Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad poor Dad

[AMFV]

Hypothesis: Teachers can be a source of information on investing

This is true, teachers can hypothetically be a source of information on anything, but if that thing isn't specifically what their job requires them to know then they may or may not. So a history teacher might know about investing, but they might not. I've not personally known any teachers that made what I would consider to be "really good" money, but that's beside the point.

Hypothesis: Teachers are intelligent

Sometimes true, I was definitely brighter than some of my teachers growing up and I am not the most intelligent person in the room. You don't have to be a genius to be a competent teacher, you don't even have to be all that bright. Think of it this way a 9th grade math teacher only ever has to know how to do math at a 9th grade level, so they don't have to be any smarter than the average person (since most people can pass 9th grade math).

Hypothesis: Intelligence is useful in investing

WAY WAY FALSE. Intelligence gets you into a lot of trouble in investing, patience is more useful than intelligence, and the ability to maintain a cool head. Intelligence causes you to try to "time the market" which always screws you over. Instead of just keeping the amount of risk you want and then gradually shifting to less risk as you get older. Intelligence is a problem here, not an asset.

Hypothesis: Teachers are educated

Teachers are educated in general education requirements and in teaching. Neither of which is inherently useful for investment or money management. Unless they did coursework on that specifically, which they may have, but they don't have to have done so. A teacher who has taken no economics classes beyond the required and no math classes beyond the required knows less than any person who has done any research at all. Education is specialized, and teachers do not need that particular kind of specialized knowledge (though they may have it).

Hypothesis: Education is useful in investing

Depends on what kind of education. Lit 242: The History of Poetry in Tolkien's Middle Earth, is not likely to give you any useful financial pointers.

Hypothesis: Cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance is useful in investing

Not really, at least it isn't likely to teach you things that are inherently useful for general investment, since very few people make their money that way. A person whose father runs a multimillion dollar construction company will know how to make money doing that probably. But they might not necessarily know anything more about the stock market than anybody else might. If your family are investment bankers, then that's different, if your family are stock brokers. But that's a really small percentage of people.

Hypothesis: Teachers tend to come from the upper-middle-class and are highly likely to have this cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance . . . and that is useful in investing

Actually people who come from the upper middle class tend to remain in the upper middle class, they don't have information on how to get from the lower class to the upper middle class or from the upper middle class to higher. Generally speaking. The best people to talk to about jumping up a class are people who have done that specific thing, not people who are only maintaining their current financial position.

Hypothesis: Multigenerational wealth is a feedback loop, and is both a cause and an effect.

False, people who are born from money tend to wind up with only what they had to start with, or less. It's rare (although not unheard of) for children of wealth to wind up with substantially more wealth. Although again, there are examples of it happening. But as you point out, people tend to remain in the same economic quintile as their parents. Meaning that it's not a cause and effect, it's only maintaining your starting position.

Hypothesis: The source of the wealth a person has is important if you want to be able to replicate it.

Yes, but that's kind of a pointless and obvious thing to say.

Hypothesis: Free money via compound interest is a great way to invest your way to more money.

Not really, compound interest is generally the lowest amount of money you can get back from an investment and investments that only match compound interest are usually thought of as VERY poor, although they are good because they are low risk, so if you're 55 or 60, you're right, but if you're 30 you should be looking for a much higher ROI than compound interest at least if you want to make real money.

Hypothesis: Saving is more important than what you invest in (but you need to invest, and diversify).

Saving and investing are I would argue not related. Saving is setting up for like a rainy day or an emergency, investment is planning on increasing your overall wealth.

Hypothesis: Do not sell when the market goes down, buy more if possible when the market goes down.

This is true, this is why intelligence and education can hurt you when what you need is a cool head and patience.

They made a documentary about giving a homeless man a $100,000. He bought a ~$60,000 truck, and said "you would think that $100,000 would last forever", or something like that.

A lot (most?) of the folks that are homeless have mental health issues, and likely do not have or care about money skills (enough, as they likely have bigger issues to deal with), so I am not at all surprised at the results.

We aren't talking about a homeless guy though, we're talking about somebody who can make those truck payments. They might be choosing to buy more truck than they need, but they can afford it, the same way as a hypothetical doctor can afford a BMW. And they buy them for largely the same reasons.

I would like to see a documentary about someone giving like ten hard-working lower-class families each a house, and how it would change there lives. More precisely competently or mostly removing housing as a cost, and granting them equity . . . not here is a house you can't afford the taxes on, or something like that.

Right, but we aren't talking about LOWER CLASS working class folks. We're talking pretty much upper middle class, if we're talking a plumber who is clearing 100k a year, that's really unusually high. Even for most plumbers though, they'd probably clear around 60-80k in most places if they're decent and union. I mean prevailing wage for plumbers in PA is like 35 an hour, so supposing no overtime they'd be netting something like 72 a year.

[Xyril]

So we no longer need schools, universities, or training?

The next time you want to rebut somebody's argument, look at what you have typed. Look at what you're writing. Look at the other guy's argument. Ask yourself--honestly--whether the thing you've just stated is in any way at all an accurate reflection of what the other guy just said. Revise your post until the answer is yes.

Nobody is arguing that teachers or schools are useless. Most people are arguing that randomly picking a random primary school teacher and expecting him or her to be particularly good at investing based on your specious reasoning that "1/6 of teachers are millionaires, thus teachers are good at investing" is idiotic. A high school math teacher is a great source of information for learning basic math. A gym teacher is a great source of wisdom on general physical fitness. And if you want to learn about wealth and investing in an academic setting, go to Harvard and take Ec 10. Go to Wharton and take a class with a visiting scholar who actually makes a living investing money. Or if you're just starting out, talk to the AP Economics teacher at your high school.

As others have repeatedly and futilely tried to explain to you, education is specialized, and there's a limit to how much the"intelligence is generalized and helpful for everything" mantra can be applied. You* wouldn't randomly ask a gym teacher to explain differential equations to you. You wouldn't ask the economics professor or the hedge fund manager to teach you how to shoot a crossbow. You would find wisdom from a person who you have a specific reason to believe has specialized knowledge in that field. Maybe you know somebody personally. If not, you buy a book, or go on google, and do what you have to in order to get the wisdom without contacting the person directly, or to identify the person who can help you. Your first solution shouldn't be, "Well, Europeans developed firearms and had them longer than most people. Let's go randomly asking white people to teach me about sport shooting."

*By "you" I mean the hypothetical reasonable person. Obviously, after calling you out for strawman arguments, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to presume to know how you personally would act in those situations.

We no longer need to talk to people with wisdom, we can just read there book? It's not the same thing.

No, the point is that you are repeatedly advocating asking the wrong person with wisdom, for all of the wrong reasons.

Who would do better . . . an Olympic athlete with a coach, or one without?

I don't know, but I would argue that asking either of those hypothetical Olympic athletes, or the hypothetical coach, would all yield much better results than asking a guy who just inherited the Olympic medals that his great grandfather and his great-great grandfather won during the early modern games--which is really not far off than the advice you're being so defensive about.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Is your argument that cultural capital is not a thing? You never learned any wisdom from you grandparents or parents?

I learned nothing from any relatives. I never met one of my grandparents, and actually have no idea what their names would've been. Parenting consisted of saying you're on your own as soon as you're out of high school. Not that that happened, since I was in foster care at 6. And those people considered brokers to be glorified bookies.

How did I learn about investing you ask? I watched a movie called Trading Places and went to the library to try and figure out what they were doing in the third act (quick answer, selling short*).

Is your argument that cultural capital surrounding wealth not a thing? Is holding onto and growing wealth is not a skill then?

Two separate questions there. Getting money, and keeping it. Getting tends to be a lot more like gambling, in that you have a lucky stroke. Your ship full of spices makes it back to port. You make the app that becomes popular instead of the others just like it. You piggyback on someone else's work. What usually happens is that what made you successful once wrecks you later. Your next ship sinks. Your next program sinks into obscurity. You get sued for muddling the product identity. Keeping the wealth going is a different skill set altogether. You bribe politicians to give you a monopoly on the spice trade (East India Company). You arrange for barriers to entry to keep the competition out (Microsoft). You dilute the branding until it's worthless except as a general term (Aspirin, Kleenex, Spandex, X-Ray Machine, almost happened with Xerox). Or you do the simple route and out-source the wealth retention to somebody with that skill set (brokers, estate managers, investment advisors, etc). And these people have no generational pool of experience. They are employed only as long as they turn a profit, and are fired and replaced by someone else when that changes.

Is it your argument that money alone causes the wealthy to be wealthy? If so why do the wealthy hold onto their wealth to a much higher degree than lottery winners?

Most people who make the money will not pass it on. For some, it's because the source of the money will not transfer. For others, it's because they believe others should make their own way. Many investments can't get cashed out or transferred without being savaged by taxes. But for the most part, it comes down that as expensive as living can be, dying is worse.

My goalpost was to point out that teachers are a good source for learning about money skills. Teachers are the exact opposite of a bad source for money skills.

The only money advice remotely worth a damn I ever got from a teacher or professor was that money belongs in a bank. They meant a savings account making a fraction of a percent of interest, but the concept that money just sitting around is money wasted is actually true.

Have you never had a good conversation with a teacher about some idea that holds wisdom? That experience is somehow the same as Google?

Occasionally, but never involving money. Literature, generally.


*The long version is Insider Trading, Market Manipulation, getting everyone at Duke & Duke fired and all assets of said company seized (including the corporate pension fund). It's not for nothing the last scene is set somewhere that translates as "Island Without Extradition".

[Peelee]

Keeping the wealth going is a different skill set altogether..... You dilute the branding until it's worthless except as a general term (Aspirin, Kleenex, Spandex, X-Ray Machine, almost happened with Xerox).

