This post is intended to disabuse people of the notion that, in the financial world, popularity equals competence. This is been much on my mind lately, because for some reason I have been buried in video ads with come-ons from all kinds of hucksters pledging that their followers can basically print money if they only sign up for their expensive seminars or join their programs. These programs must pull in enough suckers to make it worthwhile to the advertiser, because the ads persist.
Long before these, though, I saw the Crypto-Genius ads. Endlessly. I haven’t been shy about rolling my eyes at James Altucher’s ads that polluted everyone’s web browsers early this year. For obvious reasons (like the 95% drop in value on many cryptos), these ads have vanished, but in case you’ve forgotten, here’s what they looked like: