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Rich Dad Poor Dad... Worst Personal Finance Book of All Time?

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Re: Rich Dad Poor Dad... Worst Personal Finance Book of All Time?

#41

Post by jhamburger »

huxley wrote: post #27
zavulon wrote: post #10

I disagree.. the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success, NOT being an employee and staying in the rat race. While it may be common sense to someone who's been in business for a while, or read a lot of similar literature, it's far from obvious to most people. I'm not ashamed to say Rich Dad Poor Dad has been one of the most influential books I've read in my life…

"the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success" No, it may be one of the best paths to wealth and independence --unless you're born into wealth already -- but it's not necessarily a path to success. My parents worked themselves to the bone in business, were repeatedly screwed by business partners and banks. It didn't give them one bit of gratification. My mother w…

I think history tends to be written by the winners when it comes to entrepreneurship. It's a lot harder- and a lot more luck involved- than many would admit.

Re: Rich Dad Poor Dad... Worst Personal Finance Book of All Time?

#42

Post by firichapo »

dkarl wrote: post #25
zavulon wrote: post #10

I disagree.. the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success, NOT being an employee and staying in the rat race. While it may be common sense to someone who's been in business for a while, or read a lot of similar literature, it's far from obvious to most people. I'm not ashamed to say Rich Dad Poor Dad has been one of the most influential books I've read in my life…

Sounds more like inspiration and self-help than personal finance. You could point to any number of career paths and say, "This is a well-established route to wealth, and if you work very very hard and manage your money well, you can become wealthy this way." For example, there are high-paying specialties in law and medicine where the rat race really does lead to wealth. You have to outcompete 95% of the people in you…

It is more about self-help that anything else, and the people who swear by it use it as an argument of why it is such a crappy personal finance book. But then they promote it as a personal finance book. Nice loop there.

Re: Rich Dad Poor Dad... Worst Personal Finance Book of All Time?

#43

Post by tomp »

slarvtrax wrote: post #38
tomp wrote: post #32

I find it funny how the author of the article is bashing the book for offering no real ways of value creation , when he is an internet marketer... The very definition of no value creation. I once got a book from this Warrior Forum (an online marketing forum) he speaks of, that would supposedly teach you how to earn money online. The main point of this book was that if you want to sell online, you must first find peop…

You realise I mentioned the Warrior Forum in a negative light, right? I think it's probably the worst forum in the world on the subject of wealth creation. Hence, the cesspit of stupidity. For your information, Internet Marketing has much more to do with value creation than you probably think. It's a multi-million dollar industry. But if you confuse Internet Marketing with what you see on the Warrior Forum, I can see…

Hm... My bad, then. Could you possibly point me to another resource so that I could get more informed? All I ever read was either affiliate marketing (which has certain value, but the better the product, the less it's needed) and the internet "get-rich-from-your-couch" schemes which are very... appalling.

Re: Rich Dad Poor Dad... Worst Personal Finance Book of All Time?

#44

Post by mjwalshe »

wisty wrote: post #11
klbarry wrote: post #7

This person severely misread the book. I could give quite a few examples from the writing. For instance, the child labor issue he brings up is ridiculous - "Rich Dad" obviously didn't benefit from this labor in any financial way. The premise of the book is solid; invest in assets that make money for you without you having to be there. He specifically says in the book a few times that he doesn't necessarily advocate r…

If the only valid point he has is that passive investments are a good thing, it's not a great personal finance book. You could learn a similar amount by looking up "investment" in a good dictionary.

or reading "The Intelligent Investor" by Graham - Who is the guy that taught Warren Buffet every thing he knows.

Re: Rich Dad Poor Dad... Worst Personal Finance Book of All Time?

#45

Post by thematt »

T-hawk wrote: post #22
klbarry wrote: post #7

This person severely misread the book. I could give quite a few examples from the writing. For instance, the child labor issue he brings up is ridiculous - "Rich Dad" obviously didn't benefit from this labor in any financial way. The premise of the book is solid; invest in assets that make money for you without you having to be there. He specifically says in the book a few times that he doesn't necessarily advocate r…

"Rich Dad" does seriously advocate real estate, not to the exclusion of those other options but certainly above them. Real estate stands out mostly because of the leverage that a mortgage can provide: you can control the income and appreciation of a $250,000 asset with only $50k of actual capital. You can't get 5-to-1 leverage on stocks or other such passive investments. That said, real estate is certainly no magic b…

You can't get 5-to-1 leverage on stocks or other such passive investments.

Not exactly true. Derivatives have significant leverage, often times way more than 5-to-1.

Re: Rich Dad Poor Dad... Worst Personal Finance Book of All Time?

#46

Post by zavulon »

huxley wrote: post #27
zavulon wrote: post #10

I disagree.. the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success, NOT being an employee and staying in the rat race. While it may be common sense to someone who's been in business for a while, or read a lot of similar literature, it's far from obvious to most people. I'm not ashamed to say Rich Dad Poor Dad has been one of the most influential books I've read in my life…

"the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success" No, it may be one of the best paths to wealth and independence --unless you're born into wealth already -- but it's not necessarily a path to success. My parents worked themselves to the bone in business, were repeatedly screwed by business partners and banks. It didn't give them one bit of gratification. My mother w…

There's definitely a lot of examples of non-entrepreneurs being happy and content with life. The message from RDPD I've mentioned is not about success in personal life, but financial success. And yes, there's tons of examples of businesses failing, nobody said it was easy, etc.

Another of Kiyosaki's arguments that I agree with on this matter is that sure, you can become very rich and successful doctor/lawyer/athlete/movie star. But that path requires outstanding talent, athletic skills, intelligence, etc. For an "average" person that doesn't possess any of those, and is not born into wealth, business is the best way to financial success.

Re: Rich Dad Poor Dad... Worst Personal Finance Book of All Time?

#48

Post by slarvtrax »

tomp wrote: post #43
slarvtrax wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realise I mentioned the Warrior Forum in a negative light, right? I think it's probably the worst forum in the world on the subject of wealth creation. Hence, the cesspit of stupidity. For your information, Internet Marketing has much more to do with value creation than you probably think. It's a multi-million dollar industry. But if you confuse Internet Marketing with what you see on the Warrior Forum, I can see…

Hm... My bad, then. Could you possibly point me to another resource so that I could get more informed? All I ever read was either affiliate marketing (which has certain value, but the better the product, the less it's needed) and the internet "get-rich-from-your-couch" schemes which are very... appalling.

Honestly, I think what you saw on Warrior Forum is pretty representative of the grand majority of info products floating around there on Internet Marketing. The good ones are few and far between, primarily because anybody can claim to be an expert. There's no barrier to entry.

When I refer to Internet Marketing as my profession, I don't mean slinging info products in the form of a pyramid scheme. I simply mean working with brands to sell and promote their products online. Big brands though, brands you've probably actually heard of, with legit products that have nothing to do with the Internet! Unfortunately, Warrior Forum is a circle jerk driven by gurus who actually know very little about marketing brands online. They only market their own crappy products.

Re: Rich Dad Poor Dad... Worst Personal Finance Book of All Time?

#50

Post by rubashov »

bufordtwain wrote: post #49

I recommend Felix Dennis' book "How to get Rich" as a good alternative to Rich Dad Poor Dad. Felix doesn't sugar coat his advice, he points out the sacrifice that will typically be involved in getting rich if that's what you want.

Yeah, he even goes on about compromised health. After a couple of his big scores he looked around the celebratory dinner table and realized how the preceding three years had badly aged people.
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