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Fun fact, this book caught my attention because the title looked gay.

I kept reading despite this because I've officially started MBA courses and I recognize that if I won't find something to love in Business, I will not be able to complete this degree, let alone succeed. That is a shame because people's amazed faces when I share my degrees is such an ego boost (which I desperately need cause cheers for crippling imposter syndrome).

In short chapters, Kiyosaki shares the financial education he received from "rich dad", the father of one of his friends. He compares it to the financial advice his own father gave him. The argument is that most people stay unhappy with their financial situation because they don't own any assets and they end up working for others, rather than for themselves. While his own father encourages him to seek an education and a stable job, his rich father helps him become financially educated.

The book is written in a very accessible way. It's clear that his target audience is frustrated people who lack knowledge and he definitely manages to make his messages come across. However repetitive, this book is short and easy.

I fear this is the end of positive things I can say on this book. As others have pointed out, Kiyosaki recognizes the importance of professionals and educated people and yet, consistently bashes them. Much of this book is filled with condescending and rude rhetoric towards intellectuals and the working class.

Here's the thing. Labor is necessary. With this in mind, not everyone will be able to apply these lessons because ultimately, in our current age, you're still going to need someone down the line doing the actual labor. Jeff Bezos can get richer with his assets but his entire company rests on the people working in delivery and packaging. So really, Kiyosaki's condescension makes little sense. His own company requires lawyers, accountants, etc, who are all educated people. Without workers, both educated and not, Kiyosaki's "financial education" means nothing. He can say these people are in the "rat race", that they're forever working for someone else but what he proposes seems to be "let's gain wealth on the backs of others!".

Really, I hesitate to stand behind the "eat the rich" crowd but damn, studying business is making me an actual communist.

In fact, I found myself grateful that I'm studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics before approaching Business. At least Economics has the dignity to pretend that it's for the benefit of others, that the market benefits from greed. Business seems to be a field for people who simply want to be rich and powerful without caring about the societal impact of their behavior (whoops, is this the right attitude to succeed in my MBA?).

Now, up until the fifth chapter, I was able to excuse this book as greed inducing and that's it. However, in the fifth chapter, Kiyosaki gets into taxes. He rightfully points out that rich people don't pay taxes so that the weight of taxes fall on the shoulders of the middle class. At this point, I had hoped Kiyosaki was ready to look at the social impact of his ideas.

Obviously not. Instead, Kiyosaki claims that this will always be the case because the rich are able to evade taxes. This is a confusion of normative and descriptive. It is true that the rich do not pay taxes however, is this what we ideally want? Somehow, Kiyosaki seems to feel that since the rich do tax evasion, we should all strive to be like the rich and evade tax. Doesn't it make more sense for the government to force the rich to pay the taxes?

Kiyosaki seems to suggest that it's inevitable that the rich will find loopholes. However, when corporations have such an impact on politics in the US (for example, if you still have some faith in the American democracy,), it should come as surprise to no one that they evade tax. This means that the group who is screwing people over is the rich (*coughs* rich dad is a thief), and not the government, unlike how Kiyosaki wishes to present it.

Then, he talks about healthcare and old age care. Again, he portrays some of the challenges the middle class faces yet he pretty much lost the last bits of my respect when he referred to American healthcare as "socialized". My dude, have you looked at other developed democracies?

Really, the American centric nature of this book was too much for me. Like, come on, your defunct welfare state is not something to be proud of. There are other forms of capitalism which are not socialism and do include social benefits. There are other ways to build an economy.

Things don't improve from here. The book ends with more ego-stroking. To conclude, yes, financial education matters but part of financial education should be some form of social thinking. Basically, Economics and Business can't be studied alone, this is a recipe to creating selfish villains, poor dad was right all along.

What I'm Taking With Me
- Don't even get me started on his comments on unions.
- I just have so much disdain for business. For example, in my reading today, the textbook cheerfully pointed out that some airlines have "informal job descriptions" where workers "pitch in!". The flight attendants also help clean the plane and the pilots also load luggage so the company is very cost efficient. Or in other words, the airline essentially robs workers fair payment from the labor they do. This shouldn't be applauded. Frankly, this should be illegal, what the heck does an informal job description mean? #Elizabeth_Anderson_is_right
- Well, time to continue my finance homework. Can you guys believe I've started to keep track of the stock market? What's happening to me??

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Life in a post (???) Covid country can be summed up as constantly going "when is it okay to be without a mask, is it still socially acceptable to avoid strangers, ahhhhh, everything feels wrong and I am stressed"

Review to come, once I figure out how this period of time is meant to work