Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad poor Dad

[darkrose50]

Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad poor Dad:

Robert Kiyosaki is the top selling author about personal finance . . . ever. His works are full of wish fulfillment, and promises to teach you secret magic that will make you wealthily . . . well he knows it, and tells you that it is a thing, but no specifics. The specifics will cost you $500, and then $35,000. Even after 20-years of this magic scam artist wizardry we did not see a sharp uptick in independently wealthy folks running amuck, or know anyone that used his $35,000 wizarding course to become independently wealthy.

Dilemma: My brother-in-law bases his financial world-view mainly based on this guys works, and I need to find a nice way to break the news to him that Robert Kiyosaki is a scam artist . . . nicely.

[1] Robert Kiyosaki's books have truths in them
[2] Robert Kiyosaki's systems are scams

For example:
[3] Robert Kiyosaki says that 401(k)’s are “sucked dry” by “wall street” who “have no money in the game” . . . no offices, no payroll . . . they should work for free (but not Robert Kiyosaki)
[4] Robert Kiyosaki has a $500 seminar, that upsells to a $35,000 real-estate course
[5] Basically take your money out of your 401(k), and give it Robert Kiyosaki . . . because magic . . . you know a scam

I watched some YouTube videos and he was involved with at least two other scam artists:
[6] One started talking about how stocks go up, and go down . . . he started his history lesson with the 1990’s . . . big red flag
[7] This other guy (same as 6) said that he can teach people how to make money not only when the market goes up, but when it goes down
[8] This other guy (same as 6) said that stocks are at an all-time high AND CANNOT GO HIGHER
[9] So basically sell your 401(k) and give your money to this this other guy (same as 6) who will teach you to make money when the market goes down . . . because the market can only go down from here

[10] No proof of Robert Kiyosaki's success . . . non-con-artist success that is
[11] Also $200 for a board game about how to be financially competent? From a billionaire? Who wants to teach people how to spend money well? Red flag!
[12] The law says X, so you can’t make people do Y . . . laws can change, and we have examples of these laws that he says are impossible in other countries
[13] Gold and silver are “Gods money”. . . . the dollar will collapse . . . . and stocks will be worthless somehow . . . please . . . what we place value in is largely dependent on faith in the currency (gold also has value because we say so) . . . folks with shares in Volkswagen after Germany collapsed . . . still have stocks worth real money from a real company . . . the value did not vanish
[14] He seems to not mention compound interest . . . this is like the #1 thing in my book (I don't have a real book)
[15] Robert Kiyosaki seems to say "401(k)s take too much money for nothing . . . none of them are good . . . none of them provide a good service because they charge you money . . . this is bad . . . I will provide a good service . . . for money." Basically a scam artist paradox.

[16] This guy has been selling his books for 20-years . . . I will bet you a large sum of dice that there was not a sharp uptick in people who are independently wealthy based on this guys works (note the things that he mentions that are true like money makes money, and people can learn money skills . . . these are universal truths)
[17] We do not know anyone who based on his scam became wealthy . . . now note that his books have some truths in them . . . like money makes money and making money is a learned skill . . . so, you know people who were not convinced of this before reading the book, may be convinced of this after reading the book

This guy is a scam artist

[halfeye]

Is he a rich scam artist or a poor scam artist?

(not talking about presidents) :smallbiggrin:

[Vinyadan]

Personally, I would throw that trash away and just read Chuck Tingle's Living Inside My Own Butt For Eight Years, Starting A Business And Turning A Profit Through Common Sense Reinvestment And Strategic Targeted Marketing (https://www.amazon.ca/Starting-Business-Reinvestment-Strategic-Marketing-ebook/dp/B01CV0BHT4/ref=sr_1_30?qid=1565035562&refinements=p_27%3AChuck+Tingle&s=digital-text&sr=1-30&text=Chuck+Tingle)

[Crow]

He's not likely to take well to being told something he holds in regard is a scam, and will likely shut down before listening to any of your points.

Perhaps redirection might work better? You could try turning him on to listening to some of Dave Ramsey's (free) financial advice instead? Through that, the scamminess of RDPD will dawn on him organically.

[Lacco]

He's not likely to take well to being told something he holds in regard is a scam, and will likely shut down before listening to any of your points.

Perhaps redirection might work better? You could try turning him on to listening to some of Dave Ramsey's (free) financial advice instead? Through that, the scamminess of RDPD will dawn on him organically.

You could prevent the shutdown of communication through asking questions - instead of giving him the answers.

Add Crow's redirection - again via a question "Oh, have you heard about D.Ramsey? What are the differences between the two?" and he might check it.

I know it's hard to keep the communication open sometimes - especially when you KNOW it's a scam - but asking questions instead of stating the truth you know may get you further.

[Razade]

Ask them why anyone with the knowledge to get filthy stinking rich would want to help you and to help you for basically free? Ask them why, if they have this sure fire way, aren't they using it instead of making lots of money off selling books and giving tours talking about how they have a system to get rich quick?

[Peelee]

Ask them why anyone with the knowledge to get filthy stinking rich would want to help you and to help you for basically free? Ask them why, if they have this sure fire way, aren't they using it instead of making lots of money off selling books and giving tours talking about how they have a system to get rich quick?

This is far and away the best answer.

darkrose, ask him to think of other rich people, and what they are currently doing. Because no matter who he picks, what they're doing will be "the same thing that got them rich." Warren Buffet isn't teaching business classes, Bill Gates isn't holding computer and software workshops, Steve Jobs never wrote a book on marketing, Jeff Bezos isn't telling people to start up online businesses with efficient distribution models.

You know what every single one of them did when they got rich (or significantly richer)? They kept doing exactly what made them rich. Buffet continued investing, Gates kept working on Microsoft, Bezos kept working on Amazon, Jobs kept hyping up Apple.

Kiyosaki is no different. He's rich, and he's still doing exactly what got him rich - writing a book on how to get rich. If he got rich from something else, he would still be doing that thing. That's the linchpin here. Hammer that in. Rich people keep doing what got them rich, and he's spending his whole life hyping up that book and holding seminars, because that's how he got rich to begin with. Actually following the advice didn't get him rich, or he would still be doing that.

[Razade]

Following his advice will actually get you arrested, which is another reason why he isn't doing it. A lot of his advice involves numerous felonies I can't even begin to expound on here not just because of the rules but how long it'd take to explain them.

But ya know. It's not your job to convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced either. When they lose their money just remind them you tried to save them and they refused.

[snowblizz]

Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad poor Dad:


[11] Also $200 for a board game about how to be financially competent? From a billionaire? Who wants to teach people how to spend money well? Red flag!

This guy is a scam artist

I've played a computer version of that game (no I did not pay for it). It annoyed the hell out of me every single time even as I beat it. I've got a degree in economics so I *know* when I say that the rules of the game, the content, is specifically stacked to conform to his view and specifically stacked against anything else.

As always there's kernels of truth in there. It's a bad idea to buy a yacht when you are a janitor e.g.. Which makes it hard to debunk because those kernels will be squeezed hard by people not wanting to give up on the idea that wealth isn't something you might have to work for, or be lucky.

[darkrose50]

Dave Ramsey is interesting. I like him overall.

I like his idea about buying a car. Buy a beater, and buy/sell your way up.

I like his idea about trying your best to have your mortgage or rent be no more than 25% of your net income.

I disagree with his idea that debt should be paid off ASAP. I have a student loan that is at something like 2.75% that I was never in a hurry to pay off. I see a 30-year mortgage as a good thing as inflation will make it easier with time to pay back, an increased cash flow is good, and I can make more than 3.75% in the stock market.

I disagree with his notion that 401(k)s are just as good as pensions, or that 401(k)'s are better than pensions. A lot of folks are clueless about money. Pensions are good for just about everyone. 1/6 teachers are millionaires, and a large contributing factor to that are pensions. My dad has a pension, and does not trust or believe in investing. He would be in a world of hurt without that pension.

I disagree with his notion about unions, but that is political.

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I find Graham Stephan to be entertaining, and that his advice seems solid.

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I enjoy watching CHRIS CIOVACCO's weekly technical examination of the market [something like CCM financial on YouTube, ccmmarketmodel.com].

[Peelee]

1/6 teachers are millionaires

You keep saying that even though it is incredibly misleading.

https://i.ibb.co/t4ygK3w/teacher.png (https://ibb.co/2yXxh50)

a large contributing factor to that are pensions.
Brookings article on teacher pensions and why what you probably know about them is wrong. (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2016/09/29/pension-puzzles-part-i/)

And, from an article titled "14% of millionaires are teachers (https://andrewhallam.com/2012/05/fourteen-percent-of-americas-millionaires-are-teachers/)":
In addition to pensions, educators, including college professors, earn “a fair amount,” when you factor in publishing, consulting, and summer jobs, says George Walper, Spectrem president and CEO.

“If they’re smart at investing, they can do pretty well,” he adds.
....Another factor: Some 46% of the educators attribute their wealth to inheritance. That could leave them free to pursue a career regardless of the pay.

So if you're born rich, work multiple jobs, or are good at investing. None of which require you to be a teacher, or are even helped by you being a teacher.

[darkrose50]

Teachers tend to be:
* women (who overall perform better than men in the stock market)
* from a certain social background (who tend to have more money)
* from the upper-middle or upper class (who tend to have money)
* from the upper-middle or upper class (who tend to have learned money skills / cultural capital)
* intelligent (always helps with money)
* educated (always helps with money)
* not expected to live a fancy life (saves money)
* retiring with a pension (with all the saving and investing thing covered)

As a population teachers as a whole are an excellent source of learning money skills. Now having them taught to students is another thing. I was taught about compound interest by my high school dean.

[Peelee]

Teachers tend to be:
* women (who overall perform better than men in the stock market)
* from a certain social background (who tend to have more money)
* from the upper-middle or upper class (who tend to have money)
* from the upper-middle or upper class (who tend to have learned money skills / cultural capital)
* intelligent (always helps with money)
* educated (always helps with money)
* not expected to live a fancy life (saves money)
* retiring with a pension (with all the saving and investing thing covered)

As a population teachers as a whole are an excellent source of learning money skills. Now having them taught to students is another thing. I was taught about compound interest by my high school dean.

Bolding mine. And yes, I do agree that it's easy to be rich when you start out rich.

[darkrose50]

Bolding mine. And yes, I do agree that it's easy to be rich when you start out rich.

The son of a fisherman is likely going to outperform the son of a non-fisherman . . . and the son of a fisherman might have a grandfather or other relatives who are fishermen to ask for even more fishing advice.

Not only do the rich get money, but they get generational experience with money. Handling money is most definitely a set of skills. If you do not have money to handle, then you will not get experience handling money. It is a feedback loop that only helps to keep the rich rich, and the poor poor.

So asking teachers (as a group) about money may very well be a good source of advice.

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Okay so if the teacher ended his/her career making $100,000 per year, then the base pension rate would be (75%) so ~$75,000. Now we can take that $75,000 and see what it would be "worth" as a payout to an investment. If we figure bonds can get 4% per year . . . $75,000 / 0.04 = $1,875,000. So to live on an income of $75,000 per year one would need bonds valued at $1,875,000 with a 4% return rate.

[Peelee]

The son of a fisherman is likely going to outperform the son of a non-fisherman . . . and the son of a fisherman might have a grandfather or other relatives who are fishermen to ask for even more fishing advice.

Not only do the rich get money, but they get generational experience with money. Handling money is most definitely a set of skills. If you do not have money to handle, then you will not get experience handling money. It is a feedback loop that only helps to keep the rich rich, and the poor poor.

So asking teachers (as a group) about money may very well be a good source of advice.

You're ignoring the point, though. Saying "1/6 of teachers are millionaires" gives the impression that becoming a teacher is a viable path to being a millionaire, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence saying it's not; half of all millionaire teachers inherited their wealth and don't need to teach, others work multiple jobs not necessarily related to being a teacher (such as author or consultant, success at which also necessitates some amount of luck or, more likely, some amount of pre-existing connections), or are in households where both partners work (in which case being a teacher is no more vital than being literally any other profession that makes similar or greater amounts of money). Nothing about being a teacher gives any more likelihood to be a millionaire than any other comparable job.

[darkrose50]

You are not required to be a teacher to be wealthy, but teachers would be a good source of information about money.

* Teachers seem to outperform other professions with pensions (part of this is certainly being from wealthy families)
* The ones that inherited money would have cultural capital (growing up around the managing money skillset)
* Teachers tend to be intelligent and educated (not a bad combination)

Teachers look like a great source of knowledge about money to me. Not the only source, but a good source. Robert Kiyosaki's basically says that they don't teach money skills. I was taught money skills by several of my teachers. <-- This was basically what I was trying to say.

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I am not ignoring the point on purpose. Being intelligent and/or educated is a good path to becoming wealthy. As is tapping into cultural capital and/or personal experience. These seem to all be something truthful that he bases his sales pitch on.

[Peelee]

You are not required to be a teacher to be wealthy, but teachers would be a good source of information about money.

No moreso than any other profession that requires a collegiate degree, based on the criteria you've outlined. And anecdotal evidence is objectively unreliable. For example, I can counter your "teachers taught me to handle money" with me "I know a lot of teachers and professors, including one who worked with a group of business professors who banded together, bought a successful, long-running restaurant, cheaped out on ingredients, raised prices, bankrupted the place within four months, and then asked for raises at the university because with their business knowledge they could be out running restaurants instead of teaching at the college so the college needs to make it worthwhile for them." It's meaningless because it says nothing about tendencies of teachers.

[halfeye]

These days, millionaires are ten a penny. There was a time (probably about the 1930s or 1940s) when millionaires were as rare as billionaires are now. I remember a joke about a guy who travelled to the future, and his investments had made him a millionaire while he slept, but the price of a cup of coffee was £6M.

Medical doctors make more than MPs here, and I'd argue that the medics are better value for money. Teachers make some money, but not as much as medical doctors.

If inflation takes off again, everybody will be millionaires while still being poor.

[Tvtyrant]

Since a million dollars is worth one house where I live, I'm firmly in the "millionaires don't matter" category. A million dollars annually vs. A million in savings over 30 years is a huge difference; the latter category includes people in jobs like custodians and maintenance workers.

[Peelee]

Since a million dollars is worth one house where I live, I'm firmly in the "millionaires don't matter" category. A million dollars annually vs. A million in savings over 30 years is a huge difference; the latter category includes people in jobs like custodians and maintenance workers.

"Millionaire" typically doesn't count the primary residence as part of counted assets, to be fair.

[halfeye]

"Millionaire" typically doesn't count the primary residence as part of counted assets, to be fair.

Is that different from billionaires?

[Tvtyrant]

"Millionaire" typically doesn't count the primary residence as part of counted assets, to be fair.

Yeah but talking about the equivalent to a single house in assets, even a moderately nice house, as a sign of wealth is a pretty low bar. Outside of a few places like Alaska teacher pay tends to be relative to local inflation, so there aren't places with piles of wealthy teachers.

[Peelee]

Is that different from billionaires?
Yeah, in the sense that with billionaires it doesn't matter because the house'll barely move the needle.:smalltongue:

Yeah but talking about the equivalent to a single house in assets, even a moderately nice house, as a sign of wealth is a pretty low bar. Outside of a few places like Alaska teacher pay tends to be relative to local inflation, so there aren't places with piles of wealthy teachers.
Equivalent to a single house in a specific area. If you build a moderately nice house on the moon you don't devalue what a billionaire is because it's just worth a split-level in the Ocean of Storms.

[Tvtyrant]

Yeah, in the sense that with billionaires it doesn't matter because the house'll barely move the needle.:smalltongue:

Equivalent to a single house in a specific area. If you build a moderately nice house on the moon you don't devalue what a billionaire is because it's just worth a split-level in the Ocean of Storms.

Right, but 14% of teachers are millionaires. Since the coastal cities where houses cost the most are where salaries are highest (with some exceptions like Alaska and Wyoming) the millionaires are most likely in the same regions where it means the least.

Edit: Much of my family is school teachers, and several have assets of a million dollars or more. A lot of the value comes from holding onto things for a very long time, the magic of compound interest. Land here in Oregon is worth over 10x what it was in 1960, including crappy wastelands in the eastern part of the state.

[Peelee]

Right, but 14% of teachers are millionaires.

