I'm gonna shoot my TV
.... if I see the commercial for e-trade one more time. The one with the idiot hipster sticking his face in the camera while bragging that he'd just executed a stock trade in Hong Kong by buying shares of Dung Pie Energy or some stupid thing.
He's absolutely amazed and awed by the fact that he's just traded in, "Hong Kong. That's CHINA!"
DUH!!!!
It's so stupid it makes my head hurt.
First of all, yeah, we know Hong Kong is in China.
Secondly, why does this make this guy a genius investor?
When he's boasting about his buying stock in a Chinese energy company, as if this really makes him a shrewd investor, my immediate thought, as would be any rational persons, was, "How do you know you won't lose every dime you have?"
The commercial is great from e-trades perspective. It's aimed at hipster dufus's who don't have a clue and suggesting that they should invest their money on the Hong Kong market, as if the fact that Hong Kong is REALLY far way is some sort of guarantee that you'll make money.
But mainly, it's trying to appeal to idiots who will rush to buy stock in China so they can SAY they bought stock in China and pretend as though they have a clue.
The second thought I had was that investing in Chinese companies IS probably a shrewd move seeing as that they're rapidly buying up the United States and that about 8 out of 10 things you'll buy this month were made in China.
Why not move your money out of a declining economy whose dollar is dropping like a lead brick and whose irresponsible fiscal policies have lead to unsustainable deficit spending and whose own elites and financial institutions have been busy looting of the economy as if it's a fire sale?
Maybe the dufus jabbing his face in the camera isn't as stupid as he seems.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 4/07/2008
3 comments
3 Comments:
Er, I'm pretty sure that commercial was tongue-in-cheek. It was meant to imply that Etrade has such a simple interface that even that idiot can use it (hence the newer commercials with the baby: "So easy a baby could do it"). It isn't appealing to hipsters or people who suck at geography - it's promoting its user-friendly interface.
Er... that much is obvious. They clearly weren't portraying this dufus as a stock genious.
It was the fact that they portrayed him as an idiot that was offensive.... the message seemed to be, see, even an idiot (like you) can play the market.
Obviously, you shouldn't fool around trading stocks and commodities unless you know what you're doing.
But this idiot seemed to be so excited by the fact he could execute a trade in CHINA that he'd do so just to .... do a trade in China.
The whole thing is idiotic, and the guy is idiotic, the concept is idiotic, and the appeal to idiots who think they'd be cool if they play the market (without a clue) I find offensive.
This commercial is obnoxious because (like everything and everyone in the world of finance) it is ignorant. Hong Kong is in China. The British relinquished it in 1997.
And, oh, the fellow depicted in the ad is not a hipster. He is something far more nauseating: a yuppie.
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