Discuss Latest WCI Blog Post: The Rise of Dr. Oz and How He Made So Much Stinkin’ Money

[AR]

Frankly, I’d have more respect for a doctor who started a tobacco company, assuming that doctor was forthright about what it does and what the harms / side effects are. (I enjoy a nice cigar once or twice a year.)

Selling snake oil and lying about the benefits and harms is worse than selling a harmful (though legal) product and being honest about it.

I was just about to post exactly this. Good thing I kept scrolling.

The doc wouldn't even have to be forthright to be better than Oz. Merely keeping his mouth shut would suffice.

[AR]

It's funny that the article started with something like "No matter what you think of Dr. Oz...".

The author might have managed to hit upon one of the few contemporary famous people that literally 100% of people here view negatively. That kind of unanimity is hard to come by.

[StateOfMyHead]

Josh is generally one of my favorites since Jim started bringing in others to write. I suspect the disconnect here is because he is not a physician and therefore didn't realize the nerve it would hit for the majority of this group's readers.

[The White Coat Investor]

Josh is generally one of my favorites since Jim started bringing in others to write. I suspect the disconnect here is because he is not a physician and therefore didn't realize the nerve it would hit for the majority of this group's readers.

Ha ha. Nope. I basically predicted the comment stream pretty much exactly. I told Josh last week that anything he writes about Dr. Oz that is not 100% negative and calling him the devil is going to be lambasted by the audience as not negative enough.

Take what you find useful and leave the rest..., like every other piece of content here.

[Brains428]

I actually found it interesting. I didn't realize he was as accomplished as he was before the Oprah stuff and his own show. I was more put off by the "and now he's giving it all up to make 175k/yr." That's more reflective of my view of American politics than his blog post.

[White.Beard.Doc]

I crossed paths with Mehmet during his early years. He was an extremely talented cardiothoracic surgeon. He liked to use alternative medicine in conjunction with his surgical skills, for pain control, etc. I always liked the guy in those earlier years, but he seems to have crossed the line with the kinds of things he promotes. It doesn't sit well with those of us who believe in science.

[childay]

I actually found it interesting. I didn't realize he was as accomplished as he was before the Oprah stuff and his own show. I was more put off by the "and now he's giving it all up to make 175k/yr." That's more reflective of my view of American politics than his blog post.

I agree it was interesting. But yeah he's a shyster. Makes sense he's interested in political office

[ScopeMonkey]

Ha ha. Nope. I basically predicted the comment stream pretty much exactly. I told Josh last week that anything he writes about Dr. Oz that is not 100% negative and calling him the devil is going to be lambasted by the audience as not negative enough.

Take what you find useful and leave the rest..., like every other piece of content here.

Curious as to why you thought it valuable for him to write this article about an obviously unethical doc..??

[ScopeMonkey]

As I wrote on the post site:


“No matter what you think of Oz…?” Seriously? Wow… misfire! Can’t believe you’re lauding this quack huckster who now thinks his experience as a doctor and talk show host makes him qualified for government. He’s almost universally dismissed by docs as a shameless peddler of pseudoscience, despite his past success as an actual CT surgeon. His colleagues at Columbia implored the university to dismiss him; A study in the British Medical Journal found that of 40 randomly selected episodes from Oz’s television show, his health recommendations were based on evidence just 46% of the time; he promoted hydroxycholoroquine for Covid with no evidence of efficacy. And he’s running for Senate in PA but doesn’t live here. Despite his obvious ill-gotten wealth, this was a terrible choice of someone to hold up as a model, even if just for his wealth.

[Craigslist]

I think WCI trolled you guys and it worked.

[Random1]

Dr Oz - the CT surgeon, really can't comment on his career, don't know too much about it. He had proper training at premier institutions , so I think he should be on the bell shaped curve of most doctors out there

Dr. Oz - the talk show host, became famous house hold name, I would assume that would equate to success , at least if you are comparing him the competition, Oparah, Ellen, Jerry Spinger and Dr Seuss

Dr. Oz - the politician , too early to tell but looks like a rerun

Dr. Oz - the whole person, smart guy using his god given talents to his personal advantage with limited moral values

[jacoavlu]

WCI lately seems more clickbait than anything else. Lots of crypto posts and this crap

tough line of work when basically 95% of the way there with don’t spend too much and 3 fund portfolio and do your backdoor Roth every year

[AR]

WCI lately seems more clickbait than anything else. Lots of crypto posts and this crap

tough line of work when basically 95% of the way there with don’t spend too much and 3 fund portfolio and do your backdoor Roth every year

Yeah, I agree. But I think a certain amount of clickbait is expected at this point. Like you say, there is only so much material and only so many ways to repackage it.

I think it's fine. To the regulars, the value of the articles is pretty low. If anything bad/controversial articles generate more traffic and user comments so it actually makes sense to throw some in the rotation. I don't know what the optimal amount is and I don't really care. They're easy enough to ignore. I also don't think some newb is going to buy NFTs or vote for Dr. Oz based on these posts. If that was a real concern, I'd feel differently about them.

[The White Coat Investor]

Yeah, I agree. But I think a certain amount of clickbait is expected at this point.

At this point? Clickbait isn't new around here. Maybe we're just getting better at making it. We don't consider "clickbait" an insult, we consider it success. If you guys appreciate the non-clickbaity stuff, you sure don't show it.


Not clickbait:

https://forum.whitecoatinvestor.com/...tate-investing

0 comments


Clickbait:

https://forum.whitecoatinvestor.com/...medicine-again

78 comments


Not clickbait:

https://forum.whitecoatinvestor.com/...course-is-hard

1 comment

Clickbait:

https://forum.whitecoatinvestor.com/...E2%80%99-money

27 comments (and growing)

The pageview ratios are simliar to the comment ratios.

I'd love to spend all my time educating doctors about financial literacy, but I have to entertain them first and then sneak in a few lessons.

At any rate, Josh's column is all about trendy, newsy topics that are trending on the search engines and social media to help draw people in to the site. It'll be out of date in a few weeks. My stuff is almost all evergreen and will still be worth reading in a few years. Both have their purpose to fulfill our mission and to make payroll.

Always glad to have feedback, but if you just wanted the facts, you'd read wikipedia instead of WCI.

[The White Coat Investor]

Curious as to why you thought it valuable for him to write this article about an obviously unethical doc..??

We await your guest post to show us how it's done:

https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/co...t-post-policy/

If you're not willing, then you might consider the man in the arena quote before throwing rotten tomatoes:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. - Theodore Roosevelt

I find those who have guest posted here and faced the sandblasting fiery furnace whirlwind of the anonymous comments section themselves are far more tolerant of what other people write!

But to answer your question....

Why do I let people write about what they want to?

# 1 Newsflash! I don't read everything published here before it gets published. Haven't for many years. Since at least 2016. Nor do I assign topics to write on. If anyone does that, it's Josh. He's the content manager. But mostly, we just find good people and get out of their way. Sometimes they have a hit, sometimes they don't. We let the WCI community decide what is a hit and what isn't, we adjust, and hopefully we all get better as we go along.

# 2 If you don't like something, don't worry about it. There's no way all 200-300,000+ people who come by the site every month are going to like everything we publish. Take what you find useful and leave the rest. Hopefully there will be something you enjoy more tomorrow. Imagine if we only published articles that were relevant to ScopeMonkey and his financial life. How many readers would we have then?