And about half of those are inherited wealth, and the rest are made up having multiple jobs (teacher/author/consultant), or in families where both partners work (and the average salaries of the partners are, I have to note, unreported). Unless you wish to claim 1/6 of teachers are in coastal cities (which, to be fair, they may be; I'm not familiar with the population density with that degree of specificity, but I'm banking on those other factors making up the vast majority of teacher "millionaires").

[Tvtyrant]

And about half of those are inherited wealth, and the rest are made up having multiple jobs (teacher/author/consultant), or in families where both partners work (and the average salaries of the partners are, I have no note unreported). Unless you wish to claim 1/6 of teachers are in coastal cities (which, to be fair, they may be; I'm not familiar with the population density with that degree of specificity, but I'm banking on those other factors making up the vast majority of teacher "millionaires").

Some basic math suggests 18% of US citizens reside in coastal cities, and NPR reports that many of the teachers in those cities cannot afford to live inside the cities they work in at all (looking at you San Fran.) Regardless there are maybe three states where being a teacher can be said to be a decent financial move; in Oregon they make 15% lower then private workers of similar attainment levels even after you factor in their pension programs.

But this really has moved off rails. I remember my brother reading the Rich Dad, Poor Dad book in highschool and telling my father he should have made more money.

[Vinyadan]

Does teacher comprise university teachers? Because then you have physicians, attorneys, managers, architects, engineers...

[lio45]

A lot of the value comes from holding onto things for a very long time, the magic of compound interest.Actually, that's the magic of a rising cost of living, not of compound interest :)

As to the OP, I was lent Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad poor Dad" over 15 years ago right after leaving my MSc and entering the world of business, and it was instrumental in convincing me to branch into real estate. Cap rates in my home area at the time were really good, I bought a fixer upper mixed use 4-story downtown building, refinanced it after fixing it up, rinse and repeat, and had a nice portfolio in my Eastern Canadian hometown just in time for everything to rise up as interest rates fell sharply. Then around 2010-2012 I build a second portfolio in the U.S. Sunbelt where cap rates were great, and that one went up as well. (I'm conservative in what I choose to acquire; I demand good cap rates, among other things.)

He's a typical guru, and a scam artist, but there are truths in what he's saying. (Note that I never paid a penny for his book). Ironically enough, I can almost say I'm that one person who got wealthy through (some of) his teachings - buy well-located real estate with good cap rates in areas you believe are about to rise in value/appeal, and don't be afraid of debt.

[Xyril]

And about half of those are inherited wealth, and the rest are made up having multiple jobs (teacher/author/consultant), or in families where both partners work (and the average salaries of the partners are, I have no note unreported). Unless you wish to claim 1/6 of teachers are in coastal cities (which, to be fair, they may be; I'm not familiar with the population density with that degree of specificity, but I'm banking on those other factors making up the vast majority of teacher "millionaires").

In fact, the cause of this correlation (if these numbers in fact suggest a noteworthy correlation, which other posters have brought in doubt) might be the opposite of what darkrose is suggesting. Quite a few of my best public school teachers were very well off, all of them because of inherited wealth, earnings during a first career, or marrying someone with a much higher paying job. I never really thought about it at the time, but now I realize that it's probably a very fulfilling job--particularly when you don't have to simultaneously worry about your finances--and if you don't have to work, but you're also not wealthy enough to turn philanthropy into your full time job, then being a public school teacher is a great way to do something meaningful and avoid wasting all that higher education.

[darkrose50]

No moreso than any other profession that requires a collegiate degree, based on the criteria you've outlined. And anecdotal evidence is objectively unreliable. For example, I can counter your "teachers taught me to handle money" with me "I know a lot of teachers and professors, including one who worked with a group of business professors who banded together, bought a successful, long-running restaurant, cheaped out on ingredients, raised prices, bankrupted the place within four months, and then asked for raises at the university because with their business knowledge they could be out running restaurants instead of teaching at the college so the college needs to make it worthwhile for them." It's meaningless because it says nothing about tendencies of teachers.

Cultural capital is growing up around a skillset or idea. If 1/6 teachers are millionaires, and 46% of them inherited it, then teachers would be an excellent source of cultural capital surrounding wealth.

For instance I teach my kids that investing is a no-brainer. I go on-and-on about it. They roll their heads, roll their eyes and say "dad . . . we know". My sister's kids are raised that there are winners and losers in investing . . . as if investing were a zero-sum-game. The S&P 500 is not a zero-sum-game.

Not investing is a fools choice. Compound interest is so f---ing powerful that to deny its existence is a fools choice. Passing up free money without work or effort is certainly a fools choice.

When I was 16 my grandmother gave me $1,000 after she sold her house and moved in with her sister. I wanted to invest that money, but my mom told me that investing was a good way to loose money and forbade it. I instead went on a trip to Europe. That $1,000 would be worth ~$94,000 today if invested in the S&P 500. NO WORK ON MY PART . . . NO EFFORT ON MY PART . . . NONE! Cultural capital in money is a thing that could earn or loose you a bunch of money. My kids are going have that ~$94,000 equivalent, if I can help it happen.

Seriously money without work and without effort is a really cool thing. How people do not know this or believe this is beyond my understanding.


Big shock as well that Darkrose posted a study he thought agreed with him when it didn't and not only didn't agree with him strenuously, outright states in its conclusion that the role of IQ is the opposite of what he wants to push.

This is evidence. Now we can look for more. But this is still evidence, and it is interesting. To dismiss it out of hand does not further your understanding of the topic.

[Willie the Duck]

As to the OP, I was lent Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad poor Dad" over 15 years ago right after leaving my MSc and entering the world of business, and it was instrumental in convincing me to branch into real estate. Cap rates in my home area at the time were really good, I bought a fixer upper mixed use 4-story downtown building, refinanced it after fixing it up, rinse and repeat, and had a nice portfolio in my Eastern Canadian hometown just in time for everything to rise up as interest rates fell sharply. Then around 2010-2012 I build a second portfolio in the U.S. Sunbelt where cap rates were great, and that one went up as well. (I'm conservative in what I choose to acquire; I demand good cap rates, among other things.)

Was there anything from his book that contributed to this success, other than getting you into real estate? I ask because the basic mantra of 'property is a good investment' has been a relatively constant drumbeat from economic gurus ever since the second World War, so I'm wondering if there was any Kiyosaki-specific advice that was life-changing.

[darkrose50]

Was there anything from his book that contributed to this success, other than getting you into real estate? I ask because the basic mantra of 'property is a good investment' has been a relatively constant drumbeat from economic gurus ever since the second World War, so I'm wondering if there was any Kiyosaki-specific advice that was life-changing.

Oh he says things that are 100% true! All good con-artists need to do that.

His central premise is to go find people who know about money and learn from them. The thing is that he then says "I know about money, pay me, and I'll school ya!" This is something that we don't see billionaires doing.

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I find it amazing that basically his book title reads: Learn carpentry from a carpenter, don't learn carpentry from a non-carpenter.

[Peelee]

Cultural capital is growing up around a skillset or idea. If 1/6 teachers are millionaires, and 46% of them inherited it, then teachers would be an excellent source of cultural capital surrounding wealth.

There's an old joke, you've probably heard it before: what do you call the person who graduated at the bottom of their class in medical school? "Doctor."

You're conflating a whole lot about generational money, ability to hold on to money, investing, and teaching. Not to mention that tactics that work for rich people may not work for poor people.

[Tvtyrant]

Oh he says things that are 100% true! All good con-artists need to do that.

His central premise is to go find people who know about money and learn from them. The thing is that he then says "I know about money, pay me, and I'll school ya!" This is something that we don't see billionaires doing.

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I find it amazing that basically his book title reads: Learn carpentry from a carpenter, don't learn carpentry from a non-carpenter.

Ben Franklin once said it took him a decade to save his first hundred pounds, five years the second, and a year the third. There is also the "you have to spend money to make money" phrase. Poor people lack any investment capital at all, middle class and upper class individuals aren't going to have great advice for them.

If you really want good financial advice to make it out of poverty you go to migrant families that accomplished it. The ones who open franchises staffed by their cousins and work 15 hour days.

[Peelee]

Ben Franklin once said it took him a decade to save his first hundred pounds, five years the second, and a year the third. There is also the "you have to spend money to make money" phrase. Poor people lack any investment capital at all, middle class and upper class individuals aren't going to have great advice for them.

If you really want good financial advice to make it out of poverty you go to migrant families that accomplished it. The ones who open franchises staffed by their cousins and work 15 hour days.

Nail on the head. A rich person loves debt because even though they have the money to pay it off, they can invest that money at a higher rate than the interest on the debt. A poor person hates debt because they don't have the money to pay it off so the interest rate means they owe more money they don't have.

Saving money works differently depending on how much you have.

[darkrose50]

Ben Franklin once said it took him a decade to save his first hundred pounds, five years the second, and a year the third. There is also the "you have to spend money to make money" phrase. Poor people lack any investment capital at all, middle class and upper class individuals aren't going to have great advice for them.

If you really want good financial advice to make it out of poverty you go to migrant families that accomplished it. The ones who open franchises staffed by their cousins and work 15 hour days.

Money wins on so many fronts. Money can buy the thing. Money can buy the thing in bulk. Money can buy the thing when you do not need it now, but will need it later. Poor people pay more for stuff then rich people.

If something like toilet paper or laundry soap goes on sale, then those with money can stock up. Those without money are trapped always having to pay the non-sale price, or the one-use price. If you have no money and you bought soap last week for full-price, then you likely don't have extra money to buy extra future soap because it is on-sale.

Buying in bulk is a thing. Target sometimes has the buy a case of toilet paper and get a $5 gift card deal. If my wife would let me my basement would be full of on-sale toilet paper, and laundry soap (the ones that we WILL use). Why not buy enough to last until the next sale?

[Peelee]

Money wins on so many fronts. Money can buy the thing. Money can buy the thing in bulk.

Bulk, unsurprisingly, is bulky. Space costs money. I buy in bulk a ton. I have a Sam's Club and Costco card. I have a fridge/freezer and separate freezer in the garage in addition to the fridge/freezer in the kitchen. I can store a lot of food. The garage is also amazingly spacious, as well as the garage in the second house that came with my house. I can store a lot of stuff in general.

My friends who had a ~900 sq ft house with no garage? They can't store jack. Buying in bulk doesn't exist for them because they have nowhere to put it.

[darkrose50]

Bulk, unsurprisingly, is bulky. Space costs money. I buy in bulk a ton. I have a Sam's Club and Costco card. I have a fridge/freezer and separate freezer in the garage in addition to the fridge/freezer in the kitchen. I can store a lot of food. The garage is also amazingly spacious, as well as the garage in the second house that came with my house. I can store a lot of stuff in general.

My friends who had a ~900 sq ft house with no garage? They can't store jack. Buying in bulk doesn't exist for them because they have nowhere to put it.

We have a small 1950's brick house that has ~1150 square feet, but with an equal basement. We have an attic that is not used for storage, a basement that is used for storage, and a 2.5 car garage that has some storage in it. The neighborhood is old, and the houses are small by todays standards. The high-school is very highly rated. A 3000 square-foot house might cost you $500,000 to $600,000 and a house my size might cost you $230,000. Essentially in order to have a bigger house an older house would need to be torn down, had a fire, or otherwise be majorly renovated.

My wife wants a new house with one more bedroom, one more bathroom, and one more room to use as a dining room. The house also must be on 1/2 of the town so that the kids can stay in the same school with their friends, and in the same area as the high school.

We almost bought a house with a three car garage with a second floor. That would have been neat. However the house itself was about 80% to 90% of what we wanted, and she decided that she wanted to wait for a better one to come along (I am okay with her picking the house). I was somewhat relieved as the house had a staircase to the second floor that was quite narrow, the basement stare landing required you to duck, the upstairs rooms were angled, and every damned fool wall was a window or closet. I swear to god every damned fool wall seemed like it was a window, or a closet. I had mild concerns that I would not be able to have furniture, or center a TV on any wall. The yard was also quite small.

[Xyril]

When I was 16 my grandmother gave me $1,000 after she sold her house and moved in with her sister. I wanted to invest that money, but my mom told me that investing was a good way to loose money and forbade it. I instead went on a trip to Europe. That $1,000 would be worth ~$94,000 today if invested in the S&P 500. NO WORK ON MY PART . . . NO EFFORT ON MY PART . . . NONE! Cultural capital in money is a thing that could earn or loose you a bunch of money. My kids are going have that ~$94,000 equivalent, if I can help it happen.

Seriously money without work and without effort is a really cool thing. How people do not know this or believe this is beyond my understanding.

Much like you say about Mr. Kiyosaki, many of the things you say are true, but the whole narrative you're putting together seems flawed to me.

Cultural capital is certainly important. However, your thesis that teachers are naturally more inclined to have that particular cultural capital isn't actually supported by any obvious inferences from any facts you have claimed, and if your conclusion logically follows from your factual assertions through a somewhat more complicated path, you haven't actually done anything to articulate how you got there.

Your mom wasn't wrong about investing. Many, many people lose their shirts because they know enough to understand that investing is generally good, but they don't know anything beyond that. Was 16 year old you sophisticated enough know what index funds were, how to distribute risk, etc, or would you have put all your money into Circuit City and Radio Shack because electronics were the future? Was her position the best one? Obviously, it would have been better if she was aware of the dangers and had the knowledge and confidence to teach you how to avoid unacceptable risks and obvious swindles, but I can hardly fault her for trying to protect you within the scope of her ability.

Then of course there is the matter of values, not to mention the time value of money. You certainly want to prepare for the future--in my case, probably overprepare in terms of saving enough to retire and to handle increasingly expensive and unlikely contingencies--but at some point, the marginal benefit to having that extra money in the future isn't worth the experiences you're sacrificing in the present. If that $94,000 dollars would have meant life-saving or life-changing medical treatment, or staying off the streets once social security runs out, then clearly the trip to Europe seems frivolous. If it means the difference between retiring to a beachfront condo and retiring to a condo with beach access, then I would argue that maybe a trip to Europe in your youth, or playing around with starting your own small business, taking a few courses at the community college, or buying an old car to fix up with your friends, or a number of also possible experiences may have had a bigger impact on your life, one that could also reverberate and compound itself (albeit far less predictably than a mutual fund) throughout the course of your life. Maybe that was one of the values that your mother was trying to impart.

My parents are a lot like how you wished your parents were: They taught me a lot about financial literacy, deferring gratification, preparing for the future, etc. That's why I went to a very pricey school and then went into a very lucrative job in a field that I found challenging and honestly incredibly fun on the day-to-day level, but not fulfilling on the long term. In a few years of working and living much more frugally than most of my friends and coworkers, I easily paid off all my debts and set up the core investments that will most likely afford me a very comfortable retirement, plus some padding for the unexpected. For that, I am very grateful to my parents. However, these weren't the only values they passed down to me. So when I decided that I wanted to leave my career and go back to school in order to (most likely) get paid less to do something more fulfilling, they supported my choice 100%. For that, I am even more grateful.


More relevantly to your original topic, maybe the kind of person who would pay for years of higher education and then forgo more materially rewarding jobs in the private sector in order to teach children whose parents weren't willing or weren't able to pay for private schooling is also the kind of person whose values don't necessarily focus on optimizing investments either.

I would also argue that the nature of public teacher compensation actually works against the sort of financial literacy you're promoting: Anyone with compensation that's heavily balanced towards a company-managed pension fund likely has far less excess direct income to invest as they please and little to no control over how their pension fund is invested. If you barely have any many left after necessities and a large portion of your retirement is taken care of automatically, then it's far less incentive to devote the time and effort necessary to develop a lot of financial sophistication. On the other hand, if you work somewhere that doesn't offer a pension, but instead offers 401k or similar matching plans (where you can control your investment) or simply pays you enough that you have substantial disposable income to save and invest, then the same amount of time devoted to financial literacy can yield much larger gains.

[darkrose50]

Sometimes I express an idea or opinion with the assumption that it is self-evident (or it underlying points are self evident). This is a flaw of mine.


Cultural capital is certainly important. However, your thesis that teachers are naturally more inclined to have that particular cultural capital isn't actually supported by any obvious inferences from any facts you have claimed, and if your conclusion logically follows from your factual assertions through a somewhat more complicated path, you haven't actually done anything to articulate how you got there.

Robert Kiyosaki claims that teachers teach the wrong economic skills. I assert that they are likely to be a good source of economic skills. The assumption being that teachers are predisposed to be (a) wealthy, (b) educated, (c) intelligent, and (d) skilled in explanation.

