There's only one Trump I mean to bend my knee to: The Trump in the North

Hey there blogosphere,

In case your not aware, in the last decade or so there has been a new type of celebrity introduced into society. Where celebs were once actors, singers, or athletes, the new breed includes rich entrepreneurs. No where is this more evident than in the United States, where blow hard carnival barkers like Donald Trump have for a long time been appearing on talk shows, and recently they have embarked into reality television - with Trumps Apprentice dominating the Thursday night 10-11 slot for years (I follow him on twitter). Of course, like most U.S. trends, this fascination with rich entrepreneurs has migrated North, manifesting itself into the popular CBC show Dragons Den.

O'leary looks like the love child of Franklin the turtle's mom and Mr. Burns. 

By far the most noticeable dragon in the show is Kevin O'leary (though he is far from being the richest dragon, a title that belongs to Jim Treliving at an estimated 800 million dollar net worth). O'leary's Dragons Den popularity has allowed him to perform the Trump niche, advising regular people on how to manage their finances. He does this on his spin off show called The Lang and O'leary Exchange, a program I've watched probably 10 times in its entirety - including last nights episode. Actually, yesterday I made a conclusion that I had long since suspected: O'leary doesn't know what he's talking about.

The problem I have with O'leary's fiscal ignorance is that he disguises it, often by saying "I want to make moooneeey" in a condescending tone, and then using his wealth as evidence that he knows how to do so. But how did he obtain this wealth? Was it through investments made by his mutual fund? No. It was essentially because a company he was part owner of created Reader Rabbit. Really, I give him kudos for being a pioneer in the technology as a teacher game, but I must have missed where that makes him a financial genius. He spun his fortune into the O'leary Funds company, which grew quickly but has recently raised some eyebrows in the Report on Business, with large investment firms recognizing that his "yields are unsustainable and that some of their holdings are highly speculative".
 
Well, maybe he's got a strong educational background on financials. El Wrongo. In fact, he went to school for a degree in environmental policies, arguably one of the most useless post-secondary pieces of paper you can get (though it did force him to be an entrepreneur).

Indeed, O'leary has nothing other than his fortuitous wealth that would suggest he knows what he's talking about - and it shows. He is repeatedly giving advice that appeals to the masses, but is either irrelevant or ignorant to reality. For instance, he advised the NHLPA to cave into owner demands immediately in the most recent NHL lockout. He reasoned that the average NHLer only last 3 years and they should all take what they can get while they can get it, regardless of what the owners are giving. Now, this makes sense to the masses because we're all so envious that these people get paid millions to play a game, and we'd take 10% of their salaries to switch places with them. But, that's not reality. By simply waiting till November the NHLPA got an additional 200 million dollars put on the table, and would eventually get a deal that far and away beat the original offer of the NHL. It's called negotiating, and caving immediately shows that O'leary would be terrible at it. Yesterdays example, referring to the Diamond heist that took place, O'leary's advice was that they should have stole gold, as it would be easier to sell. Again, at face value this is not terrible advice, but it is completely irrelevant to the situation him and Amanda Lang were discussing.

Of course, the problem with all of this - in my opinion - is that O'leary is coming off appearing as a financial expert on our public broadcaster, when the reality is he is not an expert. The CBC shouldn't be allowing him to advise the general population. He's just another carnival barker who got lucky, and is selling himself on the premise that it was his brains that made him money. It wasn't. If that were the case, he'd be a billionaire by now. He's not. He's just the freak child, of these two.

























Later blogosphere