Kleenex is still a brand name and hasn't been genericided, and Kimberly-Clark most likely spends millions every year making sure it stays that way. And genericide is usually not so much a competitor diluting branding so much as it is a brand being the victim of its own success. If Google is genericized, for example, it sure as hell won't be because of anything Yahoo did.

[Saintheart]

On the actual topic of the thread, and only because I haven't seen it referenced thus far, this is an old site breaking down the errors of Kiyosaki's book.

[snowblizz]

Kleenex is still a brand name and hasn't been genericided, and Kimberly-Clark most likely spends millions every year making sure it stays that way. And genericide is usually not so much a competitor diluting branding so much as it is a brand being the victim of its own success. If Google is genericized, for example, it sure as hell won't be because of anything Yahoo did.

But surely if I am using Bing to google things....

On the actual topic of the thread, and only because I haven't seen it referenced thus far, this is an old site breaking down the errors of Kiyosaki's book.

An interesting read. I knew there was a lot of stuff about the Kiyoskai works I didn't like but it's been a long time since I've had contact with it.

[Willie the Duck]

It is proven that teachers tend to come from high SEC families.

It is proven that kids from high SEC families tend to end up in the same quintile as there parents.

It is proven that teachers tend to be a profession that holds a lot of wealth. Look up lists/studies of professions/occupations likely to be a millionaire.

It is proven that other professions with pensions do not end up on these lists.

So basically it is proven that teachers tend to start from money and end with money.

And...?
I'm serious, what next? Let's ignore the huge number of caveats we have to include to call all of these proven (and do not tell us to look up lists/studies, you are the one trying to support an argument, the burden of proof falls on your shoulders), and even how it directly contradicts your previous thread, where your argument was that the primary benefits to financial security of teacherhood where that much of their payout was in differed benefits and stable insurance options, and not learned cultural capital knowledge coming from their pre-existing high SEC background. Let's just assume everything to this point is 100% solid. Now, take this starting point, and get it to "teachers are a good source for learning about money skills." That's all we've asked for and all you can't seem to provide.

What is not proven is why teachers would be wildly different than others who come from their SEC. Why would that notion fit the last point above?

Would they be singled out by the parents and family and not be taught cultural capital surrounding wealth?

What seems to me to be the point of contention is the notion that learning money skills from ones parents and family is a contributing factor.

No. The unproven part is that this translates into the primary reason for teachers to go on to be in a high SEC situation themselves, and that they therefore are a particularly good source of knowledge for others.

[darkrose50]

Thank you for replying, I really appreciate it.

Seriously thank you all for sharing your thoughts. It is really great!

This is true, teachers can hypothetically be a source of information on anything, but if that thing isn't specifically what their job requires them to know then they may or may not. So a history teacher might know about investing, but they might not. I've not personally known any teachers that made what I would consider to be "really good" money, but that's beside the point.

The initial point was a bullet-point asserting that the Rich Dad, Poor Dad author is a con-man. One bullet-point within the argument was that teachers (a) were not a bad source of information on investing, and (b) in fact would be a good source for information on investing.

They have a tendency to come from a family with money, and/or they have a tendency to be millionaires. Now money is good, but money and knowing about money is better. Not everyone from the higher income/wealth quintiles knows about money, but there is a higher likelihood of finding people with cultural capital surrounding money that come from those upper income/wealth quintiles.

I suppose people do not like to think that those born with a silver spoon in their mouth could be good for knowing about silver spoons.

Sometimes true, I was definitely brighter than some of my teachers growing up and I am not the most intelligent person in the room. You don't have to be a genius to be a competent teacher, you don't even have to be all that bright. Think of it this way a 9th grade math teacher only ever has to know how to do math at a 9th grade level, so they don't have to be any smarter than the average person (since most people can pass 9th grade math).

Certainly, you are not of the opinion that teachers just need to know the content, and that teaching itself is not a skill of its own?

In order to get a degree, and pass the tests one needs a certain intelligence level. If we use IQ, then they have above average IQ with evidently an average of ~105-107+.

WAY WAY FALSE. Intelligence gets you into a lot of trouble in investing, patience is more useful than intelligence, and the ability to maintain a cool head. Intelligence causes you to try to "time the market" which always screws you over. Instead of just keeping the amount of risk you want and then gradually shifting to less risk as you get older. Intelligence is a problem here, not an asset.

There are two ideas at work here. Overall patience is more useful than intelligence for the vast majority of people. I think I use patience and intelligence. Never ever sell your S&P 500 after is crashes, just waiting is ALWAYS the way to. We have people who can make money in the market because they are intelligent, or have some sort of intelligence that is useful. Just being able to say I don’t know what to do with my money right now, I’ll just park it in the S&P 500, I think is a very smart move.