Inheriting wealth often comes with the cultural capital on how to manage that wealth. I would not assume that these people would be without money management skills. I would assume the opposite. Talking to them should bring light to their skill levels (via comparing and contrasting ideas and advice from multiple other sources). This appears to be a rich source of information gathering that is relatively easy to access for students. We all likely know many teachers.

I will reply to more later. It is time to go home from work.

Apparent paradoxes can be an either / or . . . even a both, embrace them. Some teachers could be an excellent source of information, and some teachers could be a horrible source of information. As a group this one is easy to access, and happens to have individuals highly likely to be from upper-middle-class or upper-class backgrounds with multi-generational wealth.

[Peelee]

Inheriting wealth often comes with the cultural capital on how to manage that wealth.
I disagree that this logically follows.

I would not assume that these people would be without money management skills. I would assume the opposite.
I wouldn't. In fact, I would assume those people would employ money management people who know how to manage said money.

[darkrose50]

"Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviors, and skills that one can tap into to demonstrate one's cultural competence, and thus one's social status or standing in society."

Certainly you are not arguing that cultural capital is not a thing.

You need money to have money management skills. People with money and money management skills have children. Having experience and grown up with money would bring understanding of money along with it. This is a major contributing factor as to why there is a stark multigenerational wealth divide in America. Just money alone is not the whole story.

I know for certain that I have money skills that I was brought up with. I can buy and sell things for profit rather consistently. I learned this from my father. This was just part of my upbringing. My father needed money to buy things to sell. Without my father having extra money I would not have learned how to make money buying and selling things. I have made trips to Disneyland profits rather consistently buying Kickstarter board games and selling them. Nothing to live on, but plenty to afford wiggle-room to splurge, and invest in buying more stock. An equal man from a different background would not be able to do the same, or would need more time to learn what to do and what not to do (perhaps being soured to the idea by having a loss that cultural capital would have prevented this other man into giving up on the idea entirely).

Even employing money management people would bring cultural capital on how to manage money. If I hired the best, then I would likely learn a thing or two. Heck the notion of asking an expert for advice could be that cultural capital.

Case in point . . . people who come into a lot of money without money skills tend to do quite poorly. Lottery winners, professional sports players, entertainers from poor backgrounds without money skills often do poorly with their money. Never having money, they simply do not know what to do with it.

[Willie the Duck]

"Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviors, and skills that one can tap into to demonstrate one's cultural competence, and thus one's social status or standing in society."

Certainly you are not arguing that cultural capital is not a thing.

You're right, that's literally not what is being argued.

[darkrose50]

You're right, that's literally not what is being argued.

Is item of contention that over teachers being a good source of this cultural capital . . . in either quality or the probability of possessing cultural capital surrounding wealth?

[Peelee]

People with money and money management skills have children. Having experience and grown up with money would bring understanding of money along with it.

Skills are not gained by osmosis, and even when taught, different people's proficiency in any given skill are different. How many NBA players have children who also played professional basketball? They were all brought up in households where the parent was a top athlete in basketball, with the knowledge and skills of how to get in and compete at that level. By your logic, professional sports should be dominated by dynasties, but it's actually uncommon.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

You're right, that's literally not what is being argued.

I'm honestly unsure what is being argued. It feels like a correlation not causation issue: "rich people like to go into teaching" being used to argue that "going into teaching makes you rich".

ETA:
Bulk, unsurprisingly, is bulky.
My BA teacher at Uni kept using this simple fact to stress how important was to strive for "0-inventory" (aka "just-in-time") business models. Warehouses are surprisingly expensive... until you realise they cannot possibly be anything other than money sinks (i.e. they cannot produce revenue, so long as they are warehouses and not, say, manufacturing facilities), at which point they become unsurprisingly expensive.

Grey Wolf

[darkrose50]

Skills are not gained by osmosis, and even when taught, different people's proficiency in any given skill are different. How many NBA players have children who also played professional basketball? They were all brought up in households where the parent was a top athlete in basketball, with the knowledge and skills of how to get in and compete at that level. By your logic, professional sports should be dominated by dynasties, but it's actually uncommon.

It is not osmosis, it is life experience. Children observe and soak up surrounding information and behaviors. They learn what money is and how their parents feel about money, how they use money, their relationship with money, and if money is something to be feared or embraced. It is not a guaranteed thing to take after your parents or understand things that they understand, but being exposed to things helps . . . it helps a lot. It is just a common thing that occurs.

One raised believing X tradition, can reject the X tradition, and join a Y tradition . . . but most do not. The son of a carpenter could be a horrible carpenter. The son of a carpenter who grew up around carpeting, and became a carpenter would have an advantage.

My wife and I are not athletes. When I hear sportsball talk I hear "We needed to sportsball more, the other sportsball team sportsballed better than we sportsballed, and that is why they won at sportsball. Next time our offensive sportsball players will need to do better against their defensive sportsball players by looking for the sportsball moves and reacting to them in time to win at sportsball."

My older daughter takes to athletics like a duck to water. Now if I was also an athlete, then that would most definitely be beneficial. She would have a wealth of information about what to do, and what not to do. It would definitely would benefit her to be able to tap into this knowledge bank. She will be at a disadvantage against an equally athletic daughter of athletes.


I'm honestly unsure what is being argued. It feels like a correlation not causation issue: "rich people like to go into teaching" being used to argue that "going into teaching makes you rich".

I think that they are both true. Wealth and IQ and education are correlated. Teachers have wealth and IQ and education. Some is because they come from families with wealth and IQ and education. Some is because they simply have higher IQs and education than other professions with pensions . . . and that IQ and education helps do smart educated things with money and that brings wealth.

Would you say that a teacher or a policeman would have a higher education and IQ?

Would you say that a teacher or a firefighter would have a higher education and IQ?

Would you say that a teacher or a postal worker would have a higher education and IQ?

Teachers likely have more education and more IQ than others in the pension world.



ETA:
My BA teacher at Uni kept using this simple fact to stress how important was to strive for "0-inventory" business models. Warehouses are surprisingly expensive... until you realise they cannot possibly be anything other than money sinks (i.e. they cannot produce revenue, so long as they are warehouses and not, say, manufacturing facilities), at which point they become unsurprisingly expensive.

That's funny NPR (Marketplace?) wont shut up about that company making gobbs of money off of renting warehouse space.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Wealth and IQ and education are correlated.
No, they are not.

ETA: oh, and the logical implication that therefore, lack of wealth correlates to lower IQs is making my skin crawl, so you may want to revise your logic there.


That's funny NPR wont shut up about that company making gobbs of money off of renting warehouse space.
So you are admitting that the company is not in fact using warehouse space for warehousing. They are, in fact, a realtor company. They don't have warehouses at all. They have land, which they rent to companies who are not following my professor's advice, and thus sinking money into warehouses which is collected by "that company".

Grey Wolf

[Peelee]

No, they are not.

ETA: oh, and the logical implication that therefore, lack of wealth correlates to lower IQs is making my skin crawl, so you may want to revise your logic there.

Seconded, and that's even ignoring that IQ tests is a largely discredited way to measure intelligence.

[darkrose50]

No, they are not.

ETA: oh, and the logical implication that therefore, lack of wealth correlates to lower IQs is making my skin crawl, so you may want to revise your logic there.


They are, but they are not. There are other factors other than IQ. Discrimination being a primary source, and wealth being another.

If we have two individuals with an IQ of 140, then they both have the roundabout prerequisite IQ to become a doctor. Social discrimination and/or lack of wealth needed to go to school for 12-years are definitely things that would harm this goal.

Two equal men with an IQ of 140 interested in being a doctor could very commonly not result in the two of them becoming a doctor.

Doctors can make good money. The one that has the right social-economic background to make it to become a doctor will earn a good living. The one who did not have the right socio-economic background to make it to the finish line . . . still has a 140 IQ, and will likely do better than your average 100 IQ guy.

It makes me want to cry that we lost out on so many scientists and doctors due to discrimination, and misuse of resources. Seriously this boils my blood, and makes me wonder what all those geniuses could have accomplished if not for bigotry, and/or poor planning.



So you are admitting that the company is not in fact using warehouse space for warehousing. They are, in fact, a realtor company. They don't have warehouses at all. They have land, which they rent to companies who are not following my professor's advice, and thus sinking money into warehouses which is collected by "that company".



I am not sure, likely they are pooling resources in order to save money. Like a bunch of bakers renting a kitchen as a co-op. They are likely are more like room-mates sharing expenses.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Seconded, and that's even ignoring that IQ tests is a largely discredited way to measure intelligence.

From my own experience, they are only good at measuring one thing: how well you do at thinking like the guy that designed them. And since said guy thinks himself intelligent, he brands you also intelligent if you think like him, on a sliding scale of how fast you are at thinking like him.

From there, it seems that anyone who thinks differently is labelled "savant" or "intuitive" or some other cop-out word to "explain" why someone can figure out, say, the mathematical structure of music even without mathematical knowledge but can't figure out which of the four vaguely-fitting, vaguely-not-fitting answer is the one the guy that designed the test thinks is the most appropriate.

Grey Wolf

[darkrose50]

IQ is the in-vogue measure of intelligence. Pre 1960's-ish vocabulary was in-vogue. We can blame the US Army for IQ being the standard. We can blame computers for IQ being so highly in demand. Computer programmers do not need a huge vocabulary . . . they need huge problem-solving skills. No one is making a killing on their huge vocabulary, and most folks no longer care about a vast vocabulary . . . they care about the money IQ brings with computer stuff.

All the crazy wealthy folks seem to be high IQ nerdy computer guys . . . they did not get there by talking pretty . . . I am sure talking pretty helps, but you need the nerdy IQ as well.

[Peelee]

IQ is the in-vogue measure of intelligence.

If you admit that it's simply en vogue and doesn't have any actual worth, why are you propping it up as a worthwhile metric?

[darkrose50]

If you admit that it's simply en vogue and doesn't have any actual worth, why are you propping it up as a worthwhile metric?

It is en vogue (en, good to know) because computers are en vogue and money is en vogue and computers equal money.

Talking pretty will not make you near the money that IQ will now-a-days because of computers.

Talking pretty still equates to intelligence . . . just not the kind that is nearly as profitable as IQ. This could change, and likely will change, over time.

[Peelee]

It is en vogue (en, good to know) because computers are en vogue and money is en vogue and computers equal money.

Actually, both "in vogue" and "en vogue" are correct. The "e" version is just the original French term.

Anyway, computers and money are not "en vogue," they are both objectively useful tools used by virtually every metric. IQ tests are not.

[Willie the Duck]

IQ is the in-vogue measure of intelligence. Pre 1960's-ish vocabulary was in-vogue. We can blame the US Army for IQ being the standard. We can blame computers for IQ being so highly in demand. Computer programmers do not need a huge vocabulary . . . they need huge problem-solving skills. No one is making a killing on their huge vocabulary, and most folks no longer care about a vast vocabulary . . . they care about the money IQ brings with computer stuff.

All the crazy wealthy folks seem to be high IQ nerdy computer guys . . . they did not get there by talking pretty . . . I am sure talking pretty helps, but you need the nerdy IQ as well.

This is actually a pretty good post to highlight the problem. There is a seed of an idea in here (multiple, actually). However, there isn't an actual A to B to C that brings it from premise to supporting points to conclusion. Ignoring whether all the points are accurate (plenty of non-US Army sources started using IQ tests in their hiring practices in the 1960s, and if they did so due to the army doing so, a supporting-evidence link would be useful), there are a number of steps that have not been actually laid out. The first is that IQ is a good measurement of something. Next that what it measures is problem solving skills. Next that computer programmers have this quality*. Also that the crazy wealth folks are computer guys**. And then that this IQ-measured problem solving ability is a quality that the rise of computers allowed the people who ended up being computer programmers to become the crazy wealthy people of the modern economy.
*I manage computer people. There is a lower boundary on smarts (which is not necessarily IQ), but there are plenty of middling minds in programming.
**If by crazy rich, you mean the people in the 90th-95th percentile slots, certainly. Most of the top 5% are not.

It is the failure to actually follow through on these arguments, DR, that make your arguments seem pretty nebulous. Add to that what others have said about treating IQ as a positive when you need it for your case, and acknowledging its' limitations when it isn't, or treating correlation and causation as the same thing when convenient, and... well, even if you have a point and it is correct, you just haven't done the heavy lifting of actually making that case.

[darkrose50]

Mostly IQ measures whether or not you can learn. An IQ under 70, basically means that it is a lot of trouble to teach you, and that it is likely not worth the time (according to the army). This is what we use in America to determine this for school at least.

IQ nerds like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and his ilk. Lesser IQ nerds as well, I guess.

This looks ligit: https://www.verywellmind.com/history-of-intelligence-testing-2795581

I have some very smart friends. Some are wildly successful, and some live in the equivalent of living in their parents basements. My babysitter has an IQ of 167 or something super crazy nuts-o high, has 3-4 English degrees, and cannot hold down a job to save her life. I know a guy (a friend of a friend) who's job is to tell other engineers why their ideas suck . . . he makes bank.

[lio45]

My BA teacher at Uni kept using this simple fact to stress how important was to strive for "0-inventory" (aka "just-in-time") business models. Warehouses are surprisingly expensive... until you realise they cannot possibly be anything other than money sinks (i.e. they cannot produce revenue, so long as they are warehouses and not, say, manufacturing facilities), at which point they become unsurprisingly expensive.I agree with you in the case of a rented warehouse, but in many cases if you own it it can be a good business model due to the real estate component of it. My company has a sizable warehouse that we use to store various things (mostly surplus and leftovers from jobs), on commercially zoned downtown land next to a multifamily rental building we already owned, and while I would agree with you that paying anything to store that crapload of free stuff that may be useful someday or not would not be worth it (financially, I'd be better off getting rid of it even if it does have some value), doing it the way I'm doing it is perfectly justifiable and profitable.

[darkrose50]

Your mom wasn't wrong about investing. Many, many people lose their shirts because they know enough to understand that investing is generally good, but they don't know anything beyond that. Was 16 year old you sophisticated enough know what index funds were, how to distribute risk, etc, or would you have put all your money into Circuit City and Radio Shack because electronics were the future? Was her position the best one? Obviously, it would have been better if she was aware of the dangers and had the knowledge and confidence to teach you how to avoid unacceptable risks and obvious swindles, but I can hardly fault her for trying to protect you within the scope of her ability.

I have never lost more money than I have gained. Like never. With money I am in the “good enough” category.

Now I could have lost that $1,000 . . . but perhaps I could have done the average. I would like to think that I would have asked the dean at school who taught us about compound interest what to do. Basically he was more-or-less in charge of the school-districts investment money . . . apparently he did quite well with it.

Then again I was an idiot teenager . . ..


Then of course there is the matter of values, not to mention the time value of money. You certainly want to prepare for the future--in my case, probably overprepare in terms of saving enough to retire and to handle increasingly expensive and unlikely contingencies--but at some point, the marginal benefit to having that extra money in the future isn't worth the experiences you're sacrificing in the present. If that $94,000 dollars would have meant life-saving or life-changing medical treatment, or staying off the streets once social security runs out, then clearly the trip to Europe seems frivolous. If it means the difference between retiring to a beachfront condo and retiring to a condo with beach access, then I would argue that maybe a trip to Europe in your youth, or playing around with starting your own small business, taking a few courses at the community college, or buying an old car to fix up with your friends, or a number of also possible experiences may have had a bigger impact on your life, one that could also reverberate and compound itself (albeit far less predictably than a mutual fund) throughout the course of your life. Maybe that was one of the values that your mother was trying to impart.

My parents taught me a lot. Investing in the stock market was not one of them. I somehow managed to average a return of 13.3% between 2004 and now-ish. I am actually quite shocked at how well I have done.

I do not think that I could measure up to my father, but I will try.

I do not think that I would ever be as good at cleaning or organizing as my mother . . . those professional organizers on TV are a pale impression of her level of skill.


My parents are a lot like how you wished your parents were: They taught me a lot about financial literacy, deferring gratification, preparing for the future, etc. That's why I went to a very pricey school and then went into a very lucrative job in a field that I found challenging and honestly incredibly fun on the day-to-day level, but not fulfilling on the long term. In a few years of working and living much more frugally than most of my friends and coworkers, I easily paid off all my debts and set up the core investments that will most likely afford me a very comfortable retirement, plus some padding for the unexpected. For that, I am very grateful to my parents. However, these weren't the only values they passed down to me. So when I decided that I wanted to leave my career and go back to school in order to (most likely) get paid less to do something more fulfilling, they supported my choice 100%. For that, I am even more grateful.

