Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad poor Dad

[lio45]

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

First few questions for you then... (answer honestly, even if it's mostly "no" it doesn't mean nothing can be done, just that the path and strategies will be different)

1) Are you reasonably handy?
2) Do you have free time?

(implied 2.5) Are you willing to get your hands dirty, and put some of your own blood sweat and tears into your properties?)

3) Do you have some readily usable capital of your own to invest, and if so, rough figure?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

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.

I can't say how accurate the "mist in German" actually is, but I'd be suspicious of "they don't sell it" - I'd expect it'd be sold under a different name instead: Toyota Pajero was renamed Montero in Spanish speaking countries because of a similar issue (although don't believe every variation of this - nova does not get read as "doesn't go" in Spanish, since you'd need a space between "no" and "va").

I once met a Spanish guy who had a Pajero (purchased in a non-Spanish country), and he derided a great deal of amusement from the name of his car.

Grey Wolf

[darkrose50]

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.

Ginger ale, or root beer are my favorites, and 7up, or Sprite are my second-string.

I would never buy Sierra Mist on purpose, but it comes as part of my bread-bowl of cheese! Seriously thin crust is the most common pizza in the Chicago area, but this place has a stuffed pizza that is likely 1.5" high of cheese. It is like eating a wad of baked cheese (different kind of cheeses, some tomato sauce, and I imagine some oil).

[lio45]

I can't say how accurate the "mist in German" actually is, but I'd be suspicious of "they don't sell it" - I'd expect it'd be sold under a different name instead: Toyota Pajero was renamed Montero in Spanish speaking countries because of a similar issue (although don't believe every variation of this - nova does not get read as "doesn't go" in Spanish, since you'd need a space between "no" and "va").

I once met a Spanish guy who had a Pajero (purchased in a non-Spanish country), and he derided a great deal of amusement from the name of his car.

Grey Wolf

Ever since I learned what "lemon" was in Dutch, I've been amazed that no one thought of selling that brand of cars under a different name there (as well as in Flanders).

[Keltest]

I can't say how accurate the "mist in German" actually is, but I'd be suspicious of "they don't sell it" - I'd expect it'd be sold under a different name instead: Toyota Pajero was renamed Montero in Spanish speaking countries because of a similar issue (although don't believe every variation of this - nova does not get read as "doesn't go" in Spanish, since you'd need a space between "no" and "va").

I once met a Spanish guy who had a Pajero (purchased in a non-Spanish country), and he derided a great deal of amusement from the name of his car.

Grey Wolf

… yes, that's what I said. They don't sell it as Sierra Mist.

[lio45]

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

I had read that very fast the first time and figured the other way around (that you were looking into buying a new property to use as a rental)... but this isn't the same thing.

The good news for you is, that's the simplest, easiest, and safest move you can do to get your first taste of real estate.

I'm assuming you would be able to acquire your new house without absolutely needing to sell the one you live in first (and/or "at the same time")? That's not everyone's case.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

… yes, that's what I said. They don't sell it as Sierra Mist.

My apologies, I misread/mis-parsed the sentence.

GW

[Xyril]

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.

Sure, what you say makes sense. The problem is, to get from your premise to your conclusion, you need not only the semi-reasonable hypotheses you presented, but also a lot of implicit assumptions that are far less reasonable, as others have pointed out.

You haven't actually demonstrated that having wealth has a significant correlation to having inherited it, particularly among teachers, since other posters have mentioned the pension plans as a more compelling, alternative explanation for the 1/6 = millionaires count. You haven't demonstrated that inheriting wealth correlates to picking up financial skills, especially in light of varying counterpoints that you never really addressed. You haven't demonstrated

You see, your math makes sense if everything is an independent variable: If dogs are 5% more likely than other animals to have wealth, and animals who have wealth are 5% more likely than random animals to have wealthy parents, animals with wealthy parents are 5% more likely than random animals to have learned financial skills, and dogs are 5% more likely than other animals to go into teaching, then that might add up to a slight correlation between teaching and financial skills. (Perhaps not a correlation that is in any practical way useful, but a correlation nonetheless.) The problem is, with humans subgroups, few variables are entirely independent. What if you break down breeds and discover that poodles account for 80% of wealthy dogs, while St. Bernards comprise the majority of dogs in teaching? This pretty much washes out your expected correlation. Worse, what if the reason so many St. Bernards go into teaching is a history of institutionalized discrimination, resulting in much lower inherited wealth and few private sector opportunities for college-educated St. Bernards.