I have friends with IQs way higher than mine that are horrible at investing in the stock market (or just with money in general). Intelligence can be useful in investing, depending on the type of intelligence that we are talking about. Also training, practice, and experience just about always beats out intelligence. Give me a 100 IQ surgeon over a 160 IQ non-surgeon any day.

Warren Buffet, said something like “You only need 20 good investments in your life”, and this is the type of wisdom that one can hope to get from a conversation with anyone (even a teacher). I think I am about at ~3 good investments (~4 if we include the S&P 500). That is certainly using patience and intelligence. You cannot just hunt for the investment and always find one. You need to wait for the investment to be noticeable by you. Some people want to pick the best one, based on intelligence, and roll the dice, rather than wait for the best opportunity to present itself, and then go for it.

I have flaws, I have failures, and I have pain, but managing resources, is not one of them (at least not yet). I may be somewhat naturally suited to resource management. I may be somewhat suited in noticing patterns, and sometimes these patterns are profitable. I can pick out things to buy, trade, and sell, and make money (I always have been able to make some money when I need to).

Now with investing I would never claim to be able to pick a high or a low, or be able to time the market, or know all the technical terms for everything. I am not a trained economist. I just notice patterns. I think that trying to time the market is where most people try and fail miserably. I have never failed at making money over all. It could just be luck. I would like to think it was because I was good at resource management and /or noticing general broad patterns and have not attempted to try to pick highs and lows. I am more like a saver than an investor, and I try only to pick out general sectors that I think are politically backed or suit the economy and are likely to be profitable. I have been lucky or right for 3/3 presidents so far, but someone can win three coin-flips in a row. I suppose I will know more with time.

Teachers are educated in general education requirements and in teaching. Neither of which is inherently useful for investment or money management. Unless they did coursework on that specifically, which they may have, but they don't have to have done so. A teacher who has taken no economics classes beyond the required and no math classes beyond the required knows less than any person who has done any research at all. Education is specialized, and teachers do not need that particular kind of specialized knowledge (though they may have it).

Learning about things bleeds over into other things. This is useful in investing. Invest in what you know. What you know does not need to be investing. You can find a friend, hire someone, or just go for it.

If you know stuff or don't know stuff investing in the S&P 500 for ~10-30 years is likely the way to go.

Depends on what kind of education. Lit 242: The History of Poetry in Tolkien's Middle Earth, is not likely to give you any useful financial pointers.

We are talking about over all probability as a group as opposed to the general population.

Teachers have a strong tendency to be born into a family with money, and end up with money. Part of this, perhaps the lions share, is the money, but part of this is the growing up around knowing what to do with that money.

I would call a population with a tendency to start with money and end with money to be a good place to look for wisdom about money.

Not really, at least it isn't likely to teach you things that are inherently useful for general investment, since very few people make their money that way. A person whose father runs a multimillion dollar construction company will know how to make money doing that probably. But they might not necessarily know anything more about the stock market than anybody else might. If your family are investment bankers, then that's different, if your family are stock brokers. But that's a really small percentage of people.

You most certainly learn behaviors, perceptions and understanding about money that is linked to your SEC. We are talking about the probability of this group to have useful information compared to the general population.

Actually people who come from the upper middle class tend to remain in the upper middle class, they don't have information on how to get from the lower class to the upper middle class or from the upper middle class to higher. Generally speaking. The best people to talk to about jumping up a class are people who have done that specific thing, not people who are only maintaining their current financial position.

This is not one or the other. Never ever would I ever go to just one source for information or understanding about anything I consider important. Money should be important, as it fixes and mitigates so very many stressful situations.

False, people who are born from money tend to wind up with only what they had to start with, or less. It's rare (although not unheard of) for children of wealth to wind up with substantially more wealth. Although again, there are examples of it happening. But as you point out, people tend to remain in the same economic quintile as their parents. Meaning that it's not a cause and effect, it's only maintaining your starting position.

Perception and understanding about investing are not at all equal among the quintiles. There is more than one contributing factor to multigenerational wealth. Multigenerational wealth is a complex beast.

I assure you that having the perception that investing is not gambling, seeing how your parents pick out investments via overhearing the process at the dinner table, and being told flat out good investing rules from people who actually invest is a damned useful thing to experience. This is much more commonplace in the upper quintiles.

Now gamblers can use an investment model to gamble. Gamblers definitely take chances and gamble using the stock market. This is not the same thing as investing. Just like professional grandmaster poker players are not really gambling when they consistently and predictably earn a solidly high-paying living playing poker. If anything they are likely the legitimate version of a con-man, and/or entertainment for people with money to burn and want to pay for the experience to play with the most talented.

Yes, but that's kind of a pointless and obvious thing to say.

That was mostly in response to the idea that one should go to the most wealthy person that they know, perhaps exclusively, to learn about wealth and investing.

Not really, compound interest is generally the lowest amount of money you can get back from an investment and investments that only match compound interest are usually thought of as VERY poor, although they are good because they are low risk, so if you're 55 or 60, you're right, but if you're 30 you should be looking for a much higher ROI than compound interest at least if you want to make real money.

