Rich Dad Poor Dad

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Rich Dad Poor Dad  
Author Robert Kiyosaki & Sharon Lechter
Country USA
Language English
Series Rich Dad Series
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Warner Books Ed
Publication date 2000 April 1
Media type hardback & paperback
Pages 207
ISBN 0-446-67745-0

Rich Dad Poor Dad is Robert Kiyosaki's and Sharon Lechter's first best-selling book. It advocates financial independence through investing, real estate, owning businesses, and the use of finance protection tactics.

Rich Dad Poor Dad is written in an anecdotal manner and is aimed at creating public interest in finance.[citation needed] Kiyosaki and Lechter stress the advocacy of owning the system or means of production, rather than being an employee as a recurring theme in the book's chapters.

Contents

[edit] Summary

The book is largely based on Kiyosaki's upbringing and education in Hawaii, although the degree of fictionalization in his anecdotes is disputed. Because of the heavy use of allegory, some readers believe that Kiyosaki created the Rich Dad character as an author surrogate (a literary device), discussed further in the criticism section below. The book highlights the different attitudes to money, work and life of these two men, and how they in turn influenced key decisions in Kiyosaki's life.

Among some of the book's topics are:

  • the value of financial intelligence
  • that corporations spend first, then pay taxes, while individuals must pay taxes first
  • that corporations are artificial entities that anyone can use, but the poor usually don't know how

According to Kiyosaki and Lechter, wealth is measured as the number of days the income from your assets will sustain you, and financial independence is achieved when your monthly income from assets exceeds your monthly expenses. Each dad had a different way of teaching his son....

Many readers believe that the "Rich Dad" in the book is actually the founder of Hawaii's widespread ABC Stores.

Keith Cunningham claims to be Kiyosaki's 'Rich Dad' during a keynote address at Anthony Robbins' 'Wealth Mastery' seminar[citation needed]. This is highly unlikely not only because of the similarity in age between Cunningham and Kiyosaki, but also because Kiyosaki had stated in his books that Rich Dad had died in 1994. In addition, Kiyosaki mentions Keith Cunningham as "a dear friend of mine" on page eighty-five. Some have claimed that Rich Dad was a person named Richard Kimi, the deceased founder of Sand and Seaside Hawaiian Hotels.

[edit] Quotations

  • "Physical exercise improves health, mental exercise improves wealth, laziness destroys both."
  • "A true luxury is a reward for investing in and developing a real asset."
  • "Remember the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules."
  • "The only way to get out of the 'rat race' is to prove your proficiency at both accounting and investing, arguably two of the most difficult subjects to master."
  • "I have mentioned before that financial intelligence is a synergy of accounting, investing, marketing and law. Combine those four technical skills and making money with money is easier."
  • “Most people are poor because when it comes to investing, the world is filled with Chicken Littles running around yelling, ‘The sky is falling. The sky is falling.’”
  • “Many of today's youth have credit cards before they leave high school, yet they have never had a course in money or how to invest it, let alone understand how compound interest works on credit cards.”
  • "The poor and middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them." (P30).
  • "The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."
  • "Mind your own Business"

[edit] Reviews

[edit] Criticism

  • Rich Dad Poor Dad has been criticized for having almost no concrete advice and too many anecdotal lessons. There are readers who have reported finishing the book feeling motivated and ready to begin "escaping the rat race," only to realize soon after that they have been given no idea how to proceed. It has also been said that discerning fact from fiction or anecdote is difficult in the book.
  • Some advice given in the book is thought to be poor or even dangerous by other investors. For example, Kiyosaki advocates focusing on a few "good investments" rather than diversifying. He also downplays the importance of traditional education. John T. Reed, an outspoken critic of Robert Kiyosaki, says, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad contains much wrong advice, much bad advice, some dangerous advice, and virtually no good advice." He also states, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad is one of the dumbest financial advice books I have ever read. It contains many factual errors and numerous extremely unlikely accounts of events that supposedly occurred."[1] Kiyosaki has provided a rebuttal to some of Reed's statements.[2]
  • Some of the claims Kiyosaki makes in Rich Dad Poor Dad about his accomplishments have been called exaggerations, fabrications or misdirection (see Reed criticism). People have speculated on the identity of his "rich dad" and whether this individual even existed, reasoning that such a man, whom Kiyosaki describes as "one of the richest men in the Islands," and his family who carry on his tradition, would have been very well known in as small a state as Hawaii. In the February 2003 issue of SmartMoney magazine, Kiyosaki backed off his claim that his "rich dad" was a real person, instead saying, "Is Harry Potter real? Why don’t you let Rich Dad be a myth, like Harry Potter?"

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Spare us the finance evangelists and their false profits". Sydney Morning Herald. June 4, 2004. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/03/1086203560484.html?from=storyrhs. Retrieved on 2009-06-18. 
  2. ^ Robert Kiyosaki. "Robert Kiyosaki's Public Response to John T. Reed's Review of "Rich Dad Poor Dad"". http://www.mastermindforum.com/kiyosakiresponsetoreed.htm. Retrieved on 2009-06-18. 
  • Rich Dad Poor Dad - What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money - That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!, by Robert Kiyosaki & Sharon L. Lechter. Publisher - Warner Business Books / First published in 2000 / ISBN 0-446-67745-0

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Dad_Poor_Dad"
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