Side note: In fact, I have seen it argued that one reason public education used to be much better was gender discrimination. Due to a lack of other opportunities for intelligent, college-educated women, many of them went into teaching, resulting in public schools being able to attract far greater numbers of highly qualified and highly motivated teachers than they really should have in a less distorted free market.

*and when I say demonstrate, I don't mean a particularly high standard of proof--even articulating some sort of plausible causal connection would be a start.

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.

No, they don't. However, people do seem to take issue with someone pushing so hard to present what is--at best--a tertiary contributing factor as the one we should be focusing on.

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.

Except we're not talking about 1+2+3+4+5... what we're talking about is more a+2b+3c^2+4c+5d=X. Yes, technically the value of a is contributing to that sum, and on an existential, moral, and philosophical level a absolutely matters just as much as anything else. However, as a practical matter, the question is whether it is useful to start making assumptions based on a as the primary factor. I contend that it's really not, particularly when those other factors are both disproportionately impactful on the thing you care about and equally identifiable.

Strictly speaking, it makes sense to target certain groups for police enforcement due to statistical correlations to higher rates of conviction. However, if someone on the internet starts arguing passionately for the importance of that sort of policing, while conspicuously ignoring the guy who keeps saying, "Well, there's a roughly equal correlation with this other arbitrary group, so why not target them as well?" then people might start taking issue. Or, at the very least, people will start arguing that we should focus on more important factors, (stuff like "was convicting eight times already for committing very similar crimes" or "looks just like the guy who was running away from the bank carrying a sack with a dollar sign on it") before devoting too much attention to much more tenuous links.

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.

Are we back on strawman arguments? I think with the exception of a few very specific demographics, (i.e., the "convicted and serving time for securities fraud" demographic and the "my religion considers the accumulation of wealth to be a mortal sin" demographic), nobody here would argue that any broad demographic should be dismissed out of hand as a source of wisdom on any subject.

I'll be honest, I am trying my hardest to give your arguments a fair shake on your own merit, but I am not sure how much I am succeeding, because it seems like every time you feel like you might be losing ground, you resort to this mix of strawmanning/appeal to emotion/appeal to outrage where you basically accuse everyone of being dismissive to teachers/the profession of teaching/schools/the whole institution of higher education. And that just annoys the hell out of me, because it seems like a good chunk of people here have been pretty explicit about their respect for teachers--they just don't agree with you that teachers are as a whole also notably good at this one particular area of expertise.

[lio45]

Are we back on strawman arguments? I think with the exception of a few very specific demographics, (i.e., the "convicted and serving time for securities fraud" demographic and the "my religion considers the accumulation of wealth to be a mortal sin" demographic), nobody here would argue that any broad demographic should be dismissed out of hand as a source of wisdom on any subject.

In fact, I'd even say the former demographic would be a good source (especially compared to a random teacher or random white person) as they would have a lot to say on grey areas - which tempting, lucrative, possibly-defensible (or not) moves can probably pass and which ones are just too much.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Or at least tell you what not to do, which is also good advice.

And I didn't know that about a home library. Explains why my kids do so well, we must have at least one of everything ever published.

[Peelee]

I can't say how accurate the "mist in German" actually is, but I'd be suspicious of "they don't sell it" - I'd expect it'd be sold under a different name instead: Toyota Pajero was renamed Montero in Spanish speaking countries because of a similar issue (although don't believe every variation of this - nova does not get read as "doesn't go" in Spanish, since you'd need a space between "no" and "va").

I once met a Spanish guy who had a Pajero (purchased in a non-Spanish country), and he derided a great deal of amusement from the name of his car.

Grey Wolf

Google translate failed me horribly, and a broader google search gave several definitions. I chose to go with the most risque for my own personal amusement.

Ginger ale, or root beer are my favorites

Oh you can't just leave it at that! Canada Dry and Verners, for example, are very different ginger ales, and Buffalo Rock is some horrid swill somehow able to legally sell under the name "ginger ale" despite being some form of industrial waste.

[darkrose50]

I had read that very fast the first time and figured the other way around (that you were looking into buying a new property to use as a rental)... but this isn't the same thing.

The good news for you is, that's the simplest, easiest, and safest move you can do to get your first taste of real estate.

I'm assuming you would be able to acquire your new house without absolutely needing to sell the one you live in first (and/or "at the same time")? That's not everyone's case.