Compound interest is the core of investing. You earn a percentage, over a flat amount. Earning ~10% per year in the stock market is compound interest. It is mind-bogglingly powerful.

Saving and investing are I would argue not related. Saving is setting up for like a rainy day or an emergency, investment is planning on increasing your overall wealth.

They are extremely related. You save money in order to invest some and/or most of it. Investments are like a form of savings for the long-term (that usually should be for the long term).

This is true, this is why intelligence and education can hurt you when what you need is a cool head and patience.

A trait can sometimes be detrimental, even when it is mostly beneficial. Overall intelligence and education are import to investing.

We aren't talking about a homeless guy though, we're talking about somebody who can make those truck payments. They might be choosing to buy more truck than they need, but they can afford it, the same way as a hypothetical doctor can afford a BMW. And they buy them for largely the same reasons.

Money skills are learned. People who did not grow up with money did not grow up learning what to do with extra money, and sometimes as a result mismanage their money, or there extra money. Also lacking resources (money) is stressful, and people sometimes do stupid things when stressed.

Right, but we aren't talking about LOWER CLASS working class folks. We're talking pretty much upper middle class, if we're talking a plumber who is clearing 100k a year, that's really unusually high. Even for most plumbers though, they'd probably clear around 60-80k in most places if they're decent and union. I mean prevailing wage for plumbers in PA is like 35 an hour, so supposing no overtime they'd be netting something like 72 a year.

Mostly I would like to see a documentary about hardworking, honest folks, families around the poverty level being helped out by some billionaire with housing, and associated costs. I would wager that their children would greatly benefit.

Nobody is arguing that teachers or schools are useless.

I apologize for going to the extreme.

I am talking about the probability of teachers being useful for investment information verses the probability of the population as a whole.

As others have repeatedly and futilely tried to explain to you, education is specialized . . ..

This seems to be a major contention. Growing up around wealth and investing is a useful cultural experience. It is a factor. One factor. I am not saying that is superior to other factors. I am however saying that cultural capitol surrounding wealth is a factor, and that it is useful.

People seem to think that one can only mention the primary contributing factor for an outcome and/or that there must be only one primary contributing factor for an outcome.

As if somehow when talking about 1+2+3+4+5 = 15 . . . people can only talk about 5 . . . the other numbers do not exists and/or are not important to address, because 5 is there. Someone talks about 1, 2, 3, or 4 . . . and always someone will say that is not true, 5 is true. This confuses and surprises me completely every time.

No, the point is that you are repeatedly advocating asking the wrong person with wisdom, for all of the wrong reasons.

The right reason is the search for better understanding of the topic. I think that we can agree that those who have a large probability to be born in the upper quintiles, and also have a large probability to be millionaires would not be a population to ignore outright about wealth and investing.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Kleenex is still a brand name and hasn't been genericided, and Kimberly-Clark most likely spends millions every year making sure it stays that way. And genericide is usually not so much a competitor diluting branding so much as it is a brand being the victim of its own success. If Google is genericized, for example, it sure as hell won't be because of anything Yahoo did.

Kleenex has been genericided to the point you can tell someone to get you a Kleenex and they get you any facial tissue handy. The brand name is more about market share now, and is losing to generic/store brands. You're forgetting that this is more about culture than legality. Or for one from your neck of the woods, Coke being any carbonated beverage.

Certainly, you are not of the opinion that teachers just need to know the content, and that teaching itself is not a skill of its own?

In order to get a degree, and pass the tests one needs a certain intelligence level. If we use IQ, then they have above average IQ with evidently an average of ~105-107+.

Teachers do not need to know the subject. They get a BSEd (Bachelors of Science in Education, for non-USAians, a four year degree), and a subject endorsement that consists of 3-4 freshman level courses (for social studies, that would be US History I & II and any other history course, with Western Civ I being strongly encouraged). That is it.

And surprise surprise surprise, teachers do slightly better than average on a test that only measures how well you do on taking tests.

[Peelee]

Kleenex has been genericided to the point you can tell someone to get you a Kleenex and they get you any facial tissue handy. The brand name is more about market share now, and is losing to generic/store brands. You're forgetting that this is more about culture than legality. Or for one from your neck of the woods, Coke being any carbonated beverage.

If Kleenex is still a privately owned brand name, then the rivals don't want you saying it either, because you're already pre-disposed towards it. Until it's legally genericized, it's bad for business.

Also, coke is any carbonated beverage but Coke is a Southern staple. This clearly makes perfect sense and is not confusing at all.

[Keltest]

If Kleenex is still a privately owned brand name, then the rivals don't want you saying it either, because you're already pre-disposed towards it. Until it's legally genericized, it's bad for business.

Also, coke is any carbonated beverage but Coke is a Southern staple. This clearly makes perfect sense and is not confusing at all.

As long as you don't call it Pop, that's fine.