More relevantly to your original topic, maybe the kind of person who would pay for years of higher education and then forgo more materially rewarding jobs in the private sector in order to teach children whose parents weren't willing or weren't able to pay for private schooling is also the kind of person whose values don't necessarily focus on optimizing investments either.

I would also argue that the nature of public teacher compensation actually works against the sort of financial literacy you're promoting: Anyone with compensation that's heavily balanced towards a company-managed pension fund likely has far less excess direct income to invest as they please and little to no control over how their pension fund is invested. If you barely have any many left after necessities and a large portion of your retirement is taken care of automatically, then it's far less incentive to devote the time and effort necessary to develop a lot of financial sophistication. On the other hand, if you work somewhere that doesn't offer a pension, but instead offers 401k or similar matching plans (where you can control your investment) or simply pays you enough that you have substantial disposable income to save and invest, then the same amount of time devoted to financial literacy can yield much larger gains.

Well here is my point. They are an easy source that is accessible. I do not think that they are a source of misinformation, or that they are a source to be ignored. Just the fact that 1/6 of them are millionaires means that they, as a population, would be a good source to learn about money from. I certainly did. This nut-job saying that one should not trust what teachers teach about money is full nutso-bananas tin-foil-hat keeping folks poor on purpose bull-crap crazy talk.

[Peelee]

I have never lost more money than I have gained. Like never. With money I am in the “good enough” category.

Or "lucky enough" category. I'm happy for you, that's great, but your experiences are not necessarily typical and things beyond your control can easily turn things upside down at any time.

Oh, also:

Well here is my point. They are an easy source that is accessible. I do not think that they are a source of misinformation, or that they are a source to be ignored. Just the fact that 1/6 of them are millionaires means that they, as a population, would be a good source to learn about money from.

That's not how statistics works, though.

[darkrose50]

Or "lucky enough" category. I'm happy for you, that's great, but your experiences are not necessarily typical and things beyond your control can easily turn things upside down at any time.

Oh, also:


That's not how statistics works, though.

Sure it is. If a population is predisposed to wealth, then gaining information about wealth from that population would be a good place to look.

I would certainly not rule this source out as an important and easily accessible source. I have had at least 4-5 teachers who have taught me about money.

[Chen]

Well here is my point. They are an easy source that is accessible. I do not think that they are a source of misinformation, or that they are a source to be ignored. Just the fact that 1/6 of them are millionaires means that they, as a population, would be a good source to learn about money from. I certainly did. This nut-job saying that one should not trust what teachers teach about money is full nutso-bananas tin-foil-hat keeping folks poor on purpose bull-crap crazy talk.

Very few teachers go into teacher because of how nice the pension is. And that's where the majority of their net worth is coming from. So them being millionaires has very little to do with their own decision making process with respect to money. So why would I trust them for money advice (unless it was "go somewhere where you get a good pension")?

[darkrose50]

Very few teachers go into teacher because of how nice the pension is. And that's where the majority of their net worth is coming from. So them being millionaires has very little to do with their own decision making process. So why would I trust them for money advice (unless it was "go somewhere where you get a good pension")?

Look up millionaire lists by profession and oogle how often teacher is way up there. Not police-officer, mail-person, or fire-person . . . teacher. Now ask why that is.

I have fuzzy numbers on this. Teachers tend to be from upper-middle-class and upper-class backgrounds. ~46% of them attribute there wealth from inheritance. A recent survey concluded that $20,000 was a life-changing inheritance. I am betting that if this question was raised as "Have you inherited $20,000 or more?" that more than 46% of teachers would say yes.

So perhaps ~1/2 of those teachers make it via pensions, and perhaps ~1/2 make it via inheritance.

Inherited money often comes with inherited family talks about how to make and manage money . . . and that is good stuff to tap into!

[Peelee]

Sure it is. If a population is predisposed to wealth, then gaining information about wealth from that population would be a good place to look.

I would certainly not rule this source out as an important and easily accessible source. I have had at least 4-5 teachers who have taught me about money.

Cool. If you grew up in downtown Detroit, would you still have had 4-5 teachers who taught you about money? How many of those teachers would be millionaires, or predisposed to wealth? You're assuming equal distribution when you have absolutely zero reason to. Richer teachers are likely going to live in richer areas, and will likely have richer students, who (according to your own argument) will not need advice on money because they'll already have it from their own family.

Think of it this way: the odds of getting attacked by a shark is 1 in 11.5 million. Do you think the person who lives on the beach and swims in the ocean every day has the same odds as the person who lives in Milwaukee and never takes a vacation?


Look up millionaire lists by profession and oogle how often teacher is way up there. Not police-officer, mail-person, or fire-person . . . teacher. Now ask why that is.

Because half of them don't need to work whatsoever and the wealthy who work for fun tend to not go into the post office or police departments?

[Chen]

So perhaps ~1/2 of those teachers make it via pensions, and perhaps ~1/2 make it via inheritance.

Inherited money often comes with inherited family talks about how to make and manage money . . . and that is good stuff to tap into!

But neither pensions nor inheritance have a causal relationship with being good at managing money.

The statement you're making is too broad for no reason. Some teachers are definitely good at managing money. Others are not. You're not going to be in a random situation where you have to ask someone about managing money when you know nothing else about them except whether or not they are a teacher.

Consider: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/03/white-families-are-twice-as-likely-to-be-millionaires-as-a-generation-ago/?noredirect=on

1/7 white families in the US are millionaires (very similar to your 1/6 teachers statistic). Would you generalize that to say you could therefore ask any white person about money management?

[darkrose50]

Cool. If you grew up in downtown Detroit, would you still have had 4-5 teachers who taught you about money? How many of those teachers would be millionaires, or predisposed to wealth? You're assuming equal distribution when you have absolutely zero reason to. Richer teachers are likely going to live in richer areas, and will likely have richer students, who (according to your own argument) will not need advice on money because they'll already have it from their own family.

Think of it this way: the odds of getting attacked by a shark is 1 in 11.5 million. Do you think the person who lives on the beach and swims in the ocean every day has the same odds as the person who lives in Milwaukee and never takes a vacation?

Apparently the median income of the Detroit is $26,249. That is crazy low compared to the poor area my wife works in. An I mean poor make you cry because a little girl can't afford an apple poor. My wife works in a poor area where the median income is ~$44,000. She works with some well-off folks, and with some folks from well-off families. All the same she works with people who are not well-off nor are good with money.

[Xyril]

1/7 white families in the US are millionaires (very similar to your 1/6 teachers statistic). Would you generalize that to say you could therefore ask any white person about money management?

I used to try that growing up, but I guess the white people couldn't hear me inside their invisible boxes.


Sure it is. If a population is predisposed to wealth, then gaining information about wealth from that population would be a good place to look.


To reiterate Pelee, no, it's not how statistics work. Also, you're moving the goalposts slightly. Earlier, you were talking about how to learn to manage your money and achieve wealth. Now you're talking about "gaining information about wealth." That slight distinction makes all the difference when it comes to correlation and causation. If a population is predisposed to being wealthy, then they are a good group to talk to about what it's like to be wealthy because, statistically speaking, you have to ask fewer people before you find a wealthy person who can speak from personal experience. Causation doesn't matter.

However, the whole discussion isn't predicated on learning what it's like to be rich, it's about learning how to best manage your own money and achieve wealth. In that respect, causation absolutely matters. If you notice that blacksmiths are mostly very wealthy by early adulthood, regardless of how humble their family background, and you have reason to believe that blacksmithing is the direct cause of their accumulation of wealth, then blacksmiths might be a great source of information on making and growing your money. However, if you notice that goblins are suddenly wealthy because they all looted a big city, and a few generations later, their descendants are fabulously wealthy because none of their ancestors blatantly squandered their family wealth, maybe their above average mean and median assets don't necessarily come with great financial acumen.




Now ask why that is.

I have fuzzy numbers on this. Teachers tend to be from upper-middle-class and upper-class backgrounds. ~46% of them attribute there wealth from inheritance. A recent survey concluded that $20,000 was a life-changing inheritance. I am betting that if this question was raised as "Have you inherited $20,000 or more?" that more than 46% of teachers would say yes.


Your phrasing could be a bit more clear. This isn't 46% of teachers. This is 46% of the teachers on whatever list of wealthy people you cite.



So perhaps ~1/2 of those teachers make it via pensions, and perhaps ~1/2 make it via inheritance.


So by your own optimistic numbers, if 1/6 of teachers are "millionaires" and about half of them earn it by inheritance, that means that 1/12 of teachers are millionaires via inherited with. This inheritance may have come with lessons in financial literacy, or maybe not, so at most about 1/12 of teachers have that knowledge to share, and most likely significantly less do. At this point, maybe Chen's idea of asking random white people for financial advice is looking a bit better than asking teachers.



This nut-job saying that one should not trust what teachers teach about money is full nutso-bananas tin-foil-hat keeping folks poor on purpose bull-crap crazy talk.


I'm sorry, I haven't been keeping track well enough, but who exactly is this directed at? I don't think anyone here is trying to keep people poor, nor is anyone arguing that public teachers aren't pretty great people or pretty great resources in general. The only issue I see is that you draw some very strong conclusions based on factual assertions that some people think are inaccurate, and reasoning that some people feel might be flawed or overstated.

[AMFV]

On the teachers argument. The thing is that the skills that make you good at teaching and good at dealing with students are not the skills that are going to make you a savvy and quality investor. Furthermore teachers don't really generally have control over their pension funds and thus require less investment knowledge than the average person who might have an IRA or other type of retirement under their personal control. You might have a teacher who IS good at money, but it's not needed, you don't need that skill to be a good teacher and improving that skill isn't going to make you a better teacher. The only thing most teachers (in a grade school or high school level) would need to know is compound interest, and only if they're math teachers. So that's a really small amount of financial knowledge.

Let me put it this way. In my line of work, learning about a new Microsoft Office product would be absolutely worthless for me professionally, I might do it, but it would be my freetime, the same as a teacher who learns about money management would have to be choosing to use their own personal time to do so.

When I was in college I had a math teacher who once a month would go to Rivers and gamble, he'd lose a couple of hundred bucks. Now he knew the odds, he knew that the money was spent as soon as he walked through the door (unless he won, which did happen from time to time), inarguably he was using his money less efficiently (if making the most money possible is your goal) than had he invested it. But he chose not to, despite having the knowledge to do so. That's the thing, what is most likely more than anything else to determine your financial state is your choices. When I was fourteen I wanted to become a lawyer, I had good grades, and was good at speaking, good at research. Later on, in my life, I chose to go a different path, and I make less money, substantially than I would have was I a lawyer, I'm not unhappy with that, but it's factually true, my choices have made me less money (although debateably happier, I'm fairly sure I'd have been happy doing any profession I chose though).

[darkrose50]

But neither pensions nor inheritance have a causal relationship with being good at managing money.

The statement you're making is too broad for no reason. Some teachers are definitely good at managing money. Others are not. You're not going to be in a random situation where you have to ask someone about managing money when you know nothing else about them except whether or not they are a teacher.

Consider: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/03/white-families-are-twice-as-likely-to-be-millionaires-as-a-generation-ago/?noredirect=on

1/7 white families in the US are millionaires (very similar to your 1/6 teachers statistic). Would you generalize that to say you could therefore ask any white person about money management?

Here is my hypothesis: The new generation learns things from the from the last generation. Multigenerational wealth management is passed from one generation to the next. Seriously the rules are dirt simple. The bar for entry is kind-of-low.

[1] Live below your means: You need money to save and invest.
[2] Pay your bills in full: I try to pay them every payday. it is super important to pay credit cards in full.
[3] Save: This is more important than what you invest in, but you also need to invest your savings.
[4] Get a Roth IRA, and/or 401(k): . . . take all the matching 401(k) money that you can.
[5] Diversify: Invest in the S&P 500, or the total stock market, or a fund with your retirement year on it.
[6] Invest for the long term: don't touch it. When the stock market goes down, then buy more into the market.

I am fairly certain that I can instill those ideas into my kids.

[Keltest]

Here is my hypothesis: The new generation learns things from the from the last generation. Multigenerational wealth management is passed from one generation to the next. Seriously the rules are dirt simple. The bar for entry is kind-of-low.

[1] Live below your means: You need money to save and invest.
[2] Pay your bills in full: I try to pay them every payday. it is super important to pay credit cards in full.
[3] Save: This is more important than what you invest in, but you also need to invest your savings.
[4] Get a Roth IRA, and/or 401(k): . . . take all the matching 401(k) money that you can.
[5] Diversify: Invest in the S&P 500, or the total stock market, or a fund with your retirement year on it.
[6] Invest for the long term: don't touch it. When the stock market goes down, then buy more into the market.

I am fairly certain that I can instill those ideas into my kids.

I would suggest that there are a lot of college graduates out there with degrees gathering dust in a closet while they work two part time jobs to pay off their college loans who would disagree that what the older generations have to teach is automatically useful or worth listening to.

Seriously though, its great that you want your kids to be fiscally responsible, but I think youre failing to take into account that following step 1 could very well involve things like skipping meals, living off of nothing but chips and bottled water, and avoiding doctor/dentist visits because those all cost money.

Invested money may grow exponentially, but before you can start doing that, you need to be able to safely say that your initial investment is money you don't and wont need for decades, and frankly most poorer families simply cant afford to say that about $500-$1000

[Razade]

Here is my hypothesis: The new generation learns things from the from the last generation. Multigenerational wealth management is passed from one generation to the next.

What about kids in a generation who go on to teach their kids how not to save money? Or how about kids who didn't have parents or guardians to teach them how to save money but did it on their own? Where did that knowledge come from? It can't be from cultural osmosis, because tons of people can't save money. So how do the people who, independent of anyone else, are just good at saving money? In your view does knowledge require prior knowledge? Where did the knowledge to save money first come about? It can't have always been, money hasn't always existed.

Whence came fiscal responsibility. What generation taught it to the first generation to learn it?

[Peelee]

Here is my hypothesis: The new generation learns things from the from the last generation.

And that's the story of how no empire fell, ever.

[darkrose50]

. . . It's not how statistics work.

. . . However, the whole discussion isn't predicated on learning what it's like to be rich, it's about learning how to best manage your own money and achieve wealth. In that respect, causation absolutely matters. If you notice that blacksmiths are mostly very wealthy by early adulthood, regardless of how humble their family background, and you have reason to believe that blacksmithing is the direct cause of their accumulation of wealth, then blacksmiths might be a great source of information on making and growing your money. However, if you notice that goblins are suddenly wealthy because they all looted a big city, and a few generations later, their descendants are fabulously wealthy because none of their ancestors blatantly squandered their family wealth, maybe their above average mean and median assets don't necessarily come with great financial acumen.


Okay let me explain why this is how (one part) of statistics work.

Please note that I do not think like most people, not better, just different.

My method of procedure generation involves:
[1] Asking questions from those who are likely to have the answers. This includes those who have experience, worked on the subject, who have succeeded or failed on some part of the subject at hand.
[2] Comparing and contrasting the various ideas.
[3] Building and rebuilding a procedural model.

Using this starting point it most definitely makes sense to gather information from those who have a high predisposition to be (a) wealthy, (b) have experience with multigenerational wealth [cultural capital in wealth management], (c) are intelligent, (d) are educated, and (e) are experienced at communicating ideas.

Teachers would be a good source as a whole to learn about money and investment (money management).



Also, you're moving the goalposts slightly. Earlier, you were talking about how to learn to manage your money and achieve wealth. Now you're talking about "gaining information about wealth." That slight distinction makes all the difference when it comes to correlation and causation. If a population is predisposed to being wealthy, then they are a good group to talk to about what it's like to be wealthy because, statistically speaking, you have to ask fewer people before you find a wealthy person who can speak from personal experience. Causation doesn't matter.


The goalpost was to point out that teachers are a likely source of good information about money. I would not dismiss multigenerational cultural capital from the upper-middle-class and the upper-class as a good source of investing information (probability). I would logically conclude that one needs money to invest, and that the wealthy (as a population) have money and experience investing [as a whole, as a population].

The knowledge for investing could be from one conversation:

* From my wife’s grandfather I learned that during the depression investing in consumer staples with high dividends worked for him. I think it worked for me during the great recession.

