Robert Kiyosaki
 

I can't stand this guy. Does anyone thing he's not completely useless as a writer?

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

I just read RDPD and thought it pretty silly. Unfortunately I didn't get around to writing up my detailed thoughts at the time, but essentially he has a good message, save and invest, and he presents it in a very motivational way. It doesn't matter that he made up the "rich dad" and the stupid lessons, "the richest man in babylon" ain't a documentary either.

My gripe with him is when he gets beyond the basics of motivating you to save and invest, any detailed advice (which he is clever not to offer much of) is often contradictory and wrong. It's clear he doesn't know much about investing, or real estate (see John T. Reed). Whenever he writes a column about some topic I do have some knowledge of (i.e. Warren Buffett's approach to investing) he gets some basic facts wrong and usually totally misses the big picture.

There are other good books, including Richest Man in Babylon, and Millionaire Next Door, that can motivate you to think about how you live your life and how to achieve your goals. And they aren't filled with a bunch of contradictory or just plain wrong advice.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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I can't stand this guy. Does anyone thing he's not completely useless as a writer?

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RDPD is one of the most important books I have ever read.

If you already know what he's teaching, I can see how he can be annoying...but if you don't know it, it can be valuable advice.

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I've never read Rich Dad Poor Dad. I've talked to people about it and I get the overwhelming sense that it's not worth much. It might be a good book if you don't know anything about finance, I can see that.

I read his articles on Yahoo Finance pretty often and I'm consistanly underwhelmed. I would think that these are targeted at a higher level audience than the book, but maybe I'm just expecting something that he's not trying to write.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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My gripe with him is when he gets beyond the basics of motivating you to save and invest, any detailed advice (which he is clever not to offer much of) is often contradictory and wrong. It's clear he doesn't know much about investing, or real estate (see John T. Reed). Whenever he writes a column about some topic I do have some knowledge of (i.e. Warren Buffett's approach to investing) he gets some basic facts wrong and usually totally misses the big picture.


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This is exactly my sentiment, mostly fueled by his current article on Yahoo Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/columnist/a...ichricher/7450) and others like it that I've read.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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This is exactly my sentiment, mostly fueled by his current article on Yahoo Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/columnist/a...ichricher/7450) and others like it that I've read.

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This is a great example. Much of what he writes here is true. But he doesn't give you any actionable detail. I.e. how much cash flow should you require? What's the difference between a bad and a good deal?

Then he dismisses cap rates (and PE's) which are measures of value that tell you how much cash flow you are getting for your dollar. If you don't use cap rates, how do you measure what you are paying for? Obviously PE needs to be adjusted for many things (depreciation, etc) to be more useful, but he doesn't even touch on this or provide you with any actionable advice.

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Warren Buffett doesn't like to sell because selling shares triggers a tax, and a tax reduces his wealth. Those who know Buffett's formula know that he wants to compound his returns, not share them with the government.


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This is both right and wrong. Buffett doesn't mind paying taxes, in fact he's proud to. But he does want to compound his gains as fast as possible. So every holding presents him with a problem, is the after tax gains I'd reap selling this investment and buying a superior investment higher than the gains I'd get just holding the existing investment?

In the past he said that great investments should just be held "forever" because it was unlikely you could find a better investment offering returns superior enough to overcome paying the taxes. Of course, then Coke ran up to absurd prices, he didn't sell, and he's been apologizing ever since:)

Of course Kiysoki does't explain any of this in detail, so how useful is his column to a novice investor?

They say if you give typewriters to a million monkeys one of them will reproduce a masterpiece. I think Kyosaki shows that if you allow a monkey to cut and paste ideas from hundreds of other investment books, and find a multi-level marketing organisation that will push the monkey's books, the monkey will create a best seller without understanding any of the ideas himself.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

It's not targeted at a higher audience because he's trying to target customers for his books.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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They say if you give typewriters to a million monkeys one of them will reproduce a masterpiece. I think Kyosaki shows that if you allow a monkey to cut and paste ideas from hundreds of other investment books, and find a multi-level marketing organisation that will push the monkey's books, the monkey will create a best seller without understanding any of the ideas himself.

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Perfect.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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It's not targeted at a higher audience because he's trying to target customers for his books.

