I’ve only made it about halfway through the criticism, but I haven’t even come across anything yet that even attempts to attack the “advice” or any other substantive aspect of the book.
He’s accused Kiyosaki’s admirers of being a cult, though. That’s a bit head-scratching.
Bah. Tell that to all the people who bought Downey Savings & Loan last fall when he was flogging it as a takeover target. It went from 62 down to 5. And it’s not just a case of one bad pick; he was recommending investments in all financials last fall, and the sector tanked in the following months. I’d sooner trust my money to a monkey throwing darts.
I’m not saying eliminate those kids who didn’t go to college at all. But if someone is in college, let them stay and get their degree first.
What’s the stats on some junior deciding to finishing his degree, then getting an injury in his senior year, blowing his NFL chances for good? How often does that happen?
Well, not all of them. Gene Tunney fought long enough to earn a million (actually $990,000) for his last fight and then retired and never looked back. He was on the board of directors for several banks. One of his sons was a Senator.
Billy Conn, who once held the lightheavy weight title and was referred to as “the former future heavyweight champion of the world” (he was leading Joe Louis after twelve rounds but decided to go for the knockout - Joe pureed him) put his ring earnings into oil stocks, and died much more well off than his conqueror.
But you are right about the rest of them. Divorce seems to be the problem much of the time - most of Ali’s money went to his various ex-wives. Evander Holyfield has something like nine children by seven different women, as well as a 109 room mansion that he can’t sustain. Sugar Ray Robinson lost most of his money when his investments in Harlem (which used to be a place for white folks to go slumming) went south, plus he pissed a lot of it off on his entourage. I think cocaine played a factor in the decline in Sugar Ray Leonard’s fortunes. Likewise (IIRC) with Alexis Arguello and Aaron Pryor.
But “easy come, easy go” is the dominant theme. Most of them grew up poor and never learned how to handle money in even a rudimentary way. Joe Louis was a sharecropper’s son. Ali’s father was a lower-middle class sign painter in Louisville.
They tend to assume that, because the money is coming now, it always will. Then it doesn’t.
Regards,
Shodan
Slight tangent about money management.
I also heard something very smart about the cast of Friends. David Schwimmer, whose parents are lawyers, got all the main cast together and got them to agree that they would always ask for the same amount of money. I guess learning from Three’s Company, he realized Warner Bros might be able to dump two or three, but not all six, when it came to contract renewal time if somebody got a swelled head and asked for more than everyone else. It worked very well, as the studio couldn’t play divide and conquer.
That is ridiculous. A person can always go back to school and finish their degree, but the major leagues do not come a-calling every year. A chance to play in the majors is usually a once-in-a-lifetime deal that should not be turned down.
Ex-Jet Bruce Harper is a friend of mine. He left college in his junion year to play with the Jets. After his football career was over, he went back to college, got a degree in sociology, and now runs Heroes and Cool Kids, an organization he formed to help disadvantaged children do things right with their lives. He gets a lot of respect as a former professional football player and has turned some young lives around. Had he decided to get his degree first, this might not have happened.
Enough so that it is incredibly foolish for anyone to turn down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The average career of an NFL player is right at 4 years, to give you an idea what kind of physical abuse we’re talking about here. If you turn down the opportunity to participate in your prime, you are making a foolish decision. On top of injuries, the rising senior also risks having a terrible year & a drop in draft status.
I would be in favor of a fairly intensive financial course being a requirement for all NFL payers, but not a college degree. Most people have a vanishingly small window in which they can take advantage of their ability to play in the pros. It is much, much easier to go back and finish your degree in the offseason.
Keep in mind I’m only talking about football here.
Also, I don’t think anyone has played in the NFL without going to college first. That being said, how could you possibly require anyone in college to finish their degree when others are playing without one?
/Twilight Zone music/: Five minutes after my post, Bruce’s lovely wife Nancy Harper walked in my office, looking for a notary.
