Rich Dad, Poor Dad Book Review

Despite the importance of finance, accounting, and consumer intelligence, these topics are typically neglected in high schools. Unfortunately, personal finance is often learned by trial and error. The problem with this method of learning is that it only takes one costly financial mishap to set you back for years. This is why I created a basic personal finance book for total beginners. With these concepts you can use the other books in the Smart Money series to further build your knowledge of personal finance topics.

We live in a culture where success is increasingly defined by a paycheck and is seemingly as important to the parent as the child. Raising children to be “successful” is increasingly becoming an obsession for upper-middle-class-parents, who encourage certain activities and scores to provide their child with the best chances of attending elite schools. The article focuses on the inherent advantage upper-middle-class parents provide but fails to mention those who the parent’s action affects: their children.

The concepts throughout this book are simple but they test self-control and patience, which in our world is uncommon because of the “want it now” attitude. Ramsey talks about how “personal finance is 80 percent behavior and only 20 percent head knowledge” (ix). This main idea is something Ramsey talks about and references throughout the whole book. Another main idea or as Ramsey calls it a “motto” that’s on each page at the bottom is “If you live like no one else, later you can live like no one else” (5). This is the theme that he refers back to on

Daily economic activities have an important influence on personal financial planning. In our society, the forces of supply and demand play an important role in setting prices. Economics is the study of how wealth is created and distributed. By doing my research, I found that each economic situation would affect me at a personal level.

In discussions of whether too many children now days decide to go to college, one controversial issue has been if kids can get equal knowledge in the workplace without the debt. On the one hand, the article “Are Too Many People Going to College?” by Charles Murray, argues that too many kids are going to college who aren’t college material, and are either wasting their time or flunking out. On the other hand Freeman Hrabowski with “Colleges Prepare People for Life” contends by writing about how colleges not only prepare you for your career, but for life. Then there is somewhat of a middle ground with Liz Addison, who believes that two year community college programs are the way to go, because they offer a chance to learn at a level you will understand and maybe enjoy, which lessens the chance of you being a dropout. My own view is that a college degree is needed to get into certain occupations but, many circumstances it would be a waste of money. It all depends on what interests that individual and what they will easily excel at.

Mr. Conley, the man who had given Foster the advice told him that he’d only be able to “get ahead” financially if he’d make money while he slept. Everyone works the typical hours, and get hourly, weekly, or monthly pay, but those hours are limited. It all has a set limit of money which can be given away into forms of a pay check. But investing allows anyone to let their money make its own money. It’s only that many people have troubles investing because they want it all in one short step--which investing surely is not. I know that investing is a long process which builds up over years, so investing now to accumulate more later is

Many people believe that because wealthy citizens have more money they are not paying their fair share in taxes; however, this is quite the opposite. According to an article by Jason Russell, he claims that the top one percent pay

In the book The Wealthy Barber it begins by talking about the thing that he likes to do in his spare time. David then begins to introduce his wife and talks about how they have a baby on the way but he is completely clueless when it comes to managing/saving money. He needs to make himself a smart financial quickly with having a wife and now a baby on the way. David talks continues to talking about how his father was very smart with financial means. His father has never bought anything without saving for it first. The only thing David’s father borrowed money for was to buy a house and he had a 30 year mortgage. He learned to become financially smart from a local barber named Roy. David, his sister Cathy, and his best friend Tom together go visit Roy who promises by the end of seven months all of them will be on the road to success.

Julie Lythcott-Haims explains to us all what a perfect child is; straight A student, fabulous test scores, gets homework done without parents asking them to do it… She has the right idea, the right mindset of a parent, every parent wants their child to succeed in life. The way that parents are parenting their children is messing them up. They don’t have a chance to become themselves, they are too focused on whether they did good on that test that they were stressing about for a week, they are too worried about getting the best grade to be able to get accepted into the biggest name colleges around. The parents become too consumed with hovering over their children making sure that they are doing flawlessly in school, the parents are directing their every single move they make. The children then began to think that their parents love comes from the good grades. Then they start making this checklist; Good grades, what they want to be when they grow up, get accepted into good colleges, great SAT scores, the right GPA, the jock of the sports team.

Bruni quotes the President of the National Center on Education, Marc Tucker, “ Our students have an inflated sense of their academic prowess.They don’t expect to spend much time studying, but they confidently expect good grades and marketable degrees”(par.25). From a young age we need to teach these children you succeed from hard work. Many parents have been exempting their children from test and are expecting them to learn? In order for kids to be able to learn what they need to, parents need to allow them to deal with the difficult times.

How far a student can go in life is already pre-determined by the generation before him. Success is no longer made up of solely intellectual ability, but rather if the streets the student walks through is gang-ridden or not, if their parents are absentees, and other conditions in which the child grows up in. Valerie Strauss expresses these concerns in her article, “What the Numbers Really Tell Us About America’s Public Schools” in which she discusses how income levels correlate with students’ success rate which is further accentuated through Kamiak and Mariner High School’s Standardized Test Results. “Motivation, a Major Factor in U.S. Student Test Performance” by Dian Schaffhauser continues this idea of external problems affecting low scores

The United States is can be considered as a rich country. It is rich in culture, it is rich in individualism, it is rich in productivity, and it is rich in inequality. The “top 1%” is often spoken about in the media and in referred to in the daily lives of Americans. The 1% are usually executives, politicians, doctors, and lawyers. Their average income is about $717,000

Alyssa Battistoni makes some very good points in her article, “The Public Overwhelming Wants It: Why Is Taxing the Rich So Hard?” regarding how the wealthy have a big part in influencing the government and taxes. Her article makes valid points on how we, as citizens, under estimate the political influence of the rich and that we have a hard time understanding the magnitude of the economic inequality and the relationship it has with political power (Battistoni, 720). She states that many of the politicians themselves are in the wealthy category. This article shows the frustration Battistoni feels by the tone and wording she uses to make her examples such as when she states that we are getting caught in a negative feedback cycle as the rich

How do wealthy people succeed? In short, they are programmed for it. My realization is this. Its not your surroundings but what's inside you that causes success. My conclusion is this. Its not the tools, it's the person that determines how successful they will be.

One of the obvious reasons to raise the taxes of the rich would be because they simply earn more. One example is if two people started the year off with fifty thousand but then let us say one had a rich family member that died and they had received millions through a will, then say they received a gift of one billion by the end of the year they pay the same taxes even though one of they are now a billionaire (Cohen). The reason is that the government does not tax on gifts or wills so then they would not have to pay more taxes if they received a gift that had consisted of a large sum of cash (Cohen). Now there is a large chunk of change out of circulation and now the middle/lower