* From my high-school dean I learned about compound interest, and how it could make you wealthy.



Your phrasing could be a bit more clear. This isn't 46% of teachers. This is 46% of the teachers on whatever list of wealthy people you cite.

So by your own optimistic numbers, if 1/6 of teachers are "millionaires" and about half of them earn it by inheritance, that means that 1/12 of teachers are millionaires via inherited with. This inheritance may have come with lessons in financial literacy, or maybe not, so at most about 1/12 of teachers have that knowledge to share, and most likely significantly less do. At this point, maybe Chen's idea of asking random white people for financial advice is looking a bit better than asking teachers.


We know that teachers are disproportionately (a) from the upper-middle-class, and the upper-class, and (b) the profession is high on lists of professions that end up millionaires. We also know that (c) cultural capital is a thing. Cultural capital is not a guaranteed thing, but it is a thing. Ergo (d) if searching out cultural capital about wealth, then teachers as a whole would be a good source of information, and not a bad source of information as postulated by the author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”.

We identified a goal: Learn about wealth
We identified a goal: Tap into cultural capital surrounding wealth
We identified a population that is highly likely to have this cultural capital: Teachers
. . . that is exactly how probability works.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

And that's the story of how no empire fell, ever.

Indeed. As a counterpoint, even a brief perusal of the biographies of children of Roman Emperors who grew up when their dads where in office and eventually ascended to the purple themselves will tell you rich kids don't ever seem to learn how to manage money. Being born to wealth seems, if anything, to make you appreciate money less, and thus mismanage it more. I understand Americans have a concept of "trust fund baby" along similar lines?

Grey Wolf

[Razade]

And that's the story of how no empire fell, ever.

Not to mention all the lost knowledge we've got. How do we make Greek Fire? Who knows. Roman concrete? Nope. But I'm really glad I learned how to save a buck from my dad. You know. The useful stuff.

[Peelee]

Okay let me explain why this is how (one part) of statistics work.
You didn't explain anything about statistics there, and are still missing why it's not how statistics work. You're not separating mathematics from reality. If I live in Arab, Alabama, the odds of a teacher being a millionaire (or even will be a millionaire in the future) are significantly lower than if I was on the upper east side in Manhattan. Saying "one in six' does not mean that in any given group of six, one will be a millionaire; it means the entire population it's one in six. You're assuming even distribution when it's almost certainly very heavily grouped.


the profession is high on lists of professions that end up millionaires.

It is not, since a great deal of them start out as millionaires. What's happened here is that you're very subtly rephrasing things to slant in favor of your conclusion. You may not be realizing you're doing it, but you are.

[darkrose50]

I find the concept of multigenerational wealth to be fascinating. Learning about money management is part of multigenerational wealth.

[Razade]

I find the concept of multigenerational wealth to be fascinating. Learning about money management is part of multigenerational wealth.

It's really cool you have interests and it's neat that you find multi-generational wealth to be one of those things. Hobbies and things we enjoy studying make life more fulfilling and enjoyable, to be sure. Your interest in the concept however doesn't really do much for defending your claims. I really like baking bread but if I came in to a thread and said that the best bread is made out of cottage cheese and rye and when asked why I feel that way go off on a tangent about how rye flour gave everyone ergot poisoning people are going to start wondering if I'm really interested in engaging with the discussion. When people start bringing figures and statistics that run counter to my recipe, explaining the science behind why my cottage cheese and rye bread wouldn't work it leads further credence to that fact.

To be honest, your belief that one of the best ways to become a millionaire is to become a teacher is comparable to your brother in law's belief that Robert Kiyosaki is a money guru. You've both been convinced by bad math and worse arguments and you both are committed to the belief regardless of counter information.

[darkrose50]

You didn't explain anything about statistics there, and are still missing why it's not how statistics work. You're not separating mathematics from reality. If I live in Arab, Alabama, the odds of a teacher being a millionaire (or even will be a millionaire in the future) are significantly lower than if I was on the upper east side in Manhattan. Saying "one in six' does not mean that in any given group of six, one will be a millionaire; it means the entire population it's one in six. You're assuming even distribution when it's almost certainly very heavily grouped.

This is the whole "people have 10-fingers and 10-toes" idea. You can be a person with less or more than 10-digits. But as a population we have 10-digits. It would be correct to say that humans have 10-fingers and 10-toes. People would know that you are not calling a war veteran who lost an arm a non-person.

Sub-populations do not disprove the population average. One cannot disprove a data-set by citing one data-point.


It is not, since a great deal of them start out as millionaires. What's happened here is that you're very subtly rephrasing things to slant in favor of your conclusion. You may not be realizing you're doing it, but you are.

If I wanted to gain information on wealth and investing, then I would certainly not [u]specifically rule out teachers as teaching anti-wealth theories. In fact I would gravitate towards them.[/b]

There are very often more than one contributing factor to a reason. It confuses me to no end as to why folks would stop at one. Teachers should not be your only source of information, but are most definitely an excellent source that is easy one to access.

[1] Smart.
[2] Educated.
[3] Tend to be from the upper-middle-class and upper-class.
[4a] The upper-middle-class and upper-class tend to have money. [4b] Investing is a skill (often a simple one) and [4c] practicing a skill requires money. [4d] Skills and ideas are often multigenerational.
[5] Tend to be millionaires.

[Peelee]

This is the whole "people have 10-fingers and 10-toes" idea. You can be a person with less or more than 10-digits. But as a population we have 10-digits. It would be correct to say that humans have 10-fingers and 10-toes. People would know that you are not calling a war veteran who lost an arm a non-person.

Sub-populations do not disprove the population average. One cannot disprove a data-set by citing one data-point.
No, this is more "the average person has 1.5 children" idea. You are not separating math from reality. Statistics do not work the way you're presenting, as multiple people have tried to tell you and demonstrate to you.

If one person says you're a duck, ignore them. If two people say you're a duck, start to think about it. If three people say you're a duck, check for feathers.

If I wanted to gain information on wealth and investing, then I would certainly not [u]specifically rule out teachers as teaching anti-wealth theories. [/b]
Literally nobody in this thread is making that claim, though.

[darkrose50]

It's really cool you have interests and it's neat that you find multi-generational wealth to be one of those things. Hobbies and things we enjoy studying make life more fulfilling and enjoyable, to be sure. Your interest in the concept however doesn't really do much for defending your claims. I really like baking bread but if I came in to a thread and said that the best bread is made out of cottage cheese and rye and when asked why I feel that way go off on a tangent about how rye flour gave everyone ergot poisoning people are going to start wondering if I'm really interested in engaging with the discussion. When people start bringing figures and statistics that run counter to my recipe, explaining the science behind why my cottage cheese and rye bread wouldn't work it leads further credence to that fact.

To be honest, your belief that one of the best ways to become a millionaire is to become a teacher is comparable to your brother in law's belief that Robert Kiyosaki is a money guru. You've both been convinced by bad math and worse arguments and you both are committed to the belief regardless of counter information.

Wait, what? That is a separate argument. It is related, but separate.

Are saying that Robert Kiyosaki was correct in that teachers are a horrible source of learning about money and investing? I am arguing that they are indeed a good source for information on wealth and investing for a variety of reasons.

[Keltest]

This is the whole "people have 10-fingers and 10-toes" idea. You can be a person with less or more than 10-digits. But as a population we have 10-digits. It would be correct to say that humans have 10-fingers and 10-toes. People would know that you are not calling a war veteran who lost an arm a non-person.

Sub-populations do not disprove the population average. One cannot disprove a data-set by citing one data-point.



If I wanted to gain information on wealth and investing, then I would certainly not [u]specifically rule out teachers as teaching anti-wealth theories. In fact I would gravitate towards them.[/b]

There are very often more than one contributing factor to a reason. It confuses me to no end as to why folks would stop at one. Teachers should not be your only source of information, but are most definitely an excellent source that is easy one to access.

[1] Smart.
[2] Educated.
[3] Tend to be from the upper-middle-class and upper-class.
[4a] The upper-middle-class and upper-class tend to have money. [4b] Investing is a skill (often a simple one) and [4c] practicing a skill requires money. [4d] Skills and ideas are often multigenerational.
[5] Tend to be millionaires.

I think youre missing the point here. That there is a substantial subset of teachers who are wealthy does not mean that their being a teacher has anything to do with them being wealthy, and asking any given teacher how to become wealthy is unlikely to yield useful information, including from the wealthy ones. Those who aren't millionaires are obviously not in a position to advise you, and those who are usually became so through a combination of factors that are difficult, if not impossible, to replicate, such as being born wealthy already.

Heck, my mom is a teacher, and while our family is close to qualifying as millionaires if you count all of our combined assets like the house, there are also three of us holding jobs at the moment. "Marry somebody who is already rich" may technically make you wealthy, but its not going to give you any good money management knowledge.

[snowblizz]

Indeed. As a counterpoint, even a brief perusal of the biographies of children of Roman Emperors who grew up when their dads where in office and eventually ascended to the purple themselves will tell you rich kids don't ever seem to learn how to manage money. Being born to wealth seems, if anything, to make you appreciate money less, and thus mismanage it more. I understand Americans have a concept of "trust fund baby" along similar lines?

Grey Wolf

There's a saying around these parts: "The first generation creates companies (ie wealth), the second maintains them, the third generation destroys them". AFAICT quite the truism. The logic behind is the 1st generations builds it, the 2nd are present for the initial struggle and can maintain the same course, the 3rd only knows "wealth" and has little actual contact with the business. I would in their defence maybe add some of the blame could be placed on 2nd gen who are less innovative and thus the company tends to fall behind the times as they try to maintain what was. I'm not saying this a hard and fast rule. But it seems to broadly speaking apply to many companies and typical wealth acquisition scenarios.
Anecdotally speaking a local shipping family the parents (2nd generation) talked about how humble their life was growing up. The third generation who I went to school with were spoiled brats completely incapable of taking a set-back. Or doing anything worthwhile. It remains to be seen if they will dismantle the companies they'll inherit (they are now starting to take over). Though a lto of money can compensate a lot, say hiring other people to run things and investing part of the wealth in easily manageable assets like real-estate.

Also my mom is a teacher and totally rubbish with money. So that claim makes me laugh every time I read it.

[Razade]

Literally nobody in this thread is making that claim, though.

I'd make a claim that hits close to it. Teachers aren't inherently a better source of money saving information than non-teachers.


Wait, what? That is a separate argument. It is related, but separate.

I don't think I made an argument there? I made an observation about how you've comported yourself in this thread.


Are saying that Robert Kiyosaki was correct in that teachers are a horrible source of learning about money and investing? I am arguing that they are indeed a good source for information on wealth and investing for a variety of reasons.

Nope. I didn't say anything remotely close to that.

[darkrose50]

The topic is that the author of this book said that teachers do not teach how to become wealthy. I say the opposite is true.

One can say that Americans tend to have 1.8 children per family (or whatever).

So if I was looking to learn more about a culture that has 1.8 children per family, then I would study Americans. I would likely start with Americans, as I am in America (easy to access), and they have a probability to have the source material that I could gather. Now I need to take a look at the median, the mode, and the mean. I need to look at the distribution, and to see if there are clusters. I would look at other sources, but I would not rule this one out.

If someone came around and told me not to look at a population that tended to have 1.8 children per family . . . when that was the subject I was looking into . . . then I likely would not listen to that person.

So:
[1] I would not rule out gaining information on wealth from teachers, because that would be stupid.
[2] I would in-fact rate them as easily accessible, and more likely to have cultural capital surrounding the topic. Because I want the information, and ruling out this higher-than-average source would be foolish.

[Peelee]

The topic is that the author of this book said that teachers do not teach how to become wealthy.
The topic started out as that and has evolved to other, related topics.

I say the opposite is true.
I say that conflating it into a pure dichotomy is a remarkably poor idea and Razade is correct; teachers aren't inherently a better source of money saving information than non-teachers.

[snowblizz]

The topic is that the author of this book said that teachers do not teach how to become wealthy. I say the opposite is true.


Teachers teach what the curriculum says. I don't know what the american one is but here "money skills" is not in it. Teachers aren't supposed to teach what is not in the curriculum either. That is probably a fireable offence come to think of it.

So yes, I would think that is most likely entirely true. Teachers do not teach how to become wealthy. Also, I would argue that is not something you really can teach, it's a bit too esoteric a thing to be generalist about. Ultimately that's what we are complaining Kyosaki is all about isn't it? He is claiming he can teach you how to become wealthy by buying his bogus books and seminars. For a lot of people anything the teachers would have to add would be exactly as (un)helpful.

[halfeye]

The thing about teaching someone to become wealthy is that not everyone can be rich. Weath is an inherently divisive thing, 50% of people are richer than average, 50% are poorer, there is no way to change that at all. Society can have an increased or decreased difference between the rich and the poor, but there will always be a difference.

[Razade]

The topic is that the author of this book said that teachers do not teach how to become wealthy. I say the opposite is true.

There's a way to solve this. Prove it. Provide evidence to the claim.

Not that you can because it's not a Black or White. It's not a "Teachers are a good way to learn money handling skills" versus "Teachers aren't etc etc". People may or may not be and it's independent on their job. Some jobs may be better at it but there are plenty of teachers who are bad with money as there are basketball players who aren't. You can't make it into a binary issue and no amount of statistics you spit out, no amount of assertions, no number of times you basically state the same thing over and over and go on about how this is an interest of yours is going to square that circle.

You've become convinced, boy this old thing again, for a bad reason. You've started this thread to try and convince someone to stop believing something that they believe because of a bad reason. You are doing the same thing they're doing just on the opposite side of the coin. You're using some truths (that Mr. Kiyoshi is a scam artist) to push non-true things that you believe. Just like your brother in law is using some true things (Mr. Kiyosaki isn't 100% wrong on everything he says) to push his scams around. This is a teaching moment in how we argue effectively which is the base of what you wanted.

You need to provide evidence that supports your claim and anecdotal evidence and statistics aren't robust enough to make a claim valid. You need more. Because statistics can be misleading and anecdote is based on faulty perceptions.


One can say that Americans tend to have 1.8 children per family (or whatever).

So if I was looking to learn more about a culture that has 1.8 children per family, then I would study Americans. I would likely start with Americans, as I am in America (easy to access), and they have a probability to have the source material that I could gather. Now I need to take a look at the median, the mode, and the mean. I need to look at the distribution, and to see if there are clusters. I would look at other sources, but I would not rule this one out.

How do you have a .8th of a child? Where does the other .2 go? Do the .2's congregate until they become a .8? Do the .2's all shake out to a head, torso and arms, legs and feet? Or are there .8 worth's of babies out there that are all hands? Or worse, all heads? Or even worse! All butts! Where do you put the diaper on a baby that's .8th butts?



Razade is correct; teachers aren't inherently a better source of money saving information than non-teachers.

That's twice in a thread. That's not a good sign for anyone. Kronk, pull the lever.

[darkrose50]

I'd make a claim that hits close to it. Teachers aren't inherently a better source of money saving information than non-teachers.

That is a good place to start.

In general, those with an education have a higher IQ
In general, teachers have a higher IQ
In general, the higher level that a teacher teaches at, the higher IQ
In general, people with higher IQs make more money
In general, more money means more investing
In general, more investing means more practice
In general, more practice equals more skill
In general, more skill investing equals more return on the investment (heck even the average, or the average of the S&P 500 is GREAT)
In general, teachers are a good source of information, better than average
In general, teachers are easy to access

-----

Interesting the higher your IQ, the more likely that you invest in stocks. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-sign-of-a-higher-iq-is-investing-in-stocks/

-----

https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2002-hauser.pdf

Figure 12. Wisconsin Men's Henmon-Nelson IQ Distributions for 1992-94 Occupation Groups with 30 Cases or More

1. Janitors and sextons
2. Precision machine operatives
3. Machine operatives, misc and ns
4. Operatives, other
5. Truck drivers
6. Metalworking crafts
7. Carpenters
8. Freight and materials handlers
9. Transportation equip. oper. (except truck)
10. Checkers and inspectors
11. Craftsmen, construction (exc. carpenters)
12. Assembler
13. Crafts, other
14. Plumbers
15. Mechanics, heavy equip.
16. Farm laborers (paid)
17. Mechanics, auto
18. Mechanics, other
19. Foremen
20. Electricians and related occs
21. Clerical, supervisory
22. Protective service workers (exc. police)
23. Service workers (exc. prot. and cleaning)
24. Clerical, other
25. Farmers, owners and managers
26. Policemen and detectives
27. Sales, other
28. Draftsmen and surveyors
29. Service managers
30. Managers, nec - salaried
31. Buyers and purchasing agents
32. Sales representative, manufacturing
33. Clerical, accounts-related
34. Engineering-related occs
35. Sales, services (not FIRE)
36. Kindergarten/elementary teachers
37. Education occs, other
38. Sales managers
39. Administrative occs
40. Managers, nec - self-employed
41. Public administration managers
42. Creative occs
43. Social workers and clergy
44. Accounting occs
45. High school teachers
46. Finance, insurance, real estate occs
47. Sales, FIRE
48. Miscellaneous engineers
49. Computer occs
50. Materials and design engineers
51. Natural science - physical, life, and math
52. Social scientists
53. Legal occs
54. Electrical engineers
55. College professors
56. Medical occs - MD or equiv.

