Mar
20
Robert Kiyosaki Bashing…Try It, It’s Fun (and Easy)
March 20, 2007 |
I’ll admit that I enjoyed “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” when I first read it, but man, the more I read of Kiyosaki, the more I can’t help but think he’s a snake oil salesman, at best, and adjacent to a moron, at worst.
His latest article at Yahoo Finance is pretty breathtaking in its complete lack of understanding of some pretty basic principles, with a healthy dose of intentional manipulation of facts and the matk skills of a 5th grader:
The Slow-Motion Stock Market Crash
I mean, sweet Jebus. As pointed out in the comments, not only did he cherry-pick the prices of gold and oil in 1996 at low points to bolster his shaky argument, but he completely cocked up the percent increases. And that’s ignoring the fact that all of that “evidence” is used to support his central premise, that he was correct in 2002 when he predicted a “looming” stock market crash. I always thought “looming” meant, you know, sooner than five or six years, but I guess I’m dumb like that.
Just bad, lazy stuff, all the way around. Perhaps the best part are the comments, as most of his supportive legions can only basically say: “He’s rich, so he’s obviously smarter than all of you people criticizing him.” Umm, okay. Or, as one 5 star rater of the article and Kiyosaki fan so eloquently comments:
“I don’t understund what people, who rates one star, doesn’t understund”
I admit it. I’m guilty. I definitely don’t understund how Kiyosaki can continue to successfully pedlle his snake oil, despite all the glaring evidence that all he really has to offer are parables and vague, amorpohous advice.
Comments
2 Comments so far
You’re a mean lean writing machine. Keep it coming.
My main interest here is your actual experience with the flip, but I like these additional general information articles you throw in.
You’ve probably already seen this, but John T. Reed has done a significant review of Kiyosaki material. It’s probably the closest one can get to an impartial review by an expert, although John T. Reed isn’t completely impartial. He writes, “[Rich Dad Poor Dad] is one of the all-time worst financial books ever written! I was so disturbed by it that I wrote an extensive review of it.” See .
OK, URL didn’t work, but Google “John T. Reed’s analysis of Robert T. Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” :)