But what do you do if you actually want a Coke, and not just a coke? Do southerners have a way to pronounce capital Cs?

[darkrose50]

Teachers do not need to know the subject. They get a BSEd (Bachelors of Science in Education, for non-USAians, a four year degree), and a subject endorsement that consists of 3-4 freshman level courses (for social studies, that would be US History I & II and any other history course, with Western Civ I being strongly encouraged). That is it.

Yes technically all you need to be a teacher is a degree and a license. There is however tight competition for some positions. For example in order to get a history position, you also often need to be a coach of some sport. Getting any job with a degree in English, where you use your degree to do English things, seems to be difficult. I would imagine that for those positions there is tight competition among people.

Now if you had a math degree and a teaching degree . . . I bet you could find a job with the snap of you fingers. A good one too, in a good school district, with good pay.

We are also coming up on, and evidently are in, a teacher shortage. I am sure that the lower paying schools, or schools in higher crime areas will have a difficult time finding teachers.

Just about everyone wants to work in a low-crime rich area that pays a lot of money. Those places will likely still get the best of the best.

And surprise surprise surprise, teachers do slightly better than average on a test that only measures how well you do on taking tests.

Well yeah. Also they likely did well in school, and test taking is important in school as well.

When they first came out with personality tests they would fire the people with the "wrong" personality for a job. When downsizing they would just use those tests. I would likely have gotten fired for not scoring as extraverted enough (sales).

IQ is an intelligence test, for a kind of intelligence, but IQ is not intelligence. Now IQ is literally interchangeable with intelligence in many papers about the subject, but I do not think that is the correct way to look at it.

As long as you don't call it Pop, that's fine.

But what do you do if you actually want a Coke, and not just a coke? Do southerners have a way to pronounce capital Cs?

That is funny. In Chicago they often call soda pop . . . pop. In some places they call it soda (folks in Chicago would know what you were talking about and this term is also used). If I asked for a Coke, then I would not be asked what kind of beverage that I wanted . . . I would get a Coca Cola. They might ask me if I want diet or not.

[Rogar Demonblud]

For example in order to get a history position, you also often need to be a coach of some sport.

Other way around. Schools aren't allowed to just have a coach, so they have to pretend to teach something between practices and games. Which tends to liberal arts type stuff like social studies and English. Which helps explain how we have people who can't communicate well and don't know how their own government functions.

Really, they seem to be working towards reducing 'teachers' to the biological equivalent of a computer terminal that just relays what somebody else decided should be the lesson. One of the reasons people aren't going into the field. Another being that you can't pay off your student loans on a teacher's pay if you want to eat as well. Hence also the prevalence of second and third jobs. Teachers have been part of the gig economy for a generation at least.

[Keltest]

Other way around. Schools aren't allowed to just have a coach, so they have to pretend to teach something between practices and games. Which tends to liberal arts type stuff like social studies and English. Which helps explain how we have people who can't communicate well and don't know how their own government functions.

Really, they seem to be working towards reducing 'teachers' to the biological equivalent of a computer terminal that just relays what somebody else decided should be the lesson. One of the reasons people aren't going into the field. Another being that you can't pay off your student loans on a teacher's pay if you want to eat as well. Hence also the prevalence of second and third jobs. Teachers have been part of the gig economy for a generation at least.

Its also one of the reasons why teachers seem wealthier than they are. Its not that teaching makes you wealthy, its that you need to be wealthy in order to live with just a teacher's pay. Their wealth is, by and large, an enabler for them teaching rather than the result of it.

Which is, again, the point. If you want to learn about wealth, select for something that actually has a trend of producing wealthy people, not ones that coincidentally overlap with them a little bit.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

But what do you do if you actually want a Coke, and not just a coke? Do southerners have a way to pronounce capital Cs?

I have had a certain amount of luck with the full name of the drink: "Coke-not-pepsi, please". Although these days it's more "Coke" "It's Pepsi Ok?" "No, it is not. The pepsi sprite, please"

Grey Wolf

[Keltest]

I have had a certain amount of luck with the full name of the drink: "Coke-not-pepsi, please". Although these days it's more "Coke" "It's Pepsi Ok?" "No, it is not. The pepsi sprite, please"

Grey Wolf

I find Sierra Mist to be kind of gross actually. The balance of lemon and lime is off for my tastes. If they have pepsi products, I generally get a Mountain Dew unless its late in the evening, in which case I get water or some other non-soda drink.

[Peelee]

As long as you don't call it Pop, that's fine.

But what do you do if you actually want a Coke, and not just a coke? Do southerners have a way to pronounce capital Cs?

It is both simpler and more convoluted than you might think.

"hey can you get me a coke?"
If all that is around is Coke: "Sure."
If there are options: "sure, what kind?"

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It is both simpler and more convoluted than you might think.

"hey can you get me a coke?"
If all that is around is Coke: "Sure."

