We are all mostly familiar with "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki.
Here is a reminder of the six lessons of the book:
Lesson 1: The Rich Don’t Work For Money
This lesson has an ambiguous title that gives two separate meanings based on how you read it – actually, based on where you put the emphasis. If you read the title as the rich don’t work for money, that’s the wrong one. The rich in fact do work, and they work quite hard. The way the title should be read is that the rich don’t work for money. They work to learn things, and the things they learn can easily be applied to make money over and over again. I agree with this sentiment entirely – good ideas are always more valuable than good labor, because you can keep mining good ideas, while good labor is spent the second you do the work.
Another part of this lesson I liked is that the “rich dad” is actually quite frugal. Although he has a lot of money in the bank, he drives a cheap car and doesn’t live in a mansion. Too many people equate rich with material things, so I enjoy it when it is shown that being rich often has very little connection to material possessions. Being rich means never having to worry about paying your bills – it doesn’t mean driving a Ferrari (well, at least not until you can pay cash for it and not break a sweat).
Without a doubt, this was my favorite part of the entire book, even with the short, out of place rant about the gold standard (actually a misnomer, because the only way the book makes any sense in terms of time is if the rich dad is actually talking about the Bretton Woods system and not the true gold standard) and how the United States was doomed if they abandoned it.
Lesson 2: Why Teach Financial Literacy?
This is the section of the book that causes a lot of controversy when discussed. In a nutshell, this chapter redefines the term asset. For most, an asset is something that has value. For example, your home is an asset because it is something you own that has value.
Well, this section of the book redefines the word. To Robert Kiyosaki, an asset is something that generates income, while a liability is anything that has costs. In other words, by this definition, your primary residence is not an asset but a liability. It may have cash value, but it doesn’t generate income. Instead, assets are forms of passive income that you control, like a rental property or intellectual property.
So what’s the overall lesson here? Basically, you become rich by accumulating assets, assets as defined by this book. This basically means that, in my case for example, my truck is not an asset but The Simple Dollar is an asset (it generates revenue on its own – I write because I enjoy it). Wealth comes from having enough assets that generate enough income so that all of your expenses are covered and there is enough left over to invest in more assets.
Lesson 3: Mind Your Own Business
The point of this chapter is that a financially healthy individual should be spending their spare time not spending their paychecks, but investing as much of it as possible in assets (as defined by this book). This is another lesson I strongly agree with: pay off your debts and start investing as soon as you can into things that can generate revenue. This lesson was short and sweet.
Lesson 4: The History of Taxes and the Power of Corporations
This is the section of the book that made me start disbelieving in the overall ideas presented. First of all, after all this talk of following in the footsteps of the rather frugal “rich dad” example, Kiyosaki begins to describe a lifestyle of buying Porsches and the like. What? It doesn’t jibe at all with the earlier lessons at all.
Even worse, the chapter misrepresents several fundamental facts about taxation that I’m quite aware of, because my father held a corporation and dealt with the taxes on it. First of all, if you start claiming stuff like Porsches as part of necessary company expenses, you are going to get audited. There’s a big difference between forming a personal corporation and buying a company car for use with that corporation, but the IRS is very clear on being rational with spending just to avoid things like buying Porsches. You can justify a company jet as being needed for travel, but what necessity for business does a Porsche provide that another car does not?
Kiyosaki mentions various tax dodges in this chapter, but almost all of them aren’t tax dodges at all, but merely tax delays. With almost all of them, you either have to hold an asset until you die or you’re going to be hit with a monstrous tax bill. If you ever need to liquidate out of a need for cash, playing these games will mean that the IRS will eat you alive.
There are some advantages of keeping money in a corporate structure as an individual person, but they mostly relate to minimizing taxation on reasonable expenses related to money you earn independent of employment. It doesn’t mean that a corporation magically means you can start buying Porsches.
Lesson 5: The Rich Invent Money
Here, the disbelief continues when the author relates a tale of a ridiculously good real estate deal made on the “courthouse steps” in which Kiyosaki claims to have made $40,000 in five hours. I’ve spent some time myself seeing what kinds of deals are available from sheriff’s sales and such and the truth is that the only time you’ll find a deal like that is if every real estate business in the area is asleep at the wheel – and that’s simply not happening in this era.
That’s not to decry the overall lesson of this chapter; you can invent money. However, the easiest way to mint your own money in today’s arena is through creating your own intellectual property. With the internet, there are many ways to distribute and monetize your intellectual property: sell crafts you can make, create websites out of your own ideas, sell your music or performances.
Lesson 6: Work to Learn – Don’t Work For Money
While I agree in general with the lesson, the tone here was extremely insulting towards people who choose to be employed, referring to them as “hamsters.” Using this logic, the majority of the millionaires in the United States (as described in The Millionaire Next Door) are “hamsters.” That’s ridiculous and insulting.
Everyone should strive to learn as much as they can when they work, because it can transform your understanding of the world and perhaps build into methods of starting your own business and being self-employed. However, to look down at people who choose to be employed for a living as “hamsters” is ridiculous. Is Jack Welch a “hamster”? He was employed by General Electric for forty years.
From The Simple Dollar
One of the key points RK delivers in the book is the concept of good debt and bad debt.
Kiyosaki's philosophy is that good debt is debt that delivers a monthly net cash flow and is attached to an asset that goes up in value. We should not fear good debt, we should feast on it. Many people found this a hard concept to accept. Others embraced it to the max and some went bankrupt as a result.
Perhaps a better term would be "leveraged" debt?
I am wondering if people think this concept is still relevant in our current situation where free and easy finance is a thing of the past and capital growth is dead in the water?
If you read RK's book today, would all the lessons still hold true?
Did RK spark the whole NMD industry and was he the original modern wealth creation/property guru, bearing in mind there are so few actual details in his book and it is now essentially part of his marketing funnel for expensive courses and seminars?
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