We were pre-approved for enough to buy a slightly bigger house (we are aiming for +1 bathroom, +1 bedroom, +1 dining room), and keep the old one. It seems like a good way to make some extra money, and get someone else to pay for the house. It could be a good gig.

Everyone keeps telling me that people I will rent to are going to blow up the house, but I hope that they have some sort of insurance for that.

[Willie the Duck]

Everyone keeps telling me that people I will rent to are going to blow up the house, but I hope that they have some sort of insurance for that.

Umbrella policies is the term you are looking for.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Google translate failed me horribly, and a broader google search gave several definitions. I chose to go with the most risque for my own personal amusement.

It is absolutely the masturbation related one. I’d use the English equivalent word but 1) the board filter would probably object and b) the connotation is actually different enough it could lead to misunderstanding

Grey Wolf

[Rogar Demonblud]

Everyone keeps telling me that people I will rent to are going to blow up the house, but I hope that they have some sort of insurance for that.

Best insurance for that is to not rent to people who like to wreck things. This is why references are a must.

[Alabenson]

Best insurance for that is to not rent to people who like to wreck things. This is why references are a must.

Or, if this is meant to build wealth and not just generate cash flow sell the house and invest the money in a REIT. You get the benefits of diversification without having to deal with renters at all.

[lio45]

Everyone keeps telling me that people I will rent to are going to blow up the house, but I hope that they have some sort of insurance for that.

Whoever is saying that is also going to tell you that if you invest in the stock market, you'll immediately lose everything. If you actually listen to that type of worst-case-pessimist, you'll die of old age without having ever attempted anything.

If you have a mortgage on that house (your current, soon to be "your old") house, then you HAVE to have insurance, and if your renters set it on fire (and your insurance company can't prove that you paid those renters to do it or have anything to do with it) then you're covered.

You can also force them to get their own policy as well, if you're paranoid.

And since they'll be your only tenant, and presumably you'll be in the same town, you can in fact 1) select them well and 2) keep an eye on them (and they'll know it).

Do you believe the neighborhood where you currently live is going to continue to improve in the next few years? What's on the horizon for it? That's one question you should ask yourself. However, this performance bar is pretty low... even with stagnating values, given you probably still have a significant mortgage (therefore, interesting leverage), it's a pretty good investment, all things considered. (When factoring in the safety.)

[Iruka]

I can't say how accurate the "mist in German" actually is, but I'd be suspicious of "they don't sell it" - I'd expect it'd be sold under a different name instead [.]

Out of curiousity, I tried to find the german name of Sierra Mist ("Mist" does indeed translate to "dung" or "garbage" in Standard German. In colloquial use the equivalent to "crap", I'd say). It seems like it is actually not sold in Germany at all, with the niche of the lemony soda filled by 7up instead.

[Razade]

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

Of all the things you've said...this is by far the most baffling. Dr. Pepper isn't supposed to taste like licorice. It's supposed to have a spice cherry flavor. It's also not that uncommon or rare in the U.S I don't really know about outside the U.S. It's fifth on the most popular sodas in the United States. I'm surprised no one said anything about this particular nugget up until now.

[lio45]

We were pre-approved for enough to buy a slightly bigger house (we are aiming for +1 bathroom, +1 bedroom, +1 dining room), and keep the old one. It seems like a good way to make some extra money, and get someone else to pay for the house. It could be a good gig.

You can practice your elementary school math on your real life situation, and calculate the return on the equity you have in the house. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see you find that it gives you a very good ROI compared to stocks, and that's before even factoring in potential appreciation (both in value and in cash flow as rents rise).

The exception would be if your house is in a high-value area (where cap rates will be much lower). In that case, you're better off selling that one and buying some investment properties in a cheaper neighborhood instead. But I'd be surprised if that were your case, since from your posts I'm getting the impression this is a "starter home".

[darkrose50]

.

You haven't actually demonstrated that having wealth has a significant correlation to having inherited it, particularly among teachers, since other posters have mentioned the pension plans as a more compelling, alternative explanation for the 1/6 = millionaires count. You haven't demonstrated that inheriting wealth correlates to picking up financial skills, especially in light of varying counterpoints that you never really addressed.

Teachers make the lists of occupations / professions that become millionaires. Other professions that have pensions do not. Now this could be due to something like the other professions not being educated enough to know that they are millionaires ("what do you mean my pension has a net worth formula?).