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Has he written any books besides Rich Dad Poor Dad? Are they any better?

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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It's not targeted at a higher audience because he's trying to target customers for his books.

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Has he written any books besides Rich Dad Poor Dad? Are they any better?

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Yes, several. And no.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

I read a book by him called somehthing like What the Rich Invest in that the Poor and Middle Class do not. 300+ pages telling me that if you make 200k a year, you can invest in things that people who don't make 200k a year can not invest in. Then he proceeded to not tell me one thing about what these investments are or how to find them. Pretty f'in ridiculous.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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It's not targeted at a higher audience because he's trying to target customers for his books.

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Has he written any books besides Rich Dad Poor Dad? Are they any better?

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He actually has quite a collection of books in the RD series, you can find them on his website...

I still think we should do a reading/review of RDPD after Cat is done going thru TII; I think the discussion generated could be interesting.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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It's not targeted at a higher audience because he's trying to target customers for his books.

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Has he written any books besides Rich Dad Poor Dad? Are they any better?

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He actually has quite a collection of books in the RD series, you can find them on his website...

I still think we should do a reading/review of RDPD after Cat is done going thru TII; I think the discussion generated could be interesting.

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I disagree. I think that's the equivalent of a No Limit strategy forum doing a review of the introduction they give to holdem at the beginning of WPT shows.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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I read a book by him called somehthing like What the Rich Invest in that the Poor and Middle Class do not. 300+ pages telling me that if you make 200k a year, you can invest in things that people who don't make 200k a year can not invest in. Then he proceeded to not tell me one thing about what these investments are or how to find them. Pretty f'in ridiculous.

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Thank you, your mom, jesus someone agrees with me on this book. Unfortunately this was the second finance/ investing text that I ever read, and it caused me to nearly stop reading them. I was waiting for some big payoff in the end of this and zippoooooooo. I can't stand Kiyosaki, and his inane deification of himself. All he wants to do is sell you his crummy board games. IMO Avoid this series. Pure drivel.

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

Some good stuff on this website including a lengthy review of Kiyosaki/RDPD; he does a good job bashing a bunch of real-estate gurus:

http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html
http://www.johntreed.com/Reedgururating.html

No opinion either way from me, haven't read the book (RDPD).

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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I disagree. I think that's the equivalent of a No Limit strategy forum doing a review of the introduction they give to holdem at the beginning of WPT shows.

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Not everybody is as smart as you are Evan.

Look at the front page of this board...it has been dominated by 'I'm 19 and have half a million dollars and have no idea what to do with it!!' posts.

This book is absolutely PERFECT for these types of people.

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I think they could skip RDPD and go straight into learning basic things like compound interest, different types of investment vehicles and the corresponding tax implications for them. The typical thread here is usually someone 18 to 23 with x amount of money that they want to invest for y amount of time. I wouldn't read Kiyosaki for that type of advice.

I believe that most of the people on this forum are already motivated enough with getting a handle on the financial aspect of their lives and are generally more interested in learning things that they could act on. Of course I might be jaded and just not enjoy motivational books as much as the next guy.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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I disagree. I think that's the equivalent of a No Limit strategy forum doing a review of the introduction they give to holdem at the beginning of WPT shows.

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Not everybody is as smart as you are Evan.

Look at the front page of this board...it has been dominated by 'I'm 19 and have half a million dollars and have no idea what to do with it!!' posts.

This book is absolutely PERFECT for these types of people.

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This forum is filled with pretty bright guys, I think they can handle jumping in a little deeper than these books even if they know al ot less about finance than some other people.

Also, catering to the lowest common denominator is just going to frustrate both the advanced members of this forum and the new guys. In the end they'll all wish they'd done something more challenging.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

Evan,

I disagree... just look at the poor participation level in the TII reading... even after it seemed that the overwhelming consensus was to start with that book...

With RDPD, it is a quick easy read, there are useful nuggets in there, and quite a bit to argue/discuss as well.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

would the monkey on the typewriter who reproduces the masterpiece understand any of the ideas in his copy?

If a million forum posts were typed by humans, would any of them be any more worthwhile than one monkey's forum post, if only one million monkeys were reading the forum posts?

