Kiyosaki is a liar who was broke until he was able to convince people he wasn’t. He was in financial trouble before the release of his rhetorical, inaccurate fairy tale. There is also every indication that both his account of his (poor) dad and his friend’s (rich) dad were un-noted fictionalizations. His worst lie is when he writes of returning to his helicopter on active duty in Vietnem (his active duty status is questionable) to find a small child stealing from it; he recounts having to make a choice between letting the kid go, or as shooting him as per orders. Um, that’s not SOP, in fact it’s murder and had it become known, he would’ve done time or been executed. Why he includes this ludicrous BS is beyond me but the man is a fraud. For some reason a whole bunch of PBS-affiliated groups promoted the hell out of his book which gave him undeserved cred.
A short article from Wall Street Journal, ruminating on Kiyosaki’s financial advice. Personally, I’d have no problem with Mr. Kiyosaki if he titled all his books How to Lose Your Life Savings. At least be honest about it.
Anyway, some of the highlights from the article:
- Mr. Kiyosaki writes, “Donald and I can beat Warren’s rates of returns on investment. He may be richer, but we can get richer faster using our own methods and use less money.” If Mr. Trump can earn higher rates of return, why does he rank 94th on Forbes magazine’s listing of the 400 richest Americans, with a net worth of $2.9 billion, while Mr. Buffett ranks second with $46 billion?
- Mr. Kiyosaki stresses that mutual funds are risky, while building your own business can be a predictable path to prosperity. Yet he also notes that 90% of start-up businesses fail within the first five years.
Robert Kiyosaki … stressed that starting your own business is risk free and the easiest way to get rich, yet he’s never done it - and has actually failed in business 3 times. He won’t release his real estate investment history or his stock market investments.
After failing many times he had no money until he joined network marketing groups to sell these books. He has made his money from his courses and books and has probably lost money from actual investments - I say this because most of his property investments were bought when market prices were very high. He’s also stated that he essentially speculates on stock prices, when his broker phones him with the idea that a stock is about to go up he will shift lots of money into those stocks.
Rich robert, poor you? A report from CBC. Worth the watch, sifts through some of his bullshit. And then we come to a much more detailed end of the line for dear Robert:
A very thorough deconstruction of Robert Kiyosaki’s gimmicks, lies, and fraudulent financial advice.
Robert Kiyosaki is, naturally, a very strong proponent of MLMs. Not surprising, considering they kickstarted his faux career. A quick Google search will tell you how fraudulent MLMs are, but here’s a further study for your perusal. And, of course, the fairly popular MLMWatch has many, many good points on the site.
Incredibly detailed breakdown of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad fictional storybook.
A further review of the fraudulent book.
Now, supporters of Robert commonly defend him with arguments such as: “He gets you into the philosophy of investing without boring you to death with dull details!” and “At least he imparts some good lessons!”.
Yeah, having the ‘mindset’ of saving vs spending is incredibly important. However, if you’re even partially serious about accumulating wealth, you’d already know the value of saving. You’d already be in this state of mind. You certainly don’t need a failure of a businessman to enlighten you about it.
Most importantly though, simply deciding to transfer expenditure to investment isn’t actually going to help. Investing without proper knowledge is NOT better than no investment, it’s exponentially more detrimental.
And the so-called good lessons you can take away from his books? Fucking come on. Take an hour to do your bloody homework and you’ll come away with more knowledge than you’ll ever get from his tripe.
This is a man who gives anecdotes to prove points, a man who has repeatedly failed at business yet advices people on them, and most shockingly, a man who apparently doesn’t bother telling his readers about the singular cornerstone of modern investment theory:
fucking diversify your portfolio
(and how to adapt my study method to mirror it)
- introductory/overview videos, compulsory to watch
- physical lectures to cover more in depth, explore more ideas, field questions etc
- assignments to be completed
- physical tutorials to ask questions about assignments, get feedback, get more practice
- presentations and projects to cement broad overview
- group discussions
