Like all good satire, comedian Jeff Kreisler's fake wealth-building seminar gets closer to the truth than the putative objects of its scorn. The form is a mockery of those "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"-type get-rich seminars that rely on role play, humor, catchphrases and revival-tent adrenaline to convince listeners that their lives and fortunes are really about to change. Kreisler's real targets, though, are the "cheaters" who amass wealth through exploitation and dishonesty—the Enrons and AIGs and politicans on the take, of course, but also the Sarah Palins of the world and even Barack Obama, who earns a gentle ribbing from this liberal comic for gaining the highest office in the land through the power of words.
Kreisler covers a lot of ground in this energetic hour. The premise is amusing, he's got the motivational speaker shtick pretty well down, and many of his zingers hit their targets. Through jokes he paints a grim picture of a world in which "your being is based upon your bling" and "people are stupid...they'll buy Apple products on the day they're released." By excoriating those easy corporate targets, he makes a little more palatable the deeper message that we're all complicit in this sad, dirty game.
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