The results of 36/56, 37/56, 45/56, and 55/56 are not too shabby. Two-thirds up the occupation ladder at the minimum ranking of the teaching professions is not-bad.

Now if only I can find a study on investment rates of return based on occupation/profession and/or IQ.


Teachers teach what the curriculum says. I don't know what the american one is but here "money skills" is not in it. Teachers aren't supposed to teach what is not in the curriculum either. That is probably a fireable offence come to think of it.

So yes, I would think that is most likely entirely true. Teachers do not teach how to become wealthy. Also, I would argue that is not something you really can teach, it's a bit too esoteric a thing to be generalist about. Ultimately that's what we are complaining Kyosaki is all about isn't it? He is claiming he can teach you how to become wealthy by buying his bogus books and seminars. For a lot of people anything the teachers would have to add would be exactly as (un)helpful.

Who would get fired for talking about compound interest and investing?


The thing about teaching someone to become wealthy is that not everyone can be rich. Wealth is an inherently divisive thing, 50% of people are richer than average, 50% are poorer, there is no way to change that at all. Society can have an increased or decreased difference between the rich and the poor, but there will always be a difference.

True. However we can effect how we fall in the wealth distribution. Really it is not complicated. Most people could do it.

[1] Live below your means
[2] Pay your credit card bills off in full
[3] Save early and often (start early, save some for emergencies, and some to invest for the long-term)
[4] Invest in the total stock market, or the S&P 500
[5] Use retirement things like a Roth IRA or a 401(k) [take all the free money]
[6] Don't mess with the investments

[Keltest]

That is a good place to start.

In general, those with an education have a higher IQ.
In general, teachers have a higher IQ.
In general, the higher level that a teacher teaches at, the higher IQ.
In general, people with higher IQs make more money.
In general, more money means more investing.
In general, more investing means more practice.
In general, more practice equals more skill.
In general, more skill investing equals more return on the investment (heck even the average, or the average of the S&P 500 is GREAT)
In general, teachers are a good source of information, better than average
In general, teachers are easy to access

Interesting the higher your IQ, the more likely that you invest in stocks. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-sign-of-a-higher-iq-is-investing-in-stocks/

-----

https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2002-hauser.pdf

Figure 12. Wisconsin Men's Henmon-Nelson IQ Distributions for 1992-94 Occupation Groups with 30 Cases or More

1. Janitors and sextons
2. Precision machine operatives
3. Machine operatives, misc and ns
4. Operatives, other
5. Truck drivers
6. Metalworking crafts
7. Carpenters
8. Freight and materials handlers
9. Transportation equip. oper. (except truck)
10. Checkers and inspectors
11. Craftsmen, construction (exc. carpenters)
12. Assembler
13. Crafts, other
14. Plumbers
15. Mechanics, heavy equip.
16. Farm laborers (paid)
17. Mechanics, auto
18. Mechanics, other
19. Foremen
20. Electricians and related occs
21. Clerical, supervisory
22. Protective service workers (exc. police)
23. Service workers (exc. prot. and cleaning)
24. Clerical, other
25. Farmers, owners and managers
26. Policemen and detectives
27. Sales, other
28. Draftsmen and surveyors
29. Service managers
30. Managers, nec - salaried
31. Buyers and purchasing agents
32. Sales representative, manufacturing
33. Clerical, accounts-related
34. Engineering-related occs
35. Sales, services (not FIRE)
36. Kindergarten/elementary teachers
37. Education occs, other
38. Sales managers
39. Administrative occs
40. Managers, nec - self-employed
41. Public administration managers
42. Creative occs
43. Social workers and clergy
44. Accounting occs
45. High school teachers
46. Finance, insurance, real estate occs
47. Sales, FIRE
48. Miscellaneous engineers
49. Computer occs
50. Materials and design engineers
51. Natural science - physical, life, and math
52. Social scientists
53. Legal occs
54. Electrical engineers
55. College professors
56. Medical occs - MD or equiv.

The results of 36/56, 37/56, 45/56, and 55/56 are not too shabby. Two-thirds up the occupation ladder at the minimum ranking of the teaching professions is not-bad.

Now if only I can find a study on investment rates of return based on occupation/profession and/or IQ.

I'd like to see sources on a lot of these claims please. The alleged correlation between IQ and income in particular seems suspect to me, especially given how little value IQ has as an actual measure of intelligence.

[Razade]

I'd like to see sources on a lot of these claims please. The alleged correlation between IQ and income in particular seems suspect to me, especially given how little value IQ has as an actual measure of intelligence.

The study he linked doesn't even make that claim. Here's the conclusion to the paper he's trying to say makes his case for him.


On the basis of the evidence reviewed here, I think it is fair to conclude that the traditional
psychometric literature on cognitive ability—popularly resurrected in The Bell Curve—vastly
overstates the case for the role of IQ in the stratification process. On the other hand, to say that
the case has been overstated—even that it has been overstated with great lapses of scholarship and
with racist overtones—does not say that there is no place for cognitive ability in our understanding
of the stratification process. Both as defense against excessive claims on both sides of the “IQ
debate” and in pursuing the scientific enterprise, we ought to seek and produce new evidence of
the role of cognitive abilities in social stratification.

Perhaps a more compelling reason to invest in studies of the effects of test performance on
social stratification is the growing role of tests in the schooling process from elementary school
onward. The issue is not “meritocracy,” but “testocracy.” That term, in my opinion, is more
descriptive of the dystopias that Michael Young described and towards which we may now be
headed. It is fair to say, without ignoring the substantial history of test use and misuse in the past
century (National Research Council, Committee on Appropriate Test Use 1999: Ch. 2), that we
have been and are now experiencing an unprecedented growth in scholastic testing that almost
outdoes Michael Young’s imagination.
To many observers, college entrance exams are the most visible manifestation of testing in
the American educational system. Surely, their effects have been more studied and debated than
those of tests at other levels of schooling (Lemann 1999), and we are now seeing major changes in
the design and content of the SAT–to change its focus from scholastic ability to academic
achievement. However, standardized college entrance exams have been around for nearly 80 years

and have been in wide use for half a century. The most significant changes in the use of tests will
be in the secondary and elementary schools.40
There is a powerful movement for more extensive use of high school exit exams with
passing levels set well above minimum competence. There is more controversy than evidence
about the effects of these tests, most of it from the Texas exam (TAAS), which actually sets a
rather low standard (Haney 2000; Haney 2001; Toenjes and Dworkin 2002; Carnoy, Loeb, and
Smith 2001). We will soon learn the immediate consequences of the Massachusetts exit exam,
MCAS, whose passing standard is set at roughly the national average, and of the revised New
York Regents exams. A reasonable speculation is that these exams will encourage early school
dropout, especially among African-American and Hispanic youth, and that they will create new
barriers to post-secondary education and training and to labor-market entry. High stakes exit
exams will also deny high school diplomas to large numbers of non-minority students, and we
have yet to learn the social and political consequences of that reversal of the widespread
expectation that the children of the middle class will at least graduate from high school.
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)–deemed “N-CLUB” by its critics–introduces a
federal mandate for testing of all schoolchildren in grades 3 through 8. Unlike the Clinton
administration’s proposal for Voluntary National Tests, NCLB requires major revisions in many
of the more progressive and innovative state testing programs, to permit assessment of every child
at the mandated grade level. There is every likelihood that new and old tests will be used to raise
rates of grade retention, which are already too high in many places. These tests will often be used

in violation of professional standards of appropriate test use (American Educational Research,
American Psychological, and National Council on Measurement in 1985; American Educational
Research Association and National Council on Measurement in 1999), and with negative longterm consequences for academic achievement and high school completion (Hauser, Pager, and
Simmons 2000; Hauser, Simmons, and Pager 2000; Hauser 2001).
There is much more to be said about the reasons for the current public fixation on tests as
a tool of educational reform (Linn 2000) and about its immediate consequences for the
educational system. As sociologists, we ought also to take a longer view and start thinking now
about how to measure, analyze, and assess the long term consequences of test use for life
chances. The apparently benign story of the Wisconsin cohort began more than sixty years ago,
but we had to wait half a century to learn how it all turned out. What will we know half a century
from now about the role of tests and of abilities in the life chances of the youth of the 1990s?

The study also only had 18,00ish participants. All white (male and female however) and all army vets. If you don't want to read the whole thing quoted above the tl;dr is this.

The study says that cognitive ability is not indicative of stratification in the work place as strongly as previously thought. The paper concludes it is testing in school that more determines that outcome. Big shock there. It also warns of worsing conditions on that front. Considering this paper was published almost 20 years ago, I fear their fears have come to life.

Big shock as well that Darkrose posted a study he thought agreed with him when it didn't and not only didn't agree with him strenuously, outright states in its conclusion that the role of IQ is the opposite of what he wants to push.

[darkrose50]

I'd like to see sources on a lot of these claims please. The alleged correlation between IQ and income in particular seems suspect to me, especially given how little value IQ has as an actual measure of intelligence.

IQ is not the only measure of intelligence, but it is a measure of intelligence. It is often culturally specific, and often identifies those who excel at culturally specific problem solving skills (more specifically speedy problem solving skills).

For example we mainly use IQ to test to see if someone has over a 69 IQ. This is likely the most common use for IQ tests in American schools. It is rather a useful tool in helping to identify those with special cognitive needs. I would argue that this is its primary purpose.

Look at studies that compare IQ and professions. Doctors tend to have an IQ of ~140, for example. There are doctors with more, and doctors with less. But the tendency that they have an IQ of ~140 tells us something.


Big shock as well that Darkrose posted a study he thought agreed with him when it didn't and not only didn't agree with him strenuously, outright states in its conclusion that the role of IQ is the opposite of what he wants to push.

This is evidence. Now we can look for more. But this is still evidence, and it is interesting. To dismiss it out of hand does not further your understanding of the topic.

[Razade]

This is evidence. Now we can look for more. But this is still evidence, and it is interesting. To dismiss it out of hand does not further your understanding of the topic.

I'm not dismissing the evidence you provide. I'm pointing out that the evidence you provided to support your claim doesn't. It counters your claim. Why would I dismiss something that you presented as proving you're assertion when it demonstrably doesn't? That'd be crazy of me. Not all evidence is good evidence and it's more than reasonable to dismiss bad evidence when it's proven t be faulty. Normally people lead with their best evidence. This obviously wasn't your best. The fact that you want to "look for more" just tells me that you've settled on something you want to believe and you're going to lead the evidence to your pre-made conclusion instead of following the evidence to where it actually leads.

[darkrose50]

I am also not opposed to having my hypothecs proven wrong.

Hypothesis: Teachers can be a source of information on investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are intelligent
Hypothesis: Intelligence is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are educated
Hypothesis: Education is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers tend to come from the upper-middle-class and are highly likely to have this cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance . . . and that is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are *a* source to be specifically targeted for information on investing (due to likelihood of possessing cultural capital, and the ease of access)

I am a bit shocked that folks do not take these as a given.

IQ is *a* test for intelligence, not the only one.

[Keltest]

I am also not opposed to having my hypothecs proven wrong.

Hypothesis: Teachers can be a source of information on investing
Hypothesis: Intelligence is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Education is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers tend to come from the upper-middle-class and are highly likely to have this cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance . . . and that is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are *a* source to be specifically targeted for information on investing (due to likelihood of possessing cultural capital, and the ease of access)

I am a bit shocked that folks do not take these as a given.

IQ is *a* test for intelligence, not the only one.

"Can be a source" may be technically true, but at that point its such a broad hypothesis that its useless for actually making a decision or acting on. What you really need to do is demonstrate that theyre a good source. Furthermore, you have a huge problem with seeing two groups overlap a little bit here and assuming that there must be causation. How many millionaires are teachers? How many of those actually earned their money rather than inheriting it or marrying into it? And of those, how many actually earned their wealth as the only contributor? Its a lot easier to pool together a million dollars if you have three or four people all putting their money in the same fund, but "find three other people willing to share their money with you" is probably not practical advice.

[Chen]

I am also not opposed to having my hypothecs proven wrong.

Hypothesis: Teachers can be a source of information on investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are intelligent
Hypothesis: Intelligence is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are educated
Hypothesis: Education is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers tend to come from the upper-middle-class and are highly likely to have this cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance . . . and that is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are *a* source to be specifically targeted for information on investing (due to likelihood of possessing cultural capital, and the ease of access)

I am a bit shocked that folks do not take these as a given.

IQ is *a* test for intelligence, not the only one.

You realize I could replace "Teachers" in all those hypotheses with all sorts of different professions and they'd all be equally or more true right? Like "Engineers", or "CPAs" or "Doctors" or "Lawyers"

[Peelee]

You realize I could replace "Teachers" in all those hypotheses with all sorts of different professions and they'd all be equally or more true right? Like "Engineers", or "CPAs" or "Doctors" or "Lawyers"

Also, given that the teachers most people have easy access to are going to be the least educated (bachelors or associates degrees for the most part), and part of the theory is "the more educated one is the greater likelihood they'll be able to give advice on how to get rich," most people will be scraping the bottom of the barrel regardless.

Also, doctorates are pretty infamous for being a "you don't get this because you want to be rich" kind of degree, which undercuts a good part of the claim.

[darkrose50]

Inheriting money can come with information on acquiring or maintaining wealth. Definitely something to keep an eye out for. Keeping an eye out for something is not the same as always expecting it to be there.

Now I would say that there was a higher likelihood of it to be there. It only takes a question "I am interested in learning about investing, what can you tell me about investing?" You might learn something, and I would imagine that the odds of learning something useful would be higher than randomly asking people in society.

I remember a 6th grade housing project that showed me that some people want immediate gratification at the expense of long-term profit and gratification. I remember being wildly confused over these poor choices. basically we could rent a desk, or bid on a desk to rent. Some folks spent their "money" on candy/prizes, and ended up paying future "money" to others who then bought more candy/prizes.

I remember an 8th grade stock buying project where I wanted to invest in Toys' R Us before Christmas (maybe in September or October), my teacher telling me that is not how it works, and I ended up being right. I learned a lot from that teacher, this is likely the only thing I remember him being wrong about. I learned that adults are not always right, and that I might be good/lucky at this investing thing.

I think in 10th grade it just took one lesson from my high-school dean about compound interest for it to stick with me for the rest of my life. That compound interest is no joke. I also learned that some people I knew had parents that invested.

When I was in my mid 20's it just took one conversation with my wife's grandfather to learn that a sound investing theory for a recession is to invest in consumer staples that offer a high dividend. A lifetime of experience, summed up in one conversation. I think that him telling me his story served me well during the great recession.

I am no stock genius, but I do better than most picking sectors based off of politics (seriously just save and invest in the S&P 500). My life wisdom would be to seek out these conversations and experiences in school and out of school. It only takes one conversation to earn a big return. Dismissing teachers out of hand is blasphemy.


You realize I could replace "Teachers" in all those hypotheses with all sorts of different professions and they'd all be equally or more true right? Like "Engineers", or "CPAs" or "Doctors" or "Lawyers"

I would agree with you, that would be true, and okay. Not many kids have access to these though.

[Peelee]

Inheriting money can come with information on acquiring or maintaining wealth.

It can also come with a pony but Im not about to go to the college and assume a few of the teachers are equestrians.

[darkrose50]

It can also come with a pony but Im not about to go to the college and assume a few of the teachers are equestrians.

But if you were raised with ponies, then you would more likely know about ponies. If I had a pony, and I knew someone with a pony, then I would ask them about ponies. Now it could be that they have a stable-hand that does all the pony stuff (and my friend could know nothing), but it could also be that they could end up being a wealth of information about ponies. What would asking hurt?

