Pound Foolish, a new book by freelance writer Helaine Olen, pulls back the curtain on the ubiquitous personal finance industry. She identifies many problems but suggests that the ultimate solutions will require a massive collective effort, not smaller personal ones.

Olen feels a bit guilty for her part in the financial self-help “juggernaut.” She wrote the Los Angeles Times’ Money Makeover stories for a few years starting in the late 1990s. In the popular feature, financial planners offered help to people willing to disclose intimate personal details before a mass readership.

Checking in with her subjects a decade or so later, she discovered mixed results. While some of the ones who started out in pretty good shape turned out fine, others who were struggling to begin with seemed incapable of following good advice and were down on their luck.

Most people (both men and women) are not wired to be unemotional and logical about money and no amount of financial education helps, Olen came to believe. In addition, they face unpredictable events like the loss of a job, a medical crisis or a stock market crash that could stymie even well-laid plans. The predictability of the pension plan has been replaced by the keno card quality of the 401(k) (my phrase), which is often rigged with high fees to assure that the house gets a nice cut. Meanwhile, income gains have gone to the wealthiest.

In this environment, retirees often face the anxiety that they will run out of money. They are easy targets for brokers who offer free meals seasoned with pitches for complicated, commission-laden annuities honeyed with the promise of guaranteed income. “If I were dictator, I would ban these free lunches and dinners,” Olen told me in a conversation about her book. (She provides fascinating reporting on various investor events, practicing old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism seldom seen anymore.)

Olen dismisses gurus such as Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki, who themselves prosper by telling people that their personal failings or lack of initiative stand between them and prosperity. She also has disparaging words for CNBC stock picker Jim Cramer, who gives people the unreasonable hope that they will beat the stock market.

The New York-based writer does offer some pointers: use fee-only advisors who are fiduciaries (required to act in a client’s best interest), rather than brokers who are held to the perhaps lower “suitability” standard; trust in low-cost index funds rather than investing in individual stocks.

“To be clear,” she writes, “I am not arguing that all financial advice is useless. Understanding and controlling our own money is among the most empowering activities that we can undertake. I certainly don’t want people to think I believe commonsense savings stratagems are a bad thing, or that one should never invest in the stock market or real estate.”

For the most part, however, Olen steers clear of offering specific advice. She is afraid doing so would dilute her message that greater economic equality and social justice are the only real solutions. It’s an idealistic message that she hopes will help spark a broader discussion.