If you ate monkey (http://www.angryman.ca/monkey.html)food for long enough, would you be able to save enough to invest and become a rich dad?

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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I can't stand this guy. Does anyone thing he's not completely useless as a writer?

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RDPD is one of the most important books I have ever read.

If you already know what he's teaching, I can see how he can be annoying...but if you don't know it, it can be valuable advice.

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RDPD WAS the most important book I've ever read.

I [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] Robert

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

His book was the first real book I read. It real helped me get out of the mentality that I have to get a good job with health benefits it showed me that there are plenty other ways to make a living, i.e. writing books [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]. At the time that I read I knew it was a bit much. Now, when I read his Yahoo articles I get upset cause it's mostly crap advice. I remember him saying that he wants to continue buying gold, when gold was around 700s, look at it now? Is he right? Maybe. Sometimes his logic is bit off. But the previous not withstanding it does help you realize that you don't need a job and that just working only gets you so far. And those who will counter me with millionaire next door keep in mind that has selection bias. I bet there are people out there who saved and acted like the people in million next doors only to find themselves poor and broke.

The true irony is that I work at a good job with great health benefits. So maybe his book was a waste.....


-Alex

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

Cliffs Notes of RDPD:

-Spend your money on assets
-Don't increase your liabilities
-Put your money to work for you

There, I saved you all a [censored] of time. Feel free to send me money if you needed this revelation.

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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It is so much more than that.

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Like:

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I was very much raised in a poor dad, puritan work ethic, buy nice cars on credit with no assets, work hard for somebody else and someday retire mentality. This is how most of middle/upper middle class america operates. Its a damned shame. This book opened my eyes to that and made me drastically change my ways and also my outlook on money. Now my mission in life is to generate as much passive income as possible. To live far below my means and have my Passive Income exceed my Expenses and acheive Financial Freedom.

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Okay, let's revisit:

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-Spend your money on assets
-Don't increase your liabilities
-Put your money to work for you

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Yeah, I covered everything you said with those three points.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

Why are you capitalizing 'financial freedom', 'expenses', etc.? I really don't understand the fascination with Kiyosaki. Just not much there there, and he's an obvious huckster besides.

As far as people actually learning something from anything he's written, so what? That's not exactly a high standard. For instance I'm sure there are people who have learned something from reading Ken Warren poker books. That doesn't mean that I'd recommend any of them.

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

Are Kiyosakis books good for anything?
If they get you to start learning more about good ways to invest then I guess so. But there are a lot of better books out there. For real estate stuff John T. Reed's stuff if very good from what I have read so far. There are also some good stock market oriented reading lists on the motley fool forums.

Pancho

PS Make sure you read those above links about Kiyosaki before you actually try to apply any specific techniques of his. When I first read RDPD I thought it was decent, but the more I read the worse my opinion gets.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

Have not read the book, but the vast majority of these books are garbage. As others have pointed out, minimize your expenses, invest at least 60% of your take home pay and you will be fine. I do not plan on working a day past 50 and am well on my way of getting there and have not read any of these books.

A really good forum on early retirment is at http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/index.php

They probably have the best retirment calculator on the net as well called FIRECALC (although most calculators are garbage)

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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cool dude, the point is...if i had read your summary i wouldn't have made any changes, it wouldn't have made sense/sunk in etc. he vividly illustrates what all of those mean w/ stories, definitions, examples and motivational rhetoric that can be highly effective.

is TOP worthless because it can be summed up as:

-Use math in making poker decisions
-Read your opponents
-Don't play like a donkey

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No, because there is math in the book.

Is there any math in Kiyosaki's book? Any formulas, maybe descriptions of PE ratios or something?

Oh, right. No.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

I watched one of his PBS specials to find out what his deal was. He talked for an hour without actually saying anything on specific investment or retirement strategies. To cover up the fact that he wasn't going to say anything of substance he did drop a lot of vague financial cliches that were not incorrect but were so basic that you could read them anywhere. Then it went to commercial/fundraising and Kiyosaki plugged his "ultamite wealth toolbox" for $400. Then he plugged a series of lectures he was giving with Donald Trump, which you had to fork $600 over for. Then it all made sense....