[Keltest]

But if you were raised with ponies, then you would more likely know about ponies. If I had a pony, and I knew someone with a pony, then I would ask them about ponies. Now it could be that they have a stable-hand that does all the pony stuff (and my friend could know nothing), but it could also be that they could end up being a wealth of information about ponies. What would asking hurt?

Let me put it to you this way. What youre suggesting here is that because somebody works on a farm, they must be knowledgeable about cooking. Never mind that the two skills are unrelated, some of them are good cooks and they work with food, so they must be a reasonable source to ask about cooking, right?

If your goal is to find a good cooking instructor, this is a terrible way of going about it. Its only slightly more effective than literally just asking random people off the street, because what youre selecting for isn't actually related to what youre looking for. If you want to find somebody who has good financial advice, you need to specifically be looking for people who have become wealthy under their own efforts. There is some small overlap with teachers, but theres some small overlap with a lot of different groups. Asking teachers for financial advice is not going to net you any better results than asking carpenters, or plumbers, or electricians, or any other group that isn't defined specifically by the qualities youre looking for. You might luck out and stumble onto somebody who has the answers you want, but it would be exactly that: luck.

[darkrose50]

It is a pretty good bet that a son of a fisherman would know about fishing. Now it is not a sure thing, but it is a good bet.

Same idea with money. Honest to god there are fundamental investing ideas that can be taught with words and example. I learned a lot about money from my folks. Not the stock market, but other things. There are rules, practices, and procedures that are profitable. Just being there growing up with money very may well have influenced their understanding of money.

One conversation with my wife's grandfather helped me out. He set a good example that it could be done too. He was a Forman for a printer. His aunt taught him about investing.

I know I want to let my kids know everything I know about money. It's not much, but it could be enough to help out a little in life.

-----

But really saving and investing in say the S&P 500 is really all it takes.

Money + time + a share of the economy = profit over 10-30 years

As long as you leave it be. Don't mess with it. Don't try to time the market. Don't buy and sell all the time. Save, invest and wait. It will crash and go down 20% to 40% . . . just ride it out . . . the market will go back up.

When you are 10-years away from retirement make sure that you have 5-years (up-to 10-years) of operating expenses in bonds. Let the rest ride. Perhaps do the 70% bonds 30% stocks thing. Perhaps a target retirement date fund.

Money from not working is a thing. It really is, and it is easy. This compound interest thing might just work for me, and it is dirt simple.

[Peelee]

It is a pretty good bet that a son of a fisherman would know about fishing. Now it is not a sure thing, but it is a good bet.

The son of a doctor won't know much about medicine without dedicating a large chunk of schooling towards it. Same for the son of a lawyer. They may have just enough knowledge to be dangerous, though.

But they'll have knowledge about how to invest because if there's one you can trust doctors to do, it's practice medicine invest and teach about investing.

[darkrose50]

The son of a doctor won't know much about medicine without dedicating a large chunk of schooling towards it. Same for the son of a lawyer. They may have just enough knowledge to be dangerous, though.

But they'll have knowledge about how to invest because if there's one you can trust doctors to do, it's practice medicine invest and teach about investing.

It is a reoccurring theme to have multiple generations of doctors (I am not sure how prevalent it is). Think about how much you could learn if you had multiple doctors in the family. Hands down a bonus (I would bet). Evidently it seems common enough that there are parents who are doctors that pressure there kids to become doctors . . . the schools may no longer like this multigenerational doctor stuff as much as they once did (apparently).

Here is something I found quick on Google.

https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2016/09/physician-parents-physician-children.html

[Peelee]

It is a reoccurring theme to have multiple generations of doctors (I am not sure how prevalent it is). Think about how much you could learn if you had multiple doctors in the family. Hands down a bonus (I would bet).

Why, it's almost as if colleges and medical schools carry crushing debt and doctors are able to carry that burden for their children, along with legacy status to get into said schools and generous donations to the universities. The bonuses are largely financial.

[Xyril]

Hypothesis: Teachers are *a* source to be specifically targeted for information on investing (due to likelihood of possessing cultural capital, and the ease of access)

I am a bit shocked that folks do not take these as a given.


Every hypothesis you state is a reasonable--but not necessarily true one. What shocks me, however, is that you honestly don't seem to notice the substantial daylight between that last hypothesis and all the strong assertions you were making in the first page. Or, for that matter, that you honestly don't seem to understand that much of the criticism is about very specific, specious reasoning that you explicitly articulated (i.e., "1/6 of teachers are millionaires, thus teachers are clearly a good source of information on becoming wealthy.)

[snowblizz]

Funnily enough ran into an article which brings up that some aspects are even genetic (as one component in a mixed bag of circumstances). Inherent factors will affect your upbringing, if your inclination is already towards perceived positive traits you'll get mostly positive feedback which will reinforce those. Parents have a lot less influence than they think. Link (article in Swedish, an it may sit behind a paywall) (https://www.svd.se/experten-barnets-sparbeteende-ar-medfott?)

And just because someone is going to rant about genetics and predisposition. Me and my brother, same parents, two sides of the save and spend coin.






Who would get fired for talking about compound interest and investing?

A person who is talking about compound interest and investing in a biology class. Or English Lit. Or any number of subjects not related at all. You are aware that teachers have a general goal set to them, usually a nation- or statewide lessonplan. It's not their job to deviate from that. Especially in a place like the USA who are, as I hear teachers complaining, "teaching to the test".
Schools don't have a laissez-fair approach to teaching. Generally. Exceptions do exist, but most public schools have a fairly rigid set up guidelines for what each teacher is allowed to teach. E.g. for something that's super controversial in the USA, sex ed classes. Around here "investing" would probably be decried as "filthy capitalism" if someone would randomly start teaching about investing. Not by all, but still, it would be a departure from the agreed upon lesson plan and am convinced a schoolboard somewhere would have to answer why is this in the lessonplan and if not what business (hah!) does the teacher have teaching it. Angry parents are a teacher's worst nightmare. And I live in a place where teachers are still garner respect for their important contribution to society.

If you want teachers teaching about investing it's going to have to be in an appropriate class. Mathematics is close at hand but it would probably be divorced from any meaningful context. Home economics might be another place. Normally though there's no generalist "stuff that might be important for living in this society" class, but a lot of it is split into discrete subjects. And not quite labelled that way. Could also be it's considered something that should be taught at home.

[Chen]

Do you not have economics class in high school?? Thats crazy...

[Razade]

Do you not have economics class in high school?? Thats crazy...

Some do. Some don't. Sometimes its rolled into other classes. Sometimes its not. Depends on the high school.

[darkrose50]

Every hypothesis you state is a reasonable--but not necessarily true one. What shocks me, however, is that you honestly don't seem to notice the substantial daylight between that last hypothesis and all the strong assertions you were making in the first page. Or, for that matter, that you honestly don't seem to understand that much of the criticism is about very specific, specious reasoning that you explicitly articulated (i.e., "1/6 of teachers are millionaires, thus teachers are clearly a good source of information on becoming wealthy.)

The point here, in this thread, originally was that teachers do not teach you how to be poor. Teachers definitely tend to come from the upper-middle-class and the upper-class. You need money to learn how to manage money via investing. The upper-middle-class and the upper-class are likely to better understand investing money than most. It is easier to learn a skill from someone, than to learn it alone. Doing something and theory crafting are not equal. So advice like: my grandmother says that "when <this> happens, then do <this>" . . . could result in a bunch of money.

Seriously one conversation could be REALLY profitable. You need money to invest. Children learn money habits from their parents. Asking the children on those from the upper-middle-class and the upper-class could result in useful information.

I suppose a point of contention is the notion of what a good source is. I think this is a good source, the opposite of a bad source. I would actively look here because folks going to school are there anyways, and there is a crazy likelihood of the teachers being from a family that understands and has first-hand multi-generational experience with investing.

I suppose a point of contention is how one goes about gathering information on a topic. By no means am I suggesting that you go to one teacher, and follow that teacher's advice. Gather the information, and then compare and contrast it, vet it, talk to others about it, go on a forum and discus it, mull it over, and think about when the information will be valuable.

Seriously this seems rather straight forward. I could just be terrible at explaining things. Look for information on investing. A good place to look is where you are (at school). Look to get experience from those who have done investing. Good people to ask are those from upper-middle-class or upper-class families, because money is needed for investing.

[snowblizz]

Do you not have economics class in high school?? Thats crazy...

Not here no. The closest I can remember getting is secondary school, 16-19 years, had an elective course that IIRC went into some broadstrokes economics. It was found in the history/society/politics range of courses. I had a curriculum filled with extra language, math and physics so couldn't fit it in.
If you want to learn economics you go to business school at university (I did, partly because I realised economics was something I was interested in) or university of applied sciences.

At least not when I went to school. There was also a time when tv news broadcast didn't have economic news. Then it was a seperate segement. Now it's rolled into the regular broadcast usually.

Basically "economics is for filthy business people and they'll sort it out as needed themselves". If I wanted to be glib and American about it.

[darkrose50]

I'd like to see sources on a lot of these claims please. The alleged correlation between IQ and income in particular seems suspect to me, especially given how little value IQ has as an actual measure of intelligence.

IQ is primarily a test that schools (and the military) use to identify who may be an individual with a cognitive disability, or who is likely too much trouble for the military to try and train.

IQ, over all, seems to be a test for problem solving ability and speed. Definitely useful, but not the end-all and be-all. Someone who is a slow methodical thinker who comes up with good ideas could be better to have around than someone with a blazing-quick-troubleshooting-mind, a high IQ, and no good ideas. IQ is a form of intelligence, I guess. It is not intelligence. It just is the en vogue type of intelligence at the moment.

For example vocabulary was once a test for intelligence pre ~1960. Now scoring really well on a vocabulary test could be a form of intelligence, but it is not as widely used, and fell out of favor.

https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2007-strenze.pdf
"The results demonstrate that intelligence is a powerful predictor of success but, on the whole, not an overwhelmingly better predictor than parental SES or grades."

I mean give me an iron willpower over IQ (or both if I can have both). Mastering something takes 10,000 hours. I would rather be a master at something profitable and/or useful, then have a high IQ without the willpower to master something useful and/or profitable.

IQ will probably be a factor in success overall, but there are other factors. I mean it is often useful to troubleshoot a problem, and to do so with speed. However these skills are not all one needs to succeed.

Also we all know tests can suck and sometimes idiots write idiot questions. Some folks are not good at taking tests. Some days are off. People get brain-foggy sometimes.


Do you not have economics class in high school?? Thats crazy...

We used to have "Home Economics" as a required class for girls, and then the boys would take "Woodshop".

Home economics would be about budgeting money, buying groceries, cooking, sewing and stuff that is really kind-of sexist. So economics was tossed in with running a home as a housewife, I don't know likely because women were expected to do all the shopping.

I never had a single class that covered this. But we did cover it in various other classes as a lesson here or there.

[Peelee]

IQ is primarily a test that schools (and the military)

I'm gonna ask for a source here. To the best of my knowledge, the US military neither performs nor even accepts IQ tests. I also question where any schools do this, if if so, then how prevalent it is.

[Willie the Duck]

The point here, in this thread, originally was that teachers do not teach you how to be poor.

I don't think others see that as the original point of this thread (actually wasn't the original point that Robert Kiyosaki was a conman?). I think (this is my impression) that we all think that, in the first page of this thread, the point was much more that teachers were specifically a good source of information, and that this movement towards teachers not teaching you to be poor/not being a bad source of information is a later clarification (and thank you, btw, for clarifying your position).

I suppose a point of contention is the notion of what a good source is. I think this is a good source, the opposite of a bad source. I would actively look here because folks going to school are there anyways, and there is a crazy likelihood of the teachers being from a family that understands and has first-hand multi-generational experience with investing.

The point of contention seems more along the whether we're talking about good as in 'the opposite of bad' or as in 'genuinely quite good.'


Seriously this seems rather straight forward. I could just be terrible at explaining things.

I would say you are having trouble explaining yourself (connecting A to B to C, some poor sourcing, plus it was hard to tell for a long time if you were conflating cause and effect), however subject matter is also an issue. Yes, the 'reduced to base form' part of your argument is straightforward-- so straightforward, it is uncontroversial. If you had simply stated, 'Robert Kiyosaki argues that teachers are a bad source of investment advice. I think he's wrong. They are trained to teach, and, compared to the population average, more likely to be upper-middle or upper class and/or come from such families (and thus might have some experiential exposure to the subject),' it'd be so uncontroversial as to simply garner 'yeps' all around. So I think people are looking for subtext, and focusing on whether teachers are particularly good investment SMEs (and I think the consensus is somewhere around, 'better than the Chapter 11 club, but not moreso than most other white collar jobs').



Exceptions do exist, but most public schools have a fairly rigid set up guidelines for what each teacher is allowed to teach. E.g. for something that's super controversial in the USA, sex ed classes. Around here "investing" would probably be decried as "filthy capitalism" if someone would randomly start teaching about investing. Not by all, but still, it would be a departure from the agreed upon lesson plan and am convinced a schoolboard somewhere would have to answer why is this in the lessonplan and if not what business (hah!) does the teacher have teaching it. Angry parents are a teacher's worst nightmare. And I live in a place where teachers are still garner respect for their important contribution to society.
If you want teachers teaching about investing it's going to have to be in an appropriate class. Mathematics is close at hand but it would probably be divorced from any meaningful context. Home economics might be another place. Normally though there's no generalist "stuff that might be important for living in this society" class, but a lot of it is split into discrete subjects. And not quite labelled that way. Could also be it's considered something that should be taught at home.

Basically "economics is for filthy business people and they'll sort it out as needed themselves". If I wanted to be glib and American about it.

When/where in America are investing and capitalism poo-pooed? We're a capitalist nation, one of the most capitalist and one where, without going into real-world politics very far, most deviations from capitalism are controversial at least. I mean, sure there was a brief period in the mid-90s where business types where vaguely 'the man' and something to resist becoming as a young person (I recall movies like Reality Bites belittling business types and people who drove around in BMWs), but that seems pretty tame compared to labelling investment classes 'filthy capitalism.'

[darkrose50]

Sometimes I need to better explain things, and not assume that others know what I am talking about.


I don't think others see that as the original point of this thread (actually wasn't the original point that Robert Kiyosaki was a conman?). I think (this is my impression) that we all think that, in the first page of this thread, the point was much more that teachers were specifically a good source of information, and that this movement towards teachers not teaching you to be poor/not being a bad source of information is a later clarification (and thank you, btw, for clarifying your position).

The point of contention seems more along the whether we're talking about good as in 'the opposite of bad' or as in 'genuinely quite good.'
A good place to go and look for knowledge on the subject due to proximity and probability of multi-generational experience. A source that I would not write-off. A source that I have used personally.



I would say you are having trouble explaining yourself (connecting A to B to C, some poor sourcing, plus it was hard to tell for a long time if you were conflating cause and effect), however subject matter is also an issue. Yes, the 'reduced to base form' part of your argument is straightforward-- so straightforward, it is uncontroversial. If you had simply stated, 'Robert Kiyosaki argues that teachers are a bad source of investment advice. I think he's wrong. They are trained to teach, and, compared to the population average, more likely to be upper-middle or upper class and/or come from such families (and thus might have some experiential exposure to the subject),' it'd be so uncontroversial as to simply garner 'yeps' all around. So I think people are looking for subtext, and focusing on whether teachers are particularly good investment SMEs (and I think the consensus is somewhere around, 'better than the Chapter 11 club, but not moreso than most other white collar jobs').

Multigenerational wealth is a feedback loop. It is both a cause and an effect. The money itself is damned useful to buy one towards success (not a sure thing, but damned useful . . . like crazy damned useful). The skills on how to manage money, and invest money are damned useful as well. So having a parent with money helps, and having a parent teach good money and investment skills also helps.

Money [cause] = helpful [effect]

Learning about making money [cause] = making money [effect] = money [cause] = helpful [effect]

Heck you could switch cause/effect, or put an and/or in there.



When/where in America are investing and capitalism poo-pooed? We're a capitalist nation, one of the most capitalist and one where, without going into real-world politics very far, most deviations from capitalism are controversial at least. I mean, sure there was a brief period in the mid-90s where business types where vaguely 'the man' and something to resist becoming as a young person (I recall movies like Reality Bites belittling business types and people who drove around in BMWs), but that seems pretty tame compared to labelling investment classes 'filthy capitalism.'

