If you took Ramsey's advice from two weeks ago, you're a lot poorer; don't listen to TV experts

I'm listening to FOXNEWS' 9 p.m. newscast, and it has a man from Shoemaker Financial telling people it's a good time to buy into the stock market.

The guy should be ashamed of himself.

It reminds me of media darling Dave Ramsey. Two weeks ago on NewsChannel 5, he told the public that it was all right to be in the stock market. On that day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was trading at above 11,600. Now it is trading at near 10,300.

Don't you feel good about taking Dave's investment advice?

The market was supposed to be looking for today's passage of the Wall Street bailout to rebound. Yet it fell 157 points.

Beware. Ramsey and the Shoemaker Financial guy hedge their advice with the words "long term" as far as investments in the market. What the TV anchors don't know enough to ask is: "how long is long term?"

That's important. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that people invested in growth mutual funds still have not recovered all their losses from the 2001 stock market drop. So guess how much further they are behind now with the Dow trading near 10,000? Light years. Scotty, give me Warp One!

The market is going to fall below 10,000 and trade there for the rest of the year, unless Sen. John McCain wins. Then it will rebound a bit but then return below 10,000. I wrote about the market falling below 10,000 two and three weeks ago. And based on that, I helped a friend get all of his household's market investments into cash a week ago. The following Monday, the Dow fell 777 points.

The market will recover most slowly in 2009 and even into 2010. So don't take the Shoemaker Financial guy's advice that now is the time to get into the market. He said that when you see a sign advertising 20 percent off, you go buying. But what if the stuff is 20 percent off because there has just been a fire at the store? You'll never get the smoke out of merchandise and a lot of it may be burned.

Now Ramsey, Suze Orman and their ilk like to quote figures since the 1930s to show the market on average has returned more than 4 percent or more every year. Those numbers don't mean squat now. Billionaire Warren Buffet has called the current crisis a financial Pearl Harbor.

How often does Pearl Harbor happen? Well, that was in 1941. So if you plan on living another 67 years, your money will be OK in the stock market.

Please, please, don't listen to anyone on TV about how to invest your money. Get a certified financial advisor and meet and talk over a series of meetings about a plan to fit your specific needs. That way, Ramsey, Orman, Shoemaker Financial and others won't put your finances into the poorhouse.