... And then they bring you a pepsi. Or, from what I recall of being in that general area of the US, a "Doctor Pepper"(sp?) which was even more bizarrely divorced from coke than even pepsi is, and yet they serve it as if it were interchangeable. Like if you ask for whiskey, and they served you a rum because they're both distilled.

Grey Wolf

[darkrose50]

Other way around. Schools aren't allowed to just have a coach, so they have to pretend to teach something between practices and games. Which tends to liberal arts type stuff like social studies and English. Which helps explain how we have people who can't communicate well and don't know how their own government functions.

Really, they seem to be working towards reducing 'teachers' to the biological equivalent of a computer terminal that just relays what somebody else decided should be the lesson. One of the reasons people aren't going into the field. Another being that you can't pay off your student loans on a teacher's pay if you want to eat as well. Hence also the prevalence of second and third jobs. Teachers have been part of the gig economy for a generation at least.

Depending on the school this could be more or less common. Some schools have really good curriculums and staff. Supply and demand and all that. The rich areas can afford to attract and hire the teachers with the best credentials.

One of the reasons why I moved to where I am is that the high school is really highly rated, and is located in a rich area (I live in a middle class-ish area, and three towns feed the school). Good school scores, highly paid teachers, highly educated/qualified teachers, lots of activities, low-crime, lots of funding, interactions with the upper-class (hopefully positive), and whatnot are some of the advantages.

Now it might not even matter what schools I send my kids to, or it might just matter a little-bit. According to one study I remember the number of books in the home was a determining factor of success in school. According to other studies it just does not matter that much, if at all. Then again it might matter some of the time. It might be especially helpful for my one daughter who likely has high functioning autism to have the (what I expecting to be a higher level of) support that this sort of school can provide.

... And then they bring you a pepsi. Or, from what I recall of being in that general area of the US, a "Doctor Pepper"(sp?) which was even more bizarrely divorced from coke than even pepsi is, and yet they serve it as if it were interchangeable. Like if you ask for whiskey, and they served you a rum because they're both distilled.

Grey Wolf

Doctor Pepper is an uncommon/rare soda that has its own taste and/or is supposed to taste like liquorish. It is popular enough to be a thing, but is never really at any party.

This soda pop talk reminds me of a my wife's / first-child's baby-shower where the person tasked to bring soda pop brought "both kinds of pop: Coke and Pepsi". This is an inside joke to this day.

[Peelee]

... And then they bring you a pepsi. Or, from what I recall of being in that general area of the US, a "Doctor Pepper"(sp?) which was even more bizarrely divorced from coke than even pepsi is, and yet they serve it as if it were interchangeable. Like if you ask for whiskey, and they served you a rum because they're both distilled.

Grey Wolf

I'm talking about social gatherings, so yeah, they're more or less interchangeable (though pepsi is significantly less popular). Dr. Pepper is not, though; it doesn't try to be the same and I've never met anyone who treats it interchangeably (even among the people who drink it exclusively, they'll always let you know it's not coke).

[darkrose50]

I'm talking about social gatherings, so yeah, they're more or less interchangeable (though pepsi is significantly less popular). Dr. Pepper is not, though; it doesn't try to be the same and I've never met anyone who treats it interchangeably (even among the people who drink it exclusively, they'll always let you know it's not coke).

Cola by me usually means Coca-Cola -> Pepsi-Cola -> RC-Cola -> some store brand cola. Of the colas I think that I prefer RC.

Now if you ever go to a Coca-Cola place (as in the company) where they have different drinks to try, then definitely try Coca Cola's "Beverly" as it tastes like a combination of aspirin and despair. I seriously think it is a joke flavor, and cannot seem to find out where to order some from.

[Alabenson]

As a financial adviser who actually works with a large number of teachers, I can attest to the fact that the majority of teachers are an absolutely horrible source of investing advice. Not only do teachers generally not know any more about investing than anyone else (which includes being prone to the same idiotic investing mistakes that the rest of the population makes), but every time I speak with a teacher who's received advice from a colleague said advice is inevitably terrible.

Regarding the subject of the OP, I can honestly say I would put Mr. Kiyosaki's "advice" as being a half-step above the ramblings of a mentally disturbed homeless person.

[lio45]

Thank you for replying, I really appreciate it.

Seriously thank you all for sharing your thoughts. It is really great!

The initial point was a bullet-point asserting that the Rich Dad, Poor Dad author is a con-man. One bullet-point within the argument was that teachers (a) were not a bad source of information on investing, and (b) in fact would be a good source for information on investing.

Of course he's a con-man, nonetheless, he's still correct on a few things, among others, that one.

This thread made me look up a book that I read before Rich Dad Poor Dad... it's THE one that boosted my interest in real estate, and then the person who had lent me that first book lent me Kiyosaki's book, which I read and from what I recall, found somewhat inferior. At that point in time, I was still in uni (working on a M.Sc. in theoretical physics, so I'm clearly not stupid, and able to view both these "guru-books" with a critical eye)... but 1.5 year later, I had acquired my first building (a decrepit downtown 4-story boarding house from the Victorian era, sold by an archetypal "don't-wanter", which incidentally was a major concept in the book I'm talking about).

