'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he's $1B in debt • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he's $1B in debt

#11

Post by LargeTomato » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 10:56 AM UTC

al_borland wrote: post #10

fakedang wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While he recommends leveraging debt to buy assets, he disapproves of taking out a loan to buy materialistic items that won’t increase in value or pay dividends. > “A lot of people use debt to buy liabilities,” he said. “I drive a Ferrari. Guess what? It’s paid off 100% because it’s a liability. I drive a Rolls-Royce. It’s paid off 100% because it’s a liability.” There's your answer. And this is actually sound advic…

Which means for the average person, where nearly all their purchases are liabilities, telling people to live debt free is good advice and Kiyosaki quotes getting thrown around out of context do more harm than good. I’m also curious to see how all these debt gluttons using “OPM” are going to fair in an environment of rising interest rates. When the tide goes out we’ll see who was swimming naked. I’m sure we’ll see man…

That's right, almost everything you buy is a financial liability.

Debt glutton is a very loaded term. I bought 2 houses in the pandemic but I did so thoughtfully, after much research. My income can fully cover both mortgages and living expenses.

In the US, interest rates are usually locked in and the monthly payment on the mortgage is not affected by the rates of today. Everyone I know who did "the real estate thing" is playing the long game. All of our assets are illiquid for now and that's okay.

There are always reckless people, unlucky people, foolish people. But vilifying debt is not the answer.

Re: 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he's $1B in debt

#12

Post by LargeTomato » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 11:02 AM UTC

mrkeen wrote: post #8

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does life of a tape worm connect with the idea?

I think the idea is that Kiyosaki's lifestyle is that of a parasite. Society is built from people producing economic output. But this guy just buys low, sells high, and uses other people's money to do so?

4 kinds of people.

1. People who love taking advantage of capitalism. 2. People who begrudgingly take advantage of capitalism. 3. People who understand capitalism but pout about it. 4. People too stupid to understand capitalism.

Re: 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he's $1B in debt

#13

Post by LargeTomato » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 11:02 AM UTC

zpeti wrote: post #6

I thought this was actually going to be an interesting article, about how he over leveraged himself and is now bankrupt, but no. It's a high profile person who is using debt to build a business. This is basically every business person in the USA, except Kiyosaki hit some magic number at $1bn. This is completely meaningless without knowing what his assets are worth. Probably more than $1bn. Yet again, it's proved to m…

Just block low tier news. I block verge, ars technica, fortune, etc.

Re: 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he's $1B in debt

#14

Post by scotty79 » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 11:18 AM UTC

mrkeen wrote: post #8

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does life of a tape worm connect with the idea?

I think the idea is that Kiyosaki's lifestyle is that of a parasite. Society is built from people producing economic output. But this guy just buys low, sells high, and uses other people's money to do so?

> Society is built from people producing economic output.

That's a very idealistic image. People producing economic output are a not that large fraction of society.

There are a lot of people in the society who are useless or harmful from the point of view of economic output. Military, advertising, retirees, children and full-time learners, significant fraction of bureaucrats and political class, successful rent seekers. They are all part of society. I don't have the numbers but I think, altogether they are majority.

Re: 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he's $1B in debt

#15

Post by dsr_ » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 11:19 AM UTC

LargeTomato wrote: post #12

mrkeen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that Kiyosaki's lifestyle is that of a parasite. Society is built from people producing economic output. But this guy just buys low, sells high, and uses other people's money to do so?

4 kinds of people. 1. People who love taking advantage of capitalism. 2. People who begrudgingly take advantage of capitalism. 3. People who understand capitalism but pout about it. 4. People too stupid to understand capitalism.

At least 3 orthogonal axes, not 2.

x: understanding capitalism y: success in capitalism z: supporting capitalism

All of these are slightly correlated, but only in rough outline.

Re: 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he's $1B in debt

#16

Post by epolanski » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 11:20 AM UTC

I think the guy is one of the biggest intellectual scammers out there.

He wrote his famous book when working a normal 8 hour job and was nowhere near being wealthy. He wasn't a rich dad. Just a normal guy.

Re: 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he's $1B in debt

#17

Post by rmbyrro » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 11:21 AM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #14

mrkeen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that Kiyosaki's lifestyle is that of a parasite. Society is built from people producing economic output. But this guy just buys low, sells high, and uses other people's money to do so?

> Society is built from people producing economic output. That's a very idealistic image. People producing economic output are a not that large fraction of society. There are a lot of people in the society who are useless or harmful from the point of view of economic output. Military, advertising, retirees, children and full-time learners, significant fraction of bureaucrats and political class, successful rent seeke…

Isn't that a cynical view of society?

Re: 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he's $1B in debt

#18

Post by lnxg33k1 » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 11:23 AM UTC

mrkeen wrote: post #8

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does life of a tape worm connect with the idea?

I think the idea is that Kiyosaki's lifestyle is that of a parasite. Society is built from people producing economic output. But this guy just buys low, sells high, and uses other people's money to do so?

Society is built on people exploiting those producing economic output, the whole system is based on parasites, cmon at least let’s try to don’t think others are idiots (or be naive) when talking about capitalism

  > But this guy just buys low, sells high, and uses other people's money to do so?

Some people call it capitalism

Re: 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he's $1B in debt

#19

Post by ClassyJacket » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 11:24 AM UTC

My sister tried to get me to read this book, around the same time she lost a bunch of money to a pyramid scheme.

Re: 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he's $1B in debt

#20

Post by rmbyrro » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 11:24 AM UTC

Grimblewald wrote: post #2

"Living debt free is the worst advice you could give" What advice can one give me, an individual who does not wish to live the life of a tape worm?

His debt doesn't fund consumption, it funds real estate, which he rents or sells for a profit.

He's not advocating to go into debt for a lush Bahamas vacation.

The value of long-term debt to fund real assets is that inflation corrodes the debt value, while boosting the asset value.

Even if the asset doesn't appreciate above the inflation (meaning you do nothing all day), you can still make money if interest is lower than the inflation rate.