'Rich Dad, Poor Dad's' Robert Kiyosaki Says He's $1.2 Billion In Debt Because 'If I Go Bust, The Bank Goes Bust. Not My Problem'

flyingsheep@lemmyhub.com to News@lemmy.world – 261 points –
'Rich Dad, Poor Dad's' Robert Kiyosaki Says He's $1.2 Billion In Debt Because 'If I Go Bust, The Bank Goes Bust. Not My Problem'
finance.yahoo.com
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So, ah, that's not how that works.

If he "goes bust" and can't make repayments the bank will take his cars and silver and gold.

This guy is a great author, and those four words "rich dad, poor dad" are masterfully crafted. The book basically says borrow money to buy houses not boats. It's not revolutionary, it's just packaged in a way which is appealing to... poor dads.

No bank in the world is going to hand anybody millions (never mind over a billion) without some reasonable assurance it can be paid back one way or another.

If he was in real estate, they’re taking his property.

IIRC, the advice was basically a recipe for overleveraging yourself in debt trying to make money with “throw everything and see what sticks” (and then blaming them for not being “savy” enough when it becomes apparent they can’t manage the debt.)

Which is what happened to a friend of mine that kept bouncing from one self help book to the next (he was a big fan of what’s-his-but-zero-debt-guy until his church group read it.)

“It really resonated with what you said… I have a responsibility to my kids!”

“Uhm, I was talking about not having a third when you already need help with two.”

“No no. I get it now…” (and now we’re not friends because he asks for advice, doesn’t listen to it and blames you for when it doesn’t work. It also wasn’t about finances per se.)

No bank in the world is going to hand anybody millions (never mind over a billion) without some reasonable assurance it can be paid back one way or another.

You say that, but Deutsche Bank and others have been very happy to loan Trump money over the years and they must know he won't pay it back.

… but Deutsche Bank and others have been very happy to launder payments from Russian mobsters via unpaid loans …

FTFY

Some of those loans are predicated on extremely inflated business dealings. For example, in the NY fraud trial, the collateral was Trump's properties. Some of those loans, as already mentioned, were also straight up bribes.

also its extremely unlikely this guy is going to be somebody that people want to bribe. Remember, mortgages count against networth, so this guy isn't that rich.

They likely make him pledge something as collateral. I doubt they're just giving him unsecured loans just for fun

He was committing fraud. That's why Deutsche Bank no longer does business with the Trump organization.

No that's because the fraud got discovered. Else they would still do business with Trump. They were likely giving Trump Russian money as "loans".

Remember we're probably not talking about a single person, but an company. His company is likely over valued because of how famous his books/seminars are. And yes, while he probably has real estate, it's probably not the same business. When they come after him, they probably hit one side of the business and not the other.

It's very possible someone gave him a ton of loans that are undeserved because they overvalued the names. We see it all the time in the stock market.

Given what I understand of his 'advice'... he may not in fact be smart enough to split his assets up like that. Also, if you do split up your assets into LLCs or whatever; then they're loaning to the LLC, and they will be looking at its financial ability to pay back... banks are generally rather careful with these kinds of things.

if he's using [assets of company a] to inflate the [assets of company b] (IE IP on his books etc,) then that's fraud.

You have a lot of confidence in the financial system and I wonder given what is known if it is justified

more like, confidence in human greed.

Banks don't cut people breaks just because they're famous. keep in mind, this guy's net assets are not 1.2 billion- that's his debt. He's over extended and they're taking them up. long-time business partners might get less scrutiny on the inflated values, but this guy? naw. he took out massive loans on proprieties or whatever, they'll be taking whatever collateral he used, and whatever other assets are associated.

  1. Answer.

if you'll ask a question?

But if you're referring to the 2007-08 financial crisis caused by MBS going tits up, you'll have to do better than that, since MBS's were packaged loans to lots of individuals. Each individual loan was risky because of the sub-prime market being largely unregulated at the time, however, it was assumed the risks were acceptable because the loans that didn't go up were profitable to offset them.

The problem with that, of course, was that the entire industry kept ramping up sub-prime loans building up a slow, but increasingly high risk of total collapse on the value. but this is an entirely different situation than giving one guy a billion dollar in loans. And you'll note, that the MBS's were backed with collateral in the form of houses that they subsequently foreclosed on. (and later sold for much more in profit, while also getting bailed out by the government.)

You got two explainations. 1 the banks didn't know what was going to happen, despite all the obvious signs, in which case they have no idea what they are doing 2 they knew exactly what they were doing and engineered a crisis for a bailout and market dominance.

So do you want your friends to be fucking morons or fucked up?

or do you want to stop confusing issues here?

'07-08 crisis is a fundamentally different scenario that built over time. The toxic assets totaled something like 1 trillion; they were built over time, and the problem rose when home values stopped going up. let me compare the orders of magnitude on the debt that caused that crisis vs this:

    1,200,000,000 (Kiyoski's debt)
1,000,000,000,000 (Toxic assets in the great recession) 

Do you see the difference now? It's a nice whataboutism, but it's fundamentally irrelevant. the only thing that's going to get fucked is Kiyoski, and the people who work for him. The difference between a billion and a trillion is... about a trillion. more preciesly, .1%.