Sure it could look something like this [in order of import]: (a) Born to a high SEC + (b) pension + (c) cultural capitol.

But cultural capitol is thing, the upper SECs are a thing, and investing skills are a thing.

You see, your math makes sense if everything is an independent variable: If dogs are 5% more likely than other animals to have wealth, and animals who have wealth are 5% more likely than random animals to have wealthy parents, animals with wealthy parents are 5% more likely than random animals to have learned financial skills, and dogs are 5% more likely than other animals to go into teaching, then that might add up to a slight correlation between teaching and financial skills. (Perhaps not a correlation that is in any practical way useful, but a correlation nonetheless.) The problem is, with humans subgroups, few variables are entirely independent. What if you break down breeds and discover that poodles account for 80% of wealthy dogs, while St. Bernards comprise the majority of dogs in teaching? This pretty much washes out your expected correlation. Worse, what if the reason so many St. Bernards go into teaching is a history of institutionalized discrimination, resulting in much lower inherited wealth and few private sector opportunities for college-educated St. Bernards.

Teachers have a tendency to start wealthy and have the tendency to end up wealthy. It is not logical to assume that they know less about wealth than the population as a whole. In fact I argue that they would more know about wealth than the population as a whole.

[01] Teachers have a tendency to be born into the higher SECs.
[02] Teachers have a tendency to end up in the higher SECs.
[03] Not other occupations / professions with pensions have a tendency to end up in the higher SECs . . . teachers.
[04] Inheriting money is DEFINIATELY a contributing factor. I am sure we can all agree on this.
[05] Growing up around the ideas of money skills are DEFINIATELY a factor. This is where the arguments begin. This is not an X or Y. This is an X and Y.
[06] Money skills are a thing.
[07] You need money to invest in order to practice investing.
[08] The higher SECs have money and invest.
[09] Cultural capital is learning skills (such as investing) from your culture (such a SEC).
[10] Now a population being exposed to this culture surrounding money and investments can only: (a) do nothing to advance ones understanding of investing, or (b) improve one’s understanding of investing. To argue that this scenario would (c) have a detrimental effect to ones understanding of investing is something that I find to be frustrating.

-----

I swear to C3P-O that I could write down 10 investing commandments (nothing that is innovative) and hand them to ANYONE and if followed they will do a stellar job saving and investing. Compound interest is just that good, and people COMMOMONLY do stupid things when investing. The basics of investing: (a) that would make anyone successful, (b) could definitely be understood by a teenager, and (c) if that teenager lived with me, then it would 100% be cultural capitol. This stuff is not rocket science. Time + money + leaving it alone = piles of money.

Side note: In fact, I have seen it argued that one reason public education used to be much better was gender discrimination. Due to a lack of other opportunities for intelligent, college-educated women, many of them went into teaching, resulting in public schools being able to attract far greater numbers of highly qualified and highly motivated teachers than they really should have in a less distorted free market.

*and when I say demonstrate, I don't mean a particularly high standard of proof--even articulating some sort of plausible causal connection would be a start.

This is true.

No, they don't. However, people do seem to take issue with someone pushing so hard to present what is--at best--a tertiary contributing factor as the one we should be focusing on.

Except we're not talking about 1+2+3+4+5... what we're talking about is more a+2b+3c^2+4c+5d=X. Yes, technically the value of a is contributing to that sum, and on an existential, moral, and philosophical level a absolutely matters just as much as anything else. However, as a practical matter, the question is whether it is useful to start making assumptions based on a as the primary factor. I contend that it's really not, particularly when those other factors are both disproportionately impactful on the thing you care about and equally identifiable.

I think I understand the misunderstanding.

A teacher is not going to give you his/her (a) inheritance, and/or (b) pension. A teacher will give you his/her (c) cultural capitol surrounding investing.

Ask for what you can actually get.

Strictly speaking, it makes sense to target certain groups for police enforcement due to statistical correlations to higher rates of conviction. However, if someone on the internet starts arguing passionately for the importance of that sort of policing, while conspicuously ignoring the guy who keeps saying, "Well, there's a roughly equal correlation with this other arbitrary group, so why not target them as well?" then people might start taking issue. Or, at the very least, people will start arguing that we should focus on more important factors, (stuff like "was convicting eight times already for committing very similar crimes" or "looks just like the guy who was running away from the bank carrying a sack with a dollar sign on it") before devoting too much attention to much more tenuous links.

