This best-selling personal finance author of 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' Robert Kiyosaki, says he’s racked up more than $1 billion in debt

Honestly if you're a billion in debt, you're fucking baller mate

If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.

-- J. Paul Getty
I couldn’t go that hard if I tried.
If you owe the bank a thousand dollars you have a problem. If you owe the bank a billion dollars the bank has a problem.

He’s told his followers that “cash is trash” and that he doesn’t trust the U.S. dollar, calling it “fake.” Instead, he’s recommended investing in assets like precious metals, bitcoin or Wagyu cattle

Hah

Maybe he's just doing research for his hit sequel: "Rich dad, 1 billion dollar in debt dad"

Kiyosaki has continued to espouse those financial views (and has explored extreme political perspectives, including adopting right-wing-media talking points in his call for the impeachment of President Joe Biden).

Not all morons support the baseless impeachment, but rich people who support the baseless impeachment are all morons.

And they never want to impeach him for the right reasons, like going around Congress to send weapons to an ally committing a genocide.
- Committing genocide would be the reason conservatives vote for a candidate, not impeach a candidate.
- Yeah, still not even remotely impeachable, and would be an incredibly bad reason too. They could, you know, just use their powers to pass a law and stop him.

If Books Could Kill had a brutal episode on this chucklehead: https://podtail.com/en/podcast/if-books-could-kill/rich-dad-poor-dad/

All he knows how to do is pedal-to-the-metal on scams. It’ll catch up with him eventually, but too late for all the people he’s hurt along the way.

Great to see some love for If Books Could Kill!

Just wish they could pump out a bit more content :P
Just finished listening to the podcast! Many thanks for the recommendation!!!

Sounds like president material to me

It makes him smart
"the greatest president in American history, no president has been greater than him"

Permanently Deleted

Sooo… poor dad.

No, just leverages the crap out of debt, like most wealthy people.

So the title was more autobiographical than we knew- he gets rich and then becomes poor.

So does that make him rich or poor?

So.. is he the rich dad or the poor one?

Yes
Both, the title of his book is his situation, first he's rich dad, then he become poor dad.

Being able to leverage massive debt is squarely a rich dad thing

I've read his book a few years ago, and he was pretty bullish on risky investments, so...

Yeehaww it's bankruptcy court for me!

I wonder if he has assets the bank could seize? If they gave him loans without collateral, then they are idiots.

banks don't offer a billion in loans without collateral.

even with the NY trump fraud case... the core of the problem is that his collateral was over valued and inflated. there are definitely assets the bank will be seizing. they may or may not be way over inflated because this dude is a grifter, but details.

He blatantly said in an interview, proud at that too, that he doesn't pay tax and everyone should avoid paying too.

Kiyosaki’s investment strategy is multifaceted. He is known for his stance against fiat money, labeling it in derogatory terms and instead advocating for investment in what he calls “real assets” like Bitcoin, silver, gold and Wagyu cattle. Bitcoin, in particular, is a favorite of his, perceived as a hedge against the deteriorating value of the U.S. dollar. Kiyosaki views gold, another key component of his portfolio, as more stable and reliable than cash, which he calls “trash" because he just doesn't "trust the frickin' dollar." He has expressed a willingness to increase his gold holdings even if prices drop significantly

Via https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rich-dad-poor-dads-robert-193714809.html

what's hilarious, is that BTC is only worth something because people pay fiat for it.
- Everything is only worth something because people pay fiat for it. But the value of many things increases over time, whereas fiat decreases. This isn't revolutionary stuff, this is basic rich people economics. Assets grow, cash shrinks.
- People have bought goods like pizza with BTC before. Not to mention so many drugs (but a lot less drugs than bought with $)
  
  So this isn't really true, it's more true that USD is only worth something because people trust the US government not to fail tomorrow.
That's all ridiculous but if the price of gold tanks that's kind of the right time to buy it if you have the opportunity.
Yet the dollar is strong...
- I lost 25% of the value of my cash in just a few years, it's only strong in relation to the yuan, euro and pound
  
  It's weak in relation to gold and stock shares

So he finally chose one, huh? Why did he pick poor dad though?

Does any one know what the book says?

Yes, it says, 'don't buy depreciating assets' and 'buy things that appreciate in value, opposed to blowing all your money on consumer items.'

If that sounds like advice you've heard before from many other places, it's because it's not new, it was just wrapped in a good title. It's astonishing how much a book with a good title can sell if it lands just right.
- because it’s not new, it was just wrapped in a good title. It’s astonishing how much a book with a good title can sell if it lands just right.
  