Thank you, I always assumed it was more capitalism pearl clutching and to know it's another 'get a mortgage' flip answered all my questions.

Yeah it's the common sense stuff we all know to be true. "Save and invest your money! Compound interest magic! Investments increase in value!"

IIRC he makes a case for ripping off his employees. Justification is that if he have them more money they would just waste it, but he will invest it.

Yeah it’s the common sense stuff we all know to be true.

If you knew how many people in America didn't have bank accounts I'm pretty sure you'd shit yourself, lol

Ya know I never really understood it. This book was recommended to me 94295832 times so I read it and everything in it seemed super obvious, and it was mostly just boring anecdotes about how he discovered the idea of putting your money to work for you.

You might be surprised then, to see how many people seem to lack understanding of that apparently obvious concept.

I mean yeah I get that. But to have all these already-successful people praising it as some sort of great revelation is strange to me.

That's his book market.... people too dumb to understand that money begets money. Since you got none, you give it away easily.

Aspirational propaganda. You're only poor because you're not as smart as me and I've found all of the secrets to being rich! Why isn't everyone rich, this is crazy to me.

Despite the "get rich quicker" mentality,Kiyosaki's books were revolutionary for me. They basically taught me that it's impossible for the working class to get rich. You need to invest in either a business or real estate.

The missing part is that it's practically impossible to invest in a business or real estate. You need vast amounts of capital or a loan with nearly zero interest. Oh and the ruling class has been sucking us dry for decades.

Still, his books are very valuable knowledge.

The part is greatly disliked about his books is how he glosses over the fact that he had a TON of resources at his disposal. A father figure that's already in business, that tutored him specifically, gave him many connections in the business world, and also let him sit in on business meetings for nearly a decade. The man had more exposure, teaching, and connections than most business majors before he even set foot into the business world.

For a normal person that would take years of schooling and a really tough time making those connections and is an entirely unrealistic comparison.

TL;DR You are right, basically impossible for a normal person to achieve because the resources at his disposal.

There was a video I watched recently about how "this self taught developer did it the right way, follow his idea!"

He already worked in a high paying job that gave him the opportunity to design something for them and then they let him attend meetings to learn as much as possible from consultants they hired...

Ffs yeah if you start on 3rd base getting home isn't the hardest thing to do...

It depends on the type of investing you want to do. The working class can absolutely invest in ETFs at varying risk profiles and build a retirement. They can't drop $100k on an online startup and hope it explodes. They can invest in starting their own business.

It's really hard to go from thousandaire to billionaire, but you can absolutely hit millionaire.

The working class can absolutely invest in ETFs at varying risk profiles and build a retirement.

Small investments that won’t grow very large, and all while struggling.

They can invest in starting their own business.

Most fail. It’s usually a poor investment.

You are so pointlessly negative. What they said is true. Those are the most common avenues for middle class to move classes.

I would call it realistic instead of negative.

Yeah, you can get rich through ETFs but it's incredibly unlikely.

It's incredibly likely that continously saving and investing for 30 years creates a decent retirement account.

Yes and highly recommended if you have the money to do so, but it's not going to make you rich, and it's certainly not going to pull you out of poverty.

That's great but it's also not really what most people would think of when someone is rich

No, it’s blaming poor people for being poor.

He blocked me on facebook because I called him out for being a grifting motivational speaker.

I feel like you'd get the same response from any sane person...

Right, but I wouldn't call just any sane person a grifting motivational speaker. He in fact is one though.

My wife is from a developing country so we invest through her family. I doubt we will ever be rich from it but it does add up. Obviously not an option for everyone but if it is for you might want to look into it.

I read about 1 page of that guy's book years ago, pegged him as a scammer, and put the book back on the shelf. Looks like I got it right.

Another article says his net worth is 100m, so that would mean he might have 1.2b in debt but 1.3b in assets.

I'm not sure that suggests he's a scammer on the surface.

Motivational speakers that claim to hold the keys to success, you just have to want it bad enough, are scammers. Charging people $35 for a hardcover, or $400 for a ticket to see you speak worthless platitudes is definitely a form of scam.

This is what makes him rich. Either we give him growth money or we give him test money. Test money being money he can gamble away because it comes free. Bank any profit and ask for more free money.

For a second, I thought maybe he was engaging in the popular tax avoidance strategy where you keep your investments in stocks, and then rather than sell them for liquid cash and pay capital gains tax, you take out low rate, interest-only loans using the value of the stock as collateral. It's the sort of bullshit loophole available to the billionaire class to avoid paying their share of tax...

...but no, guy's just leveraged up to his eyeballs in real estate and gold-buggery, and has the audacity to claim to be a finance guru.

16 more...

I don't get why people idolize him so much. Paying to go to seminars and such. Yes buy assets not liabilities, not complicated but he regularly pushes over leveraging yourself and working in the grey area of financial independence. Him and Ramsey provide good advice on targeted subjects but going all in and following these idols will lead to ruin for most.

He's the most huckstery of the major personal finance canon authors. And his book is pretty meh in comparison to like The Simple Path to Wealth or even I Will Teach You To Be Rich (which I have my own problems with). I feel like he just got in at the right time to go viral, he shouldn't be famous based on the book itself.

iTT: People who think bankers got held accountable in 2008