Basic investment rules are simple, and could be told and demonstrated to a child. This is what cultural capitol is. To deny that basic investment rules are a thing, that people commonly make stupid investment decisions that go against these simple rules, and that being told not to do these stupid things is a wildly profitable idea.

Are we arguing against these, to me obvious, ideas?

Are we back on strawman arguments? I think with the exception of a few very specific demographics, (i.e., the "convicted and serving time for securities fraud" demographic and the "my religion considers the accumulation of wealth to be a mortal sin" demographic), nobody here would argue that any broad demographic should be dismissed out of hand as a source of wisdom on any subject.

I am not sure how this is a strawman. It is just pointing out the absurd notion that one would not look to this population for cultural currency surrounding wealth and money. The notion is simply absurd if you ask me.

I'll be honest, I am trying my hardest to give your arguments a fair shake on your own merit, but I am not sure how much I am succeeding, because it seems like every time you feel like you might be losing ground, you resort to this mix of strawmanning/appeal to emotion/appeal to outrage where you basically accuse everyone of being dismissive to teachers/the profession of teaching/schools/the whole institution of higher education. And that just annoys the hell out of me, because it seems like a good chunk of people here have been pretty explicit about their respect for teachers--they just don't agree with you that teachers are as a whole also notably good at this one particular area of expertise.

I am convinced that people think that I am auguring that cultural capitol surrounding wealth is more important than the actual wealth (in some ways it is and in other ways it is not). If you have the opportunity to learn cultural capitol surrounding wealth, then I am of the opinion that you 100% should. Anyone saying otherwise is simply beyond my understanding on how to operate.

A great place to look for cultural capitol surrounding wealth is a teacher. Not the best place, not the only place, but a great place due to accessibility, and probability.

[Peelee]

Teachers make the lists of occupations / professions that become millionaires.

A falsis principiis proficisci. You found a source that says teachers are millionaires, which says nothing about how they became millionaires. Some are born millionaires already. Some can be born on third and then just run home. Some marry into money (and, to qualify for millionaire status, it doesn't even need to be that much money, since combined salaries can put them over).

You are taking that stat to mean that if any given person becomes a teacher, there is a one in six chance they will be a millionaire, despite having no other data on other factors that play into it. You have started from a conclusion and built your entire argument on that. You are using bad logic.

[darkrose50]

A falsis principiis proficisci. You found a source that says teachers are millionaires, which says nothing about how they became millionaires. Some are born millionaires already. Some can be born on third and then just run home. Some marry into money (and, to qualify for millionaire status, it doesn't even need to be that much money, since combined salaries can put them over).

You are taking that stat to mean that if any given person becomes a teacher, there is a one in six chance they will be a millionaire, despite having no other data on other factors that play into it. You have started from a conclusion and built your entire argument on that. You are using bad logic.

Not one source, many. Teachers tending to be from white and wealthy families is an actual problem that they teach about in education courses. This is an honest to g-d problem that we have. All the damned fool teachers are (tend to be) white and rich.

In my state if you start off young-ish, make it to the end, retire, and get a pension . . . then you WILL (seemingly almost always) be a millionaire (as in your pension will be worth $1,000,000+). The maybe is making it to the end.

Anyone who works in the school district where my wife works (a working class neighborhood, median household income is like $42,000) who starts in the low to mid 20's will retire a millionaire.

[Peelee]

Not one source, many. Teachers tending to be from white and wealthy families is an actual problem that they teach in education courses about in school. This is an honest to g-d problem that we have. All the damned fool teachers are white a rich.

OK, so you admit that a vastly disproportionate number of wealthy teachers didn't become wealthy from being a teacher, making that 1 in 6 star by and large useless, and then immediately jump right back to "but it still makes you a millionaire"?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Not one source, many. Teachers tending to be from white and wealthy families is an actual problem that they teach about in education courses. This is an honest to g-d problem that we have. All the damned fool teachers are (tend to be) white and rich.

In my state if you start off young-ish, make it to the end, retire, and get a pension . . . then you WILL (almost always) be a millionaire (as in your pension will be worth $1,000,000+). The maybe is making it to the end.

Anyone who works in the school district where my wife works (a working class neighborhood, median household income is like $42,000) who starts in the low to mid 20's will retire a millionaire.

None of which supports any of your conclusions. As so many others have told you, the most parsimonious conclusion from those facts is that only people that are millionaires to start with will reach retirement as teachers. If you want to prove any other conclusion, you need to present supporting evidence for it.