A good chunk of the book is available online for free, so reading it yesterday evening brought me back 15 years in the past! Just for that, I'm glad for this thread. Thanks!

The guy is also a "guru", yet... there's some sound advice in there. I applied it and I made it, so, that's pretty telling.

However, it's definitely not as easy as some of these gurus like to make it sound.

That book BTW is "Nothing Down for the '90s" by Robert G. Allen. Yes, it's pretty dated by now. And he's a bit too generally bullish on all real estate - if cap rates make no sense (i.e. pre Sunbelt bubble bursting, or Vancouver recently) then that's a red flag, while he from what I recall just recommends to buy, anywhere, anytime, and wait, can't go anywhere but up.

If I had to recommend something to anyone interested in real estate, it would be to read that book, then go chat with someone who's been in real estate successfully for a while AND discuss everything you "learned" from that semi-conman-guru-who's-not-that-wrong-on-the-basics. I'd happily do anyone the favor of providing the appropriate "toning down" of what Mr Allen says.

[darkrose50]

As a financial adviser who actually works with a large number of teachers, I can attest to the fact that the majority of teachers are an absolutely horrible source of investing advice. Not only do teachers generally not know any more about investing than anyone else (which includes being prone to the same idiotic investing mistakes that the rest of the population makes), but every time I speak with a teacher who's received advice from a colleague said advice is inevitably terrible.

Regarding the subject of the OP, I can honestly say I would put Mr. Kiyosaki's "advice" as being a half-step above the ramblings of a mentally disturbed homeless person.

Fair enough.

Some of the best advice I that have ever been given about investing came from teachers. I have had some really bad teachers and some really good teachers. Some I would not even trust to feed my goldfish, but some were quite impressive, and some were downright geniuses.

My High School dean was in charge of the school district's investing portfolio and evidently was some kind of investing wizard.

I don't know even ~5 over my school-years is still enough not to rule them out as a source of advice.

[darkrose50]

If I had to recommend something to anyone interested in real estate, it would be to read that book, then go chat with someone who's been in real estate successfully for a while AND discuss everything you "learned" from that semi-conman-guru-who's-not-that-wrong-on-the-basics. I'd happily do anyone the favor of providing the appropriate "toning down" of what Mr Allen says.

We are thinking about keeping our house, renting it, and buying another house. I could use information.

[lio45]

The right reason is the search for better understanding of the topic. I think that we can agree that those who have a large probability to be born in the upper quintiles, and also have a large probability to be millionaires would not be a population to ignore outright about wealth and investing.

Just to be clear, this "population not to ignore outright about wealth and investing on the basis that ~15% of them are millionaires" that you're talking about here is "white people", right?

[Peelee]

Cola by me usually means Coca-Cola -> Pepsi-Cola -> RC-Cola -> some store brand cola. Of the colas I think that I prefer RC.

Now if you ever go to a Coca-Cola place (as in the company) where they have different drinks to try, then definitely try Coca Cola's "Beverly" as it tastes like a combination of aspirin and despair. I seriously think it is a joke flavor, and cannot seem to find out where to order some from.

Have you tried ordering it from Italy? Because it's an Italian flavor. The World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, at the very least, lets you know the origin country of every flavor they offer for testing.

[darkrose50]

I find Sierra Mist to be kind of gross actually. The balance of lemon and lime is off for my tastes. If they have pepsi products, I generally get a Mountain Dew unless its late in the evening, in which case I get water or some other non-soda drink.

Awwwww I LOVE handing them to people and say "I MIST you".

My favorite pizza place has Sierra Mist or Pepsi Cola 6-pack that comes with my pizza. I am not a cola drinker, so I pick not-cola every time. Mostly I think I don't like the ones with caffeine, not sure how I could taste it, but just about exclusively all the soda-pop I like is caffeine-free. I like root beer and some of those have caffeine.

Have you tried ordering it from Italy? Because it's an Italian flavor. The World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, at the very least, lets you know the origin country of every flavor they offer for testing.

That is what they say, but I cannot seem to find one to order. I want to give it to people to taste it! It is really super bad.

Just to be clear, this "population not to ignore outright about wealth and investing on the basis that ~15% of them are millionaires" that you're talking about here is "white people", right?

~5.8% of the population as a whole. 1/7 white families. So pretty damned near close to 1/6. It is interesting that teaching seems to pull heavily from this quintile and/or quintile-adjacent.

[Peelee]

I want to give it to people to taste it! It is really super bad.

...this makes me distrust your advice on investing even more!

[Keltest]

An amusing anecdote from one of my German teachers is that Mist translates as "dung" or "poop" in some dialects. Allegedly, they don't sell it as Sierra Mist in Germany.