us to aspire to.

Go out and get the damn book already.


Next week:
   The Book of Fate     by Brad Meltzer
   Back to fiction this week, from the guy who single-handedly almost ruined DC superheroes with his 'Identity Crisis' debacle.  We'll see if I'm kindly inclined to his non-graphic prose.