But given your track record so far, where every time you've presented supporting evidence, it turned out to contradict you, I will not be holding my breath.

Grey Wolf

[darkrose50]

OK, so you admit that a vastly disproportionate number of wealthy teachers didn't become wealthy from being a teacher, making that 1 in 6 star by and large useless, and then immediately jump right back to "but it still makes you a millionaire"?

Not useless for students looking for investment advice from rich folks. Heck even the ones that do not understand investing, may understand that they need to hire help. Knowing what you don't know is important. The kids should definitely seek out money advice from this upper SEC population that is concentrated among the teacher profession.

My wife teaches in an area that is not even close to being middle-class (on the lower end). My wife works with folks with lake-houses. She knows teachers that will be inheriting large sums of money. The teachers are often mentioning that there parents are doing wealthy people things. She also works with teachers who every payday say the money is already spent.

[Peelee]

Not useless for students looking for investment advice from rich folks.

Yes, useless for that, because of your claims were accurate descriptions of how people function we would still have ancient empires. Most old-money people literally can't lose their wealth for trying.

If one is a student, you know what else they have access to? The internet via school libraries, where they can get advice from actual fiduciaries, investors, et cetera.

[darkrose50]

None of which supports any of your conclusions. As so many others have told you, the most parsimonious conclusion from those facts is that only people that are millionaires to start with will reach retirement as teachers. If you want to prove any other conclusion, you need to present supporting evidence for it.

But given your track record so far, where every time you've presented supporting evidence, it turned out to contradict you, I will not be holding my breath.

Grey Wolf

Okay what of the following are you claiming that is not true?

[1] Upper SECs have money, money skills, and money behaviors.
[2] The upper SECs holding onto money over generations is not only due to money, but also due to learned money skills, and money behaviors.
[3] Higher SECs are a good place to look for learning about money skills, and money behaviors.
[4] Teachers come from higher SECs (as in the population as a whole).

Yes, useless for that, because of your claims were accurate descriptions of how people function we would still have ancient empires. Most old-money people literally can't lose their wealth for trying.

Okay we are talking about the upper quintiles. Teachers . . . not billionaires . . . millionaires.

That is not how multi-generational wealth works. Sure some loose it, but most do not.

Yes
If one is a student, you know what else they have access to? The internet via school libraries, where they can get advice from actual fiduciaries, investors, et cetera

Okay we are not arguing that they are the best or only source for investment advice. We are arguing that they are a better source compared to the population as a whole. They would be an excellent curator of what ideas to read up on.

[Peelee]

That is not how multi-generational wealth works. Sure some loose it, but most do not.

And that's the story of how the majority of wealthy families for all of history are still around holding on to their wealth, instead of just the last hundred years or so and maybe the odd royal family.

Teachers are not, by merit of being teachers, a better source than a random sampling of the population. Or, at least, you've given no actual justification for it.

[darkrose50]

And that's the story of how the majority of wealthy families for all of history are still around holding on to their wealth, instead of just the last hundred years or so and maybe the odd royal family.

Teachers are not, by merit of being teachers, a better source than a random sampling of the population. Or, at least, you've given no actual justification for it.

I do not think that I am explaining myself clearly. The upper quintiles (to rank, and then divide into five groups) AS A WHOLE are a good place to look for cultural capitol on investing. The upper quintiles are not a bad place to look for advice on cultural capitol on investing. Teachers tend to come from the upper two quintiles, ergo are not a bad place, but a good place to look for advice on cultural capitol on investing.

To say that the child of someone born into the lower-quintiles are as likely to have cultural capitol surrounding wealth is just not the way wealth works. The studies showing the likelihood of moving up to (or down from) other quintiles are disheartening. We do not live in a meritocracy. Just look at the probability at a macro-level.

The upper quintiles / SECs have different understandings, beliefs, and practices surrounding wealth and investing. These groups are not at all even remotely close to being equal in understanding wealth an investing. In the lower quintiles investing is seen as gambling, and it would be if you needed the money accessible at any moments notice . . . so they do not invest . . . they teach their kids not to invest their money . . . this keeps them poor (one factor, not the only factor, not the main factor, one factor). Honest to g-d the different SECs see investing differently, and they are not at all equal in understanding.

It is not gambling to invest for the long term. Use a S&P 500 investment calculator, pick any point and look 10-years, and then look 40-years out, and be amazed at the results, and the probabilities of results.