I disagree with the review. The book doesn't contain a complete and perfect path to personal wealth for anyone. But what book could ever accomplish that?
Disclaimer: I read it several years ago. But the takeaways of the book that stayed with me to this date are:
* Don't get emotionally attached to the concepts of money and debt. Money is not worth anything by itself and debt is not bad by itself. They are simply tools that you use and you can use them wisely or foolishly.
* Try to invest your money and time in a way that creates recurring income. I.e. a house is a very bad investment because it creates recurring costs rather than income. Of course you need somewhere to live but don't get emotionally attached to the idea that happiness equals living in a fancy house or driving a fancy car.
* Debt is nothing more and nothing less than a tool for creating recurring income as long as the costs of the debt are lower than the income it creates. Discounting for risk etc.
* The way we teach our kids "the value of money" is creating exactly the emotional ties above that will lead them to making bad decisions about their personal finances, and ties their happiness to how much money they have in the bank.
I don't know if these points are what the book says, simply because I don't know how much of it is my own interpretations. But reading this book allowed me to come to a number of conclusions that have been very helpful ever since. I can think more clearly about what money, income, debt and costs really are.
Agreed entirely; I enjoyed RDPD as well. The review is indignant sputtering, as vague and insulting as the book is claimed to be. "Common sense looks like genius when itβs viewed from a cesspit of stupidity"? The reviewer's final attack is to admit you may learn something from the book, but only if you're stupid.
Every time someone (like the reviewer) uses the phrase "beat the market," I sigh and shake my head. To hear some people talk, you'd think getting a job was "beating the job market"; riding the bus is "beating the transportation market." Somewhere out there, phantasmic figures are matching opportunities with takers perfectly, so that every prospect becomes break even; every creative, individual, independent action you could take is rendered pointless by unseen forces. You might as well sit on your ass. It's efficient market theory turned demotivational wisdom.
Surely, if there were so much value to my being across town, it would cost me more than $2 bus fare. Or a professional trader would have already found me, told me where to go, and made a profit on the transaction. You can't beat the market.
I only developed a head for business in my 20s, but I imagine that if I had been running lemonade stands and mowing lawns as a kid, I would be immune to thinking that opportunities were for others to discover, or were already exploited, or that being enterprising only brings risk. This is the kind of lesson taught by RDPD, and I wonder if the reviewer has learned it.
This would be a more accurate review that the OP :)
Another big takeaway for me was that you cannot have a healthy relationship with your money until you stop working for the money. Work for passion, curiosity, experience, whatever satisfies your mind, and you will start seeing the bigger opportunities for profit; the ones that can free you from the rat race of selling away your life (time & effort) in the hope of improving it.
You wrote exactly what I wanted to write in response to the article.
This book I read a long time ago, and it truly opened my eyes to another way of thinking.
For someone raised with an employee mindset (as I was), this book turns those notions on their head, and sparks a new way of looking at independence, wealth, debt, income, and initiative.
There are no hard answers found in the book. I don't think there was an intention to provide them. What there is is an explanation of how the world works at a different level (the company owners' level instead of the employee's level).
Like Chris Rock explained the difference between being rich and being wealthy ("Shaq's rich. Very rich. But the guy who signs his paycheck every month, that guy's wealthy."), this book explains how money works.
Disclaimer: I read it several years ago. But the takeaways of the book that stayed with me to this date are:
* Don't get emotionally attached to the concepts of money and debt. Money is not worth anything by itself and debt is not bad by itself. They are simply tools that you use and you can use them wisely or foolishly.
* Try to invest your money and time in a way that creates recurring income. I.e. a house is a very bad investment because it creates recurring costs rather than income. Of course you need somewhere to live but don't get emotionally attached to the idea that happiness equals living in a fancy house or driving a fancy car.
* Debt is nothing more and nothing less than a tool for creating recurring income as long as the costs of the debt are lower than the income it creates. Discounting for risk etc.
* The way we teach our kids "the value of money" is creating exactly the emotional ties above that will lead them to making bad decisions about their personal finances, and ties their happiness to how much money they have in the bank.
I don't know if these points are what the book says, simply because I don't know how much of it is my own interpretations. But reading this book allowed me to come to a number of conclusions that have been very helpful ever since. I can think more clearly about what money, income, debt and costs really are.