Personal Financial Advisors or a Fool and His Money ...

Perhaps as a nod to gender equality the saying should be modified to "Fools and their money are easily parted."  But, that's not what I wanted to talk about.

I was listening to a rebroadcast of an On the Media interview, How Personal Finance Led Us Astray  with Helaine Olen, author of Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry  Her position was that the only people getting rich in the financial advice business are those giving the advice.

Nothing new here.  In 2009 Jon Stewart famously took on Jim Cramer ("If I only followed CNBC's advice I'd have a million dollars today -- provided I'd started with $100 million.").

Besides the big names, Jim Cramer and Suze Orman, there was one name, which had a faint ring:  Dave Ramsey.  A quick web search found Financial Peace U:

Sounds hokey to me, but what stays with me was an NPR interview a year or so ago with a Christian clergyman who gave financial advice.  I think it was with Ramsey.  What I remember so distinctly was a clip from a female caller.  the woman was asking for advice so she could become financially independent and leave her marriage.

I searched in vain for  the interview on line because I think the phrasing was critical.    Her husband had said something like "You'll never be able to make it by yourself."  The adviser's response startled me: "Does he beat you?"

"Yes."

Anyone in social services might have been just as quick to recognize the situation, but it stunned me.

I usually associate faith-based financial dealings with scams.  Web searches may turn up a link to Christian Financial Credit Union which advised their members about a scam using their name:

Need more?  There's a January 2011 post, "An Overview of Religious Financial Fraud on http://christianheadlines.com:

It's a sad compendium of embezzlement, investments coverups, insider deals, fraudulent tax shelters, flipped property fraud, excessive compensation, and insurance fraud.

The article is not exhaustive. The scams run from Brazil ($2 billion (yes that's a "B") for the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God), to America (claims of $1 billion was money laundered annually at Oral Roberts University, yes, again a "B"), to Ukraine ($100 million business venture fraud).

Makes one think seriously about going back to worshiping trees again.

(In this regard, I remember with great fondness a line from one episode of Mash, the TV show.  Trapper and Hawkeye created a fictitious personnel record for a new doctor.  For religion they list, "Druid", then change it to "Druid reform - he worships at bushes" - a clear reference to reform Judaism.)