I looked at the john t reed analysis of his stuff and it is a pretty detailed pwning of him. I don't see how anyone could read that and still take him seriously.

For those of you who swear by his stuff, what did you learn from it? And don't give some vague answer like "He taught me that I need to max out my Passive Income, avoid Expenses so I could have Financial Freedom!!!"

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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I watched one of his PBS specials to find out what his deal was. He talked for an hour without actually saying anything on specific investment or retirement strategies. To cover up the fact that he wasn't going to say anything of substance he did drop a lot of vague financial cliches that were not incorrect but were so basic that you could read them anywhere. Then it went to commercial/fundraising and Kiyosaki plugged his "ultamite wealth toolbox" for $400. Then he plugged a series of lectures he was giving with Donald Trump, which you had to fork $600 over for. Then it all made sense....

I looked at the john t reed analysis of his stuff and it is a pretty detailed pwning of him. I don't see how anyone could read that and still take him seriously.

For those of you who swear by his stuff, what did you learn from it? And don't give some vague answer like "He taught me that I need to max out my Passive Income, avoid Expenses so I could have Financial Freedom!!!"

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Right, we just keeps telling you what to do but never tells you how to do it. Worthless.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

http://finance.yahoo.com/columnist/a...ichricher/6720

I can't stand this guy either.
Ray Lucia is my guy.

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

I will say this: If you need a self-help book to pick you up from down in the dumps because you can't really understand actual investment advice, Kiyosaki is your man, I guess.

But then again, so is any other fluff piece written that is aimed to make you "feel good." You could read something written by Tony Robbins and have the same effect.

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

IMO RDPD is more of a motivational book with a few very powerful financial ideas than a financial book that thoroughly covers any financial ideas.

The book is mainly about the story of the rich dad and poor dad and how their advice can affect their son's approach to financial life. It's about creating a gestalt change in an individual who can only view the world through "work hard, buy all the stuff you *deserve*, repeat. People decide to let themselves feel trapped in jobs they hate and such b/c they aren't even aware of a different path they may take. RDPD allows people to internalize a different method of financial living....not read about it but actually internalize it (altho for most ppl I'd guess for a somewhat short period of time).

However, I do agree that Kiyosaki's other stuff seems to be v v poor b/c this material doesn't go much further or when it sorta does it lacks the how-to/details/math. It's all more stories about how Kiyosaki is a lucksack or whatever despite being a bit of a moron and needing 2354321414 other people to tell him what to do all the time.

Oh, this is also why I think the book sells so well...it's a motivational story that connects with people at an emotional level and there isn't much detail oriented thinking work to be done. This is what allows the average Joe (myself included of course) to change his financial path outlook.

This is the value of his board game.....it doesn't tell you how to do the things necessary to get out of the rat race, but it does show you how important and powerful it can be if one *can* get out of the rat race.

Yugoslav

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

I think the book is garbage. After you have read 100 of these financial books you'll realize most are trivial and just different versions of the same crap.
I am sure some people like Degen realize value after having read the book, because of the motivational aspects of the message. I realized the same thing from those late night TV commercials on making bazillions through real estate. Most people who have the aptitude will make these realizations (saving, investing, income from investments) at some point in their lives. If this book was that pivotal moment for an individual then reading it was certainly a valuable experience for them and worth the $19.95. This does not however make it a good book. In my opinion the same person would have stumbled across some other source for the motivation anyway. They had to be looking or otherwise would not have even read it.
I would imagine the vast majority of people who read this book will say "Yeah thats what I should do." and never do anything.
The book is what it is. I would recommend to friends many other books first. Kiyosaki is a liar and a scammer who takes money from people making promises that will never materialize. Broke people like to hear Horatio Alger type stories and believe that they will one day break out of the cycle. There is a market for that and this book along with Kiyosaki's other offerings caters to that.
Actually breaking out of the rat race takes a lot more hard work, dedication, and intelligence.

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Robert Kiyosaki
 

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Its painfully obvious that none/most of you have even bothered to read the [censored] book.

I think reading a book should be a pre-requisite to criticizing its contents.

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I know that you like this book a lot, but others have read it and don't like it. And there's nothing wrong with that.