Dan Neil calls ING Direct's new campaign promoting its new ShareBuilder online brokerage division "sunshine-addled" and says it is trying to lure young, inexperienced investors into the market. Have
we completely forgotten the crash of, oh, say a little more than a year ago, he asks.
"The theme here, obviously, is empowerment," Neil writes. "These hip technocrats are going to
game the system, the market, and get their 'share.' There's even a little antidisestablishmentarianism."
Are we so gullible? Or are ING's market researchers truly onto something? Such
as, perhaps, the gullibility that fuels consumer optimism that fuels spending that fuels stock prices .... "Like I said," Neil concludes, "we've got lousy memories."
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