Is this just another book about how to get rich, or is it the book about how to get rich? For starters, it comes from that corner of the American psyche that sees becoming rich as the pinnacle of human achievement.
In Europe we have a sometimes culturally fraught relationship with the idea of being filthy rich. The Catholic Church has warned against (eye of the needle and all that). The aristocracy has sneered at money which was not inherited and socialists and communists have militated against it.
In the US, certainly among the red-blooded capitalists that make up George W. Bush's footsoldiers, making money is a Godgiven right and anybody - Federal taxes, bleeding-heart liberals, the poor - who have a lien on it are the enemy.
Robert T. Kiyosaki, a fourth-generation Japanese-American, comes from that tradition. This is not a polemic on the virtues of the American Dream and how the Democrats/commies sullied it; rather, it is selling itself on the adage that you should make money work for you, rather than the other way around.
Kiyosaki's premise is that most people are governed by fear and ignorance: fear of losing their secure job and steady income and ignorance of how money works.
He boils this down to the idea that most people don't know the difference between a liability and an asset. To illustrate this he points out that most people think that their house is an asset, rather than the ferocious drain (mortgage, insurance, upkeep, taxes) it is on their cashflow. This money would be much better used in investing until one had assets that allowed one to buy the house without having it adversely affect income.
The rich dad/poor dad of the title comes from a lesson he learned from his two dads. His own dad (the poor one) was highly-educated but worked in a state job, could never manage money and thus struggled all his life.
The rich dad (father of his lifelong friend, Mike) was the one who had the most influence on him, when he passed on to a nine-year-old Robert the lesson about making money work for you rather that the other way around.
Mr Kiyosaki retired at the age of 47, so there must be something in what he says.
comidheach@irish-times.ie
