The 2012 U.S. Presidential campaign between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney brought to light the difference in their levels of financial education.
While both are highly educated men, one candidate was financially sophisticated… the other less so.
Obama vs. Romney
During the campaign, President Obama disclosed that he paid 20.5 percent in taxes on approximately $3 million in income. Mitt Romney paid 14 percent on $21 million in income.
This gap in income and taxes angered many voters, especially the poor, middle class, and younger voters. Rather than ask why and how Romney made more money and paid a lower percentage in taxes, many voters just got angry. Most failed to ask, “How did Romney do that?” Or “How did he earn $21 million and pay 14 percent in taxes?” Or “How is that legal?” Or “Who is smarter when it comes to money… President Obama or candidate Romney?”
In his second term as President, Mr. Obama seems determined to and already has raised taxes on the rich—rather than teach kids about money and capitalism, which is how and why the rich get rich and stay rich and often pay less in taxes. Rather than teach kids to fish, it seems President Obama prefers to give kids fish.
This book is about teaching kids to fish.
What Does It Take to Become Rich?
Many people believe the rich are crooks, and some are. Yet there are far more rich people who are honest, hard working people… and are not crooks. They achieved the American Dream the old-fashioned way — through education, hard work, budgeting wisely, building businesses, creating jobs, and paying their taxes… as little as, legally, possible. They also acquired this wealth by studying subjects not taught in our schools.
This difference in education is reflected in President Obama and Mitt Romney.
Both men went to great schools. President Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Mitt Romney is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School.
The primary difference between President Obama and Romney is that the President came from a poor family and the former governor comes from a rich family.
Their story is similar to the ones found in Rich Dad Poor Dad. The lesson of financial education is taught at home… not in school.
This book is written for parents who want to give their child a financial headstart, at home, studying subjects most students—even “A” students—never study.
Making the Case
The “business” of education is one of the biggest industries in the world, impacting the lives of nearly every person on the planet in one way or another. In the United States, public elementary and secondary schools alone—which employ 3.3 million full time teachers—will spend $571 billion for the 2012-2013 school year. That’s only in the United States, a country where approximately five million students entered high school in the 2010-2011 school year. Globally that number grows exponentially. I often ask myself how many of these kids finished high school… and how many dropped out? How many went on to college or university… and how many actually graduated? The staggering statistics on the college loan debt they’re saddled with have made headlines around the world. And how many went on for an advanced degree—at even greater cost—in the hope of proportionately higher salaries when they joined the global workforce?
Not only are hundreds of billions of dollars spent on elementary through university education, but the military also spends billions of dollars to train young men and women to serve their country. Corporate training of employees is another billion-dollar industry as are the trade-schools that teach future technicians to repair and maintain our cars, refrigerators, electrical systems, and computers.
But financial education, at least in the established, formal arenas of school systems and curricula, is largely ignored. I’ve asked myself again and again: Why is that?
• Could the lack of financial education be one of the reasons behind our financial crisis?
• How much of the subprime mortgage crash was caused by a lack of financial education?
• How many of the millions of families who lost their homes lost them, in part, due to a lack of financial education?
• Could the lack of financial education be the reason why so many people are dependent upon government programs like Social Security, Medicare, military and public service pensions—pensions which are bankrupting cities, states, and entire countries?
• Is the United States—like countries around the world—heading for bankruptcy because millions of Americans need the government to take care of them socially, medically, and financially?
• Is our escalating national debt a reflection of our corporate and political leaders’ lack of financial education?
• Is the United States decaying into the same economic demise countries such as Greece, Italy, France, Japan, England, and Spain are facing?
Welfare for the Rich
We all know there are welfare programs for the poor, but what about welfare for the rich?
• Why do our leaders—the President, Congress, and other political bureaucrats—vote themselves giant pensions and generous benefit packages while the number of families on public assistance goes up? Are our leaders as financially needy as those who rely on the government to meet their most basic needs?
• What would happen if we had leaders who knew how to create wealth rather than just knowing how to spend other people’s (the taxpayers’) money?
• Why do CEOs grant themselves massive pay increases, stock options, and perks at the same time they lay off workers? Are CEOs greedy due to a lack of financial education, or did they go to school to learn to be greedy?
• Did the bankers who lost billions have an adequate financial education?
• Why were millions of employees laid off, and thousands of small businesses closed, while the bankers who caused the crash were paid multi-million dollar bonuses?
• Why do teachers’ unions and government bureaucrats determine what our children learn? What about asking the kids and their parents what they need to learn?
• Why are many of America’s highest paid workers no longer from the private sector? Why are so many well-paid employees, so called public servants, some of the highest paid workers in America today? Why are firefighters and police officers retiring with millions in lifetime benefits? What has happened to government service?
• Who caused this financial crisis?
Today’s financial crises were not caused by poor, uneducated people. Behind the chaos are some of the most well-educated people in the world, people such as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a former Stanford and Princeton professor, a student of the Great Depression, but, unfortunately, someone without much financial education or real life business experience.
This book is about education. But not the education taught in our schools.
An Educational Crisis
We are not in a financial crisis. We are in an educational crisis. This crisis begins when our children enter school, spending years—sometimes decades—learning nothing about money and being taught