I’ve also heard that they did not negotiate seperately. They chose Lisa Kudrow (who is nothing like her character) to collectively represent all of them in negotiations.
And let’s not overlook the Don King factor.
Actually, many of them try to be smart and invest the money. The problem is they don’t have enough knowledge about investing to do it correctly. They’ll buy 1 million shares of stock of some pink sheet start up company which is making “hip hop bottled water” or some other nonsense.
Hmm. I do agree that the page needs a bit of a reorganization, but check for the “Real estate expert?” and “Want to know what ‘the rich’ REALLY teach their children?” headers, particularly. You should be coming up on them if you’re about halfway. Depending on how picky you want to be about defining “bad advice”, you may have to use the tables at the bottom of “Real estate expert?” instead of the whole section.
Further down, you have “Taking both sides”, “Ethics” and “Factual errors”. Reed points out that some of Kiyosaki’s recommendations are flat-out illegal, in “Trading on inside information” and about half the time that taxes come up.
Whether you agree or disagree with Kiyosaki’s take on formal education, you have to admit that it’s probably questionable advice in the general case.
Well, here’s an interactive graphic from the New York Times showing income mobility over a 10-year period. In each income group more than half either stayed at their original level or dropped - which puts paid to my incorrect “vast majority” bit, but still shows that it’s easier to go down that up.
This is an interesting article from the Christian Science Monitor discussing how economic mobility has decreased over the years.
Here’s a link to a .pdf with charts and graphs and everything. The bottom line is that 2/3 of children are at or below their parents income level (adjusted for real dollars) and 1/3 have exceeded their parents income level.
I found that with about 20 minutes of clicking around the net, but if you want I’ll try to dig out some of my sociology texts (if I can find them) and give you even more information. A quick skim of the wiki links for “social mobility” and “economic mobility” seem accurate, however.
So, yeah. One’s chance of success largely hinges on the success of the parents. Wealth is inherited, whether it’s one dollar or a million of them.
**Annie ** and Labrador…shrug
Maybe it’s because I’m not that into football, but I think a college education is more important than a possible shot at the NFL.
We’ll agree to disagree…Ivylad agrees with you, btw.
Oh yeah. Along with practically everyone else they ever met.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t know if anyone addressed this yet, but people who make that kind of money generally don’t handle it on thier own. They hire Business Managers, people like me (or more accuratly my emoployers), to take care of this stuff for them.
I currently have some clients who are no longer making much income, but are spending like they are still making several million dollars a year. I have some clients who make considerably more than that, and spend like they make the money I do. But at the end of the day it is my firms job to make sure that we do everything we can to keep our clients from going broke.
People who end up losing everything gererally
a)do a Billy Joel and hire someone who is not competant/a criminal to be their buisness manager
b) do a Michael Jackson and ignore everything their business manager tells them.
c) they try to do it without a business manager
Very few people who make that kind of money don’t have a business manager. I work on a team of 4 people (the clerk, me, my boss, her boss/the owner of the firm) dealing with just the day to day book keeping work of just 6 of our firms clients. There are not enough hours in a week to keep up with it all, and that is with the work split over 4 people. Dealing with that large an income stream is a full time job.
And some get rich by NOT pulling out of the proper set of genitalia.
rimshot
Thank you everyone, I’ll be here all night. Tip your moderators and administrators. They work hard!
-Joe
But a college education is much more easier to postpone. Going back to college after your NFL career is over means you’ll have more discipline, money, determination and name value. All of those things are on equal footing with education. Getting the degree first means you’ll be competing with younger athletes for a professional spot. I’d say go for the career with a determination to finish college later.
See, that’s the part that made me stop reading. He completely distorted Kiyosaki’s words in that section. He uses the word “insider”, but he isn’t advising anyone to trade on insider information. Knowing an “insider” at a company can provide someone with an enormous amount of public information that would otherwise be very difficult to obtain, or keep track of.