Economy

“The American Dream is Dead” says Suze Orman

Posted in Economy, Personal analysis on March 21st, 2011 by Barbara Brenner – Be the first to comment

And who the heck is Suze Orman?
I haven’t been under a rock, I swear. I just had never heard of Suze (pronounced Suzy) Orman until I saw her on a PBS special titled The Money Class on March 8, 2011, for which she was the host, writer, and co-producer.

My immediate impression was a good one — she comes off as compassionate yet financially savvy, but I’m never one to let first impressions stand without further information to back it up. So after Googling her name and reading up on her, I went ahead and ordered Suze Orman’s new book The Money Class: Learn to Create Your New American Dream– I’m told it is her 8th and that all 7 of her previous books were on the NY Times Bestseller List. With so much controversy surrounding this woman who is recognized as a financial guru, I knew I had to find out more about her via her own words.

Despite the fact that Orman declares the American Dream dead, she is a pretty good illustration of the potency of that dream in America while it lived strong. Born on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois to working class parents, until she was almost 30 she was a waitress earning $400 a month. Today at 60, she is worth tens of millions of dollars, does speaking engagements all over the country, has her own personal finance show on CNBC, writes a finance column for Oprah’s O Magazine, and in 2009 Forbes named her #18 on their list of The Most Influential Women In Media. Not bad, eh? And I’m only giving you some of the highlights.

You may ask “how does a former waitress arrive at this point in her life?” She began her career in finance by applying for a job as an account executive trainee at Merrill Lynch. She got the job [at $1500 a month -- considerably more than the $400 per month she was making as a waitress] and after her training, she remained there until 1983.

From 1983 – 1987, she served as Vice President of Investments for Prudential Bache Securities. She then created and directed the Suze Orman Financial Group from 1987-1997. She’s won 5 or 6 Gracie awards (awards given to honor programming for women, by women, and about women). She has appeared on half a dozen PBS specials. As mentioned before, she is heavily involved in those specials. It strikes me that whatever Suze Orman is involved with, she’s the one doing the driving, the one controlling the outcome. What’s wrong with that? That’s part of the old American dream. You know — pull yourself up by your bootstraps. That was then. This is now.

With good reason, Orman is not optimistic about the financial future of millions of Americans. She says we must create a New American Dream. During an interview she did with Forbes, when asked about her financial fears, Orman said: “My only fear in life, when it comes to money, is what’s happening in the United States of America. The American dream is dead for the majority of America.”

“The middle class has disappeared,” she continued, during her Forbes interview. “We have a highway to poverty and no roads coming out. I fear for [those] who have been kicked out of their homes, could be living on the streets and don’t know how to get another job. Many of the millions of jobs lost I don’t think are coming back. I am really afraid for the majority of Americans today.”

That is the topic of her new book The Money Class: Learn to Create Your New American Dream.