Donald and I joined forces as teachers…we both had rich dads who were our teachers. We wrote this book because we believe in financial education. We believe it is time to get smart with your money and become rich rather than to count on the government and politicians to care for you and your money.
– Robert T. Kiyosaki
The Wall Street Journal criticizes our book:
on October 11, 2006…
Wall Street Journal columnist Jonathan Clements criticized us regarding 401(k)s and mutual funds. The headline read:
Their Book is Hot, But Their Financial Tips Aren’t
and challenged our position that mutual fund companies take 80% of the profits, leaving investors with only 20%.
Less than a year later…in The Wall Street Journal:
on March 14, 2007 in a front page article by Eleanor Laise…
What Is Your 401(k) Costing You? As Congress, Regulators Scrutinize Hidden Charges, Employers Begin to Ditch High-Cost Plans, Negotiate Lower Fees
In summary: The little investor is being ripped off—legally. America is the best country if you are rich or if you want to become rich, but it’s a horrible country if you are poor or—even worse—if you are working hard and then become sick. This is why we want you to be rich. And to get rich, you need to know good financial advice from poor financial advice.
WHY WE WANT YOU TO BE RICH
TWO MEN • ONE MESSAGE
The rich are getting richer, but are you?
“We are losing our middle class, and a shrinking middle class is a threat to the stability of America and to world democracy itself. We want you to be rich so you can be part of the solution…rather than part of the problem.”
– Donald J. Trump and Robert T. Kiyosaki
Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki are both concerned. Their concern is that the rich are getting richer but America is getting poorer. Like the polar ice caps, the middle class is disappearing. America is becoming a two-class society. Soon you will be either rich or poor. Donald and Robert want you to be rich.
This phenomenon—the shrinking middle class—is a global problem, but predominantly in the richer G-8 nations (in countries such as England, France, Germany, Japan, etc.)
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said, “As I have often said, this is not the type of thing which a democratic society—a capitalist democratic society—can really accept without addressing.” He went on to explain how the income gap between the rich and the rest of the U.S. population has become so wide, and is growing so fast, that it might eventually threaten the stability of democratic capitalism itself.
The Problem Is Education
What did the Federal Reserve Chairman state as the main cause of the problem? In one word, his answer was education. Mr. Greenspan points out that U.S. children test above the world average levels at the 4th grade level. But by the 12th grade level, they are far behind. He says, “We have to do something to prevent that from happening.”
Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki also place the blame on the lack of education. But they focus on a different type of education, financial education. Both men are very concerned about the lack of quality financial education in America, at all levels. Both men blame the lack of financial education for the United States having gone from the richest country in the world to the biggest debtor nation in history, so quickly. A weak U.S. economy and a weak U.S. dollar (the reserve currency of the world) are not good for world stability. As is often said in other parts of the world, “When the United States sneezes, the world catches cold.”
Both Men Are Teachers
Both Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki are successful entrepreneurs and investors. Both men do business and are recognized internationally. Both men are also teachers. Both men are best-selling authors, produce educational board games, speak at financial education events, and both have educational television programs. Donald Trump has his megahit network television show, The Apprentice and Robert Kiyosaki has his television show, Rich Dad’s Guide to Wealth, on PBS, the highly acclaimed educational public television network.
Both men are teachers, not because they need more money. They are both teachers because they are concerned about the fate of you and your family, this nation and the world.
Rich people who want to make a difference typically give money to causes they believe in. But Donald and Robert are giving of both their time as well as their money. As the story goes, you can give a man a fish and feed him for a day or teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Instead of just writing checks to help the poor and middle class, Donald and Robert are teaching them to fish.
Financial Advice
There are three levels of financial advice: advice for the poor, advice for the middle class, and advice for the rich. The financial advice for the poor is that the government will take care of them. The poor are counting on Social Security and Medicare. The financial advice for the middle class is: get a job, work hard, live below your means, save money, invest for the long term in mutual funds, and diversify. Most people in the middle class are passive investors—investors who work and invest not to lose. The rich are active investors who work and invest to win. This book is about becoming an active investor—expanding your means to live a great life by working and investing to win.
Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki are best-selling authors and popular speakers because they teach people to expand their means and improve the quality of their lives, rather than work hard to live below their means. They want people to work and invest to win.
A Little History
During the Hunter-Gatherer Age of human development, humans lived in tribes and, for the most part, all people were equal. If you were the chief of the tribe, you still lived pretty much like the rest of the tribe. Chiefs did not have Lear jets, multimillion-dollar estates, and golden parachutes.
In the Agrarian Age, there evolved a two-tiered society. The king and his rich friends on one tier and everyone else (peasants) working for the king on another tier. Generally, the king owned the land. The peasants worked the king’s land, and paid the king a form of tax by giving the king a share of their harvests. The peasants owned nothing and royalty owned everything.
In the Industrial Age, the modern middle class was born in America and so was democracy.
The founding fathers of America were so impressed by the five tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy that lived in what is today known as New England that they used the tribal model as the model for our democracy. That model elected representatives, an upper and lower house, and a supreme court (made up of entirely women).
At the same time the founders of America were copying the Iroquois form of democracy, the idea of democracy and a middle class was still considered unrealistic in Europe—all while a powerful middle class and democratic society were blooming in the United States.
Today, in the Information Age, the middle class is slowly dying and so is democratic capitalism. Unlike any other time in history, there really is a very wide and growing gap between the haves and have-nots. Are we going backward, into the Agrarian Age,