  (Relatively) benign example: Mark Manson's "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck". Basically a summary of the greats of philosophy and psychology, age old but often solid advice, brings nothing new to the table, but repackaged as a blunt chat with your bro / self-help book so it's quite accessible. Padded out and repeats itself like most self-help books because $$$, sometimes contradicts himself, 8 million copies sold.
  
  Bad example: Peterson's "12 Rules for Life". Same as above, but overly wordy because the author's vain, includes stuff like long discredited Jungian crap and religious nonsense, more egregious elementary mistakes, and mixed with his own stupid political opinions. Part of the alt-right pipeline. 10 million copies sold.
  
  Honestly, I think schools should force kids to read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and have a discussion on that.
  
  Or maybe I should rewrite Meditations, title it "The 13 Rules of a Roman Emperor: How to Stop Giving a Shit and Live a Fucking Good Life." Adjust the vocab to that of a 13 year old and perhaps have a picture of Marco Aurelius chopping someone's head off on the cover.
  
  Should probably write it under a pen name too. Lance Powercock, John Steel, Max Iron, Peter Powers, something like that.
  
  e: Dick Hardy, Hank Killjoy, Vance Strongfist, Sebastian Steelsword, Roger T. Ripper, ...
Years ago, I read it up until the point that he described his "wallet" endeavor.

He decided he was going to sell shitty velcro wallets. So he got some factory in SE Asia or China proper to manufacture them for pennies, and he sold them for dollars. As I recall, he was proud of how low paid the labor was.

So just like every other cockhole who thinks they're "self made," he started with money, used that money to exploit far away people with less power than him, and sold a product that nobody needs to people who could have spent their dollars on something more useful.

Of course, whatever substantial money he ever made was from the book. Just another scammer.
- So he got some factory in SE Asia or China proper to manufacture them for pennies, and he sold them for dollars. As I recall, he was proud of how low paid the labor was.
  
  So just like every other cockhole who thinks they’re “self made,” he started with money, used that money to exploit far away people with less power than him, and sold a product that nobody needs to people who could have spent their dollars on something more useful.
  
  First of all, the people who bought his wallets thought the wallets were useful. Maybe you would have spent the money differently, but people are free to spend their own money how they want. They decided they did need a new wallet, and his was available at a price they thought was fair.
  
  As for the people making the wallets, it may be hard to believe, but it could be that working in a factory making wallets was a major improvement to their lives. A few years ago, Planet Money did an episode where they talked to a couple of women working in a T-shirt factory in Bangladesh, making $3 a day. For them it's a step up from the lives they would otherwise have led. They came from a village where they lived in a hut with a dirt floor and were often on the verge of starvation:
  
  When Shumi and Minu were growing up, sometimes there wasn't enough food to eat. They had three younger sisters who all died before they were 7. Now, Shumi and Minu are able to send money home. It isn't much, but it makes a big difference in the village.
  
  The differences in their lives are largely due to being able to work in the garment factory. It arrived a bit too late for Minu who was married off to someone who was effectively a bum. Her younger sister Shumi got to avoid being married off and lives a life of relative freedom:
  
  Minu's father married her off when she was a teenager, following the local tradition. An unmarried daughter "becomes a big burden," her father told us. "I have to spend money on their food and lodging."
  
  But, her sister was young enough to have other options:
  
  Rather than get married off, Shumi dropped out of school to go work with her sister in a factory.
  
  Shumi's personal life is nothing like Minu's. Shumi has her own savings account. She has a boyfriend. Back in the village, her family would never let her talk to a boy who wasn't a relative. But here on her own, she takes rickshaw rides with her boyfriend. They hold hands; he tells her he loves her.
  
  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure working in a garment factory in Bangladesh is a brutal job. It's a job no Westerner would be willing to do, even at the Western minimum wage(s). But, for some people, life before those jobs was even more bleak.
  
  And, even better, sometimes the money flowing into a country doing things like garment work enables the country to improve its education system and emerge from poverty. Many of the countries that used to be used for garment manufacturing are no longer viable because the minimum wage workers will accept has gone up so much that it's no longer profitable to make the garments there. That's a great thing, it means their economies are so strong that they've moved on to better things.
  
  The prime example of that is Taiwan, which was a garment manufacturing hub starting in the late 60s, but today is the world's source for computer chips. That wasn't the result of benevolent moves by corporations or rich Westerners to build up Taiwan. It was just that labour costs in Taiwan were initially low enough that they were a good source for low-skill labour. That meant money flowed into the island. It was invested in smart ways, and today it's a country with a very high quality of life.
  
  There are a lot of problems with capitalism, but it tends to move money from rich areas to poor areas. And, many of the systems that were in place before capitalism resulted in much worse lives for the least powerful.