Yeah he wrote the book some 20-years ago, and “the man” is keeping you poor by having teachers teach you things like jobs are not bad. Seriously he says that those with jobs are the parasites, and those with money, not paying taxes, are the true heroes.

[lio45]

You realize I could replace "Teachers" in all those hypotheses with all sorts of different professions and they'd all be equally or more true right? Like "Engineers", or "CPAs" or "Doctors" or "Lawyers"
Actually there's a statistically much richer group than teachers that you should ask for advice on the basis that they're rich: lottery winners.

[Peelee]

A good place to go and look for knowledge on the subject due to proximity and probability of multi-generational experience.... Multigenerational wealth is a feedback loop. It is both a cause and an effect. The money itself is damned useful to buy one towards success (not a sure thing, but damned useful . . . like crazy damned useful). The skills on how to manage money, and invest money are damned useful as well.
Wealth seeker: "Hey, do you have any advice on how to invest money?"
Wealthy teacher: "Sure, how much money do you have?"
Wealth seeker: "I live paycheck to paycheck."
Wealthy teacher: "Well, literally everything i know requires a healthy amount of start-up capital at the absolute least. Come back when you have a few hundred thousand and we can start from there, OK?"

Helpful!

[Keltest]

Actually there's a statistically much richer group than teachers that you should ask for advice on the basis that they're rich: lottery winners.

That depends on how much later you ask them after they win. I believe that lottery winners, in particular, actually have a significant trend of hemorrhaging money specifically due to their lack of financial management skills.

[darkrose50]

Actually there's a statistically much richer group than teachers that you should ask for advice on the basis that they're rich: lottery winners.

Lottery winners would likely not have the cultural capital on money and/or investing. You would need to be a from a family that knows how to use money, grow up around the concepts, and see examples for this to be useful (that is basically what cultural capital is).

Unless you were one of those groups who would routinely win due to math and an oddball game. Basically sometimes the rules would change and they were almost guaranteed to win, and playing the lottery was crazy super profitable for them.

Now learning how someone made money first hand could also be the way to go, if you could replicate it in whole or in part.

[darkrose50]

Wealth seeker: "Hey, do you have any advice on how to invest money?"
Wealthy teacher: "Sure, how much money do you have?"
Wealth seeker: "I live paycheck to paycheck."
Wealthy teacher: "Well, literally everything i know requires a healthy amount of start-up capital at the absolute least. Come back when you have a few hundred thousand and we can start from there, OK?"

Helpful!

I think that folks would be able to open up a S&P 500 account with little to no money. But yes folks would need some money to invest.


I'm gonna ask for a source here. To the best of my knowledge, the US military neither performs nor even accepts IQ tests. I also question where any schools do this, if if so, then how prevalent it is.

It was simply called the IQ test at one time.

"All military recruits must take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) to qualify for enlistment. The ASVAB is essentially an IQ test (correlation = 0.8)." https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/after-service/201801/are-military-members-the-lowest-our-low

-----

I really hate it when the reporter says something like "you would think <x>" . . . no, no I would not.

"Or take a study about tank gunners. You might not think a standardized intelligence test would have much effect on the ability to shoot straight."

Holy cow! It must be crazy hard to fire from a moving target and be able to hit a moving target. Also not a straight line.

[Willie the Duck]

A good place to go and look for knowledge on the subject due to proximity and probability of multi-generational experience. A source that I would not write-off. A source that I have used personally.

Yes, and that's what this conversation telegraphs as -- an attempt to refute the comments made by a self-help guru that specifically target a certain profession* as not a good source of advice pertinent to a specific goal. And as that with, I feel safe in saying, no one has a problem.
*one that (beyond loving your spouse) you personally have hitched your wagon to and have greatly profited from.


Multigenerational wealth is a feedback loop. It is both a cause and an effect. The money itself is damned useful to buy one towards success (not a sure thing, but damned useful . . . like crazy damned useful). The skills on how to manage money, and invest money are damned useful as well. So having a parent with money helps, and having a parent teach good money and investment skills also helps.

Money [cause] = helpful [effect]

Learning about making money [cause] = making money [effect] = money [cause] = helpful [effect]

Heck you could switch cause/effect, or put an and/or in there.

I'm not going to re-argue or relitigate the entire first page of this thread. You posited that you are having trouble explaining yourself and I agree it was a major issue. Cause and effect was just an example. Correlation and causation was another. Whether you recognized the other extenuating factors involved was another (now (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24086217&postcount=121), later, you have clarified that you recognize another thing coming from wealth brings is the potential for initial investment capital). It was not clear what you knew or not.



Yeah he wrote the book some 20-years ago, and “the man” is keeping you poor by having teachers teach you things like jobs are not bad. Seriously he says that those with jobs are the parasites, and those with money, not paying taxes, are the true heroes.

And again, another point of huh?-ism, since I have no idea why you wrote this in response to the block of text you quoted, as they are unrelated. My point was regarding snowblizz's apparent point that investing and/or capitalism are poo-pooed in the US, which is not my experience. It had nothing to do with Kiyosaki's book.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I'm gonna ask for a source here. To the best of my knowledge, the US military neither performs nor even accepts IQ tests. I also question where any schools do this, if if so, then how prevalent it is.

Even if someone does use it, that doesn't mean that IQ is in any way a measure of intelligence. Won't go into the reasons why because politics, but yeah, I don't see how an appeal to such authority is in any way supposed to support the notion that IQ correlates with anything, from actual intelligence to money management abilities.

Grey Wolf

[halfeye]

The point here, in this thread, originally was that teachers do not teach you how to be poor.

Here, you'd be right about that. They also don't teach you how to search for a job, or how to claim benefits if you don't have one. That's been true under all political parties. It is a little strange.

[darkrose50]

Even if someone does use it, that doesn't mean that IQ is in any way a measure of intelligence. Won't go into the reasons why because politics, but yeah, I don't see how an appeal to such authority is in any way supposed to support the notion that IQ correlates with anything, from actual intelligence to money management abilities.

Grey Wolf

It is used in education to test for individuals with a Intellectual Disability.

"IQ (intelligence quotient) is measured by an IQ test. The average IQ is 100, with the majority of people scoring between 85 and 115. A person is considered intellectually disabled if he or she has an IQ of less than 70 to 75." https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/intellectual-disability-mental-retardation#1

IQ is a *a* way to measure *a* type of intelligence. Now there are other ways to test for other types of intelligence. In the research papers they often seem to just flat out say intelligence, and not IQ, so that is interesting, and likely to fall out of favor. These things change. We get new professors, they get in charge, and they change things. We get new people, new studies, and such. For a time IQ did in fact mean intelligence. Now I do not think that IQ is intelligence, but is definitely a measure of a type of intelligence.

So is IQ useful? I would say it was if you were testing for problem solving skills, especially expedient problem solving skills. There are different types of intelligence, and it would not be useful for all areas.

For example it is easier for me to re-figure out how to program the clock, then it is to memorize how to program the clock. My sister-in-law finds it easier to memorize how to program the clock. We both get the clock programmed. Neither has a superior result. An IQ test would not be helpful in figuring out who is better at programming the clock.

[halfeye]

Holy cow! It must be crazy hard to fire from a moving target and be able to hit a moving target. Also not a straight line.

Tank gunners didn't fire while moving (if they needed to hit a target) up until the end of WW2 or later.

[Keltest]

It is used in education to test for individuals with a Intellectual Disability.

"IQ (intelligence quotient) is measured by an IQ test. The average IQ is 100, with the majority of people scoring between 85 and 115. A person is considered intellectually disabled if he or she has an IQ of less than 70 to 75." https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/intellectual-disability-mental-retardation#1

IQ is a *a* way to measure *a* type of intelligence. Now there are other ways to test for other types of intelligence. In the research papers they often seem to just flat out say intelligence, and not IQ, so that is interesting, and likely to fall out of favor. These things change. We get new professors, they get in charge, and they change things. We get new people, new studies, and such. For a time IQ did in fact mean intelligence. Now I do not think that IQ is intelligence, but is definitely a measure of a type of intelligence.

So is IQ useful? I would say it was if you were testing for problem solving skills, especially expedient problem solving skills. There are different types of intelligence, and it would not be useful for all areas.

For example it is easier for me to re-figure out how to program the clock, then it is to memorize how to program the clock. My sister-in-law finds it easier to memorize how to program the clock. We both get the clock programmed. Neither has a superior result. An IQ test would not be helpful in figuring out who is better at programming the clock.

Used by who? I'm not aware of any schools that actually use such a method, or any doctors.

[Peelee]

"All military recruits must take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) to qualify for enlistment. The ASVAB is essentially an IQ test (correlation = 0.8)." https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/after-service/201801/are-military-members-the-lowest-our-low
Oh, hey, the "it's essentially an IQ test" is linked. Let's follow that!

There is little evidence showing the relationship between the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and g (general intelligence). This research established the relationship between SAT and g, as well as the appropriateness of the SAT as a measure of g, and examined the SAT as a premorbid measure of intelligence. In Study 1, we used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Measures of g were extracted from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and correlated with SAT scores of 917 participants. The resulting correlation was .82 (.86 corrected for nonlinearity). Study 2 investigated the correlation between revised and recentered SAT scores and scores on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices among 104 undergraduates. The resulting correlation was .483 (.72 corrected for restricted range). These studies indicate that the SAT is mainly a test of g. We provide equations for converting SAT scores to estimated IQs; such conversion could be useful for estimating premorbid IQ or conducting individual difference research with college students

So it's essentially an IQ test in the sense that the test somewhat correlates to SAT scores, which can be vaguely converted to estimated IQs, and in the end isn't even used for that but used to see where in the military the test taker should be.

Or, in simpler terms, "not an IQ test."

[Razade]

Oh, hey, the "it's essentially an IQ test" is linked. Let's follow that!


So it's essentially an IQ test in the sense that the test somewhat correlates to SAT scores, which can be vaguely converted to estimated IQs, and in the end isn't even used for that but used to see where in the military the test taker should be.

Or, in simpler terms, "not an IQ test."

Note that the study that Darkrose linked to to back up the claim about job stratification and IQ said that the two were not correlated as well.

[halfeye]

Or, in simpler terms, "not an IQ test."

Binet messed up the original IQ test because he tested random members of the public. There were a lot of mentally subnormal people in institutions who he didn't test, so the average real IQ on his test was 90, when it was supposed to be 100. I don't know for sure that that's been corrected yet, though it probably has, but then if so the changed test isn't the standard IQ test.

[darkrose50]

When trying to figure out things I would look at correlation and causation. I would not rule out something that others assume is a correlation, or a paradox.

There are lots of reasons why teachers (as a whole, as a group, not that teacher sitting over there in the corner) tend to be wealthy.
* One of them is inheriting a wad of cash, and this would be a correlation (when seeking investment advice).
* One of them is inheriting cultural capital on what to do with a wad of cash and this would be causation (when seeking investment advice).

The correlations and the causations all get along just fine.


Binet messed up the original IQ test because he tested random members of the public. There were a lot of mentally subnormal people in institutions who he didn't test, so the average real IQ on his test was 90, when it was supposed to be 100. I don't know for sure that that's been corrected yet, though it probably has, but then if so the changed test isn't the standard IQ test.

IQ tests are wonky. They test your population, and slap you into that group. So if you take an IQ test after some-sort of biological weapon stupefied folks, but you were on vacation abroad, then when you came back you just might have the highest IQ in your group.

I also think that we also teach how to be better at IQ. If IQ is intelligence, then lets teach IQ! I bet this this totally happened and is totally happening now.

Like that guy from Idiocracy that went from having the average IQ, to the smartest man alive. He would have had 100 IQ before getting frozen, and might end up having something nuts like a 300 IQ after being thawed out. Not because he got any better at IQ, but because everyone else got worse at IQ.


Or, in simpler terms, "not an IQ test."

Back in the day the military took the IQ test and ran with it. Score low, you can't serve, and they sent you packing. Score high they put you into officer training. They now use something else, something more, something new, but based it largely on the IQ test.

[Kung-Fu Master] Is the snowball that became an avalanche no longer a snowball? [/Kung-Fu Master]

[Peelee]

Back in the day the military took the IQ test and ran with it. Score low, you can't serve, and they sent you packing. Score high they put you into officer training. They now use something else, something more, something new, but based it largely on the IQ test.

Back in the day the military outfitted their arctic survival units with top-of-the-line winter gear, sent them into frigid conditions, and measured where most of the heat was lost, which turned out to be the top of the head. Spoiler alert, the units were not issued hats.

"This group did it way back when" is a pretty poor argument when you're trying to argue the merits of a thing. The military did it way back when? Cool. That doesn't mean it was a good idea.

ETA: And it's somehow an even worse argument if it's untrue, as Razade claims below.

[Razade]

The United States Military has never conducted a formal IQ test on recruits. Ever. In the history of our country. The ASVAB is not a formal IQ test and has been the test all branches of the Armed Services have conducted since 1976. The U.S military has a standard on the ASVAB test that they require all members of the Armed Forces to meet. This is an 85. That 85 is not an 85IQ because it is not an IQ test.

[darkrose50]

Back in the day the military outfitted their arctic survival units with top-of-the-line winter gear, sent them into frigid conditions, and measured where most of the heat was lost, which turned out to be the top of the head. Spoiler alert, the units were not issued hats.

The hat story I find to be ironic and interesting. The Germans are known for their math and science skills. Smart bunch those mathematicians and scientists. The Germans sent out their army without hats, and they starved to death due to being cold. The Russians were running around without helmets, but had those Russian hats that keep you warm. More body heat, and less starving to death.


"This group did it way back when" is a pretty poor argument when you're trying to argue the merits of a thing. The military did it way back when? Cool. That doesn't mean it was a good idea.

I think that it worked, but the newer one likely works better. Basically they had all these guys to sort out. They sorted out the ones with cognitive difficulties, and put the ones that scored high in the test into officer training. Now I am sure some that scored high, and went to officer training did not make it. I am also sure there were other ways to get into officer training, like being a doctor or something. But it was likely a good idea to sort out those with cognitive difficulties and keep them from going to war.


The United States Military has never conducted a formal IQ test on recruits. Ever. In the history of our country. The ASVAB is not a formal IQ test and has been the test all branches of the Armed Services have conducted since 1976. The U.S military has a standard on the ASVAB test that they require all members of the Armed Forces to meet. This is an 85. That 85 is not an 85IQ because it is not an IQ test.

For WWI they took the IQ test and filed off the serial number, and gave it a new name. It was essentially an IQ test.

[Peelee]

The hat story I find to be ironic and interesting. The Germans are known for their math and science skills. Smart bunch those mathematicians and scientists. The Germans sent out their army without hats, and they starved to death due to being cold. The Russians were running around without helmets, but had those Russian hats that keep you warm. More body heat, and less starving to death.



I think that it worked, but the newer one likely works better. Basically they had all these guys to sort out. They sorted out the ones with cognitive difficulties, and put the ones that scored high in the test into officer training. Now I am sure some that scored high, and went to officer training did not make it. But it was likely a good idea to sort out those with cognitive difficulties and keep them from going to war.

Your first paragraph contradicts your second. If they tested for IQ, they would be testing for general intelligence. You don't want general intelligence in miitary command, you want strategic and tactical intelligence. Throwing an IQ test at everyone and tossing the ones that score higher in command would turn out very poorly, as you yourself point out in the first paragraph!

And that's assuming both that IQ tests are reliable and that the military ever used them to begin with.

[darkrose50]

Your first paragraph contradicts your second. If they tested for IQ, they would be testing for general intelligence. You don't want general intelligence in miitary command, you want strategic and tactical intelligence. Throwing an IQ test at everyone and tossing the ones that score higher in command would turn out very poorly, as you yourself point out in the first paragraph!

It is what they did (this and officer school). What would you do if you gave a test. Would you be curious about the ones that scored high? You need officers. Would you think to pull them from the high scores in this test, an Army test, to fill those slots? It would be very tempting to fill those slots and give a reason backed up by some army doctors/scientists. The army doctors/scientists likely did not protest, and I bet thought it was a grand idea.


And that's assuming both that IQ tests are reliable and that the military ever used them to begin with.

Oh they used the IQ test. In WWI they basically took the IQ test and filled off the serial numbers.

[Razade]

For WWI they took the IQ test and filed off the serial number, and gave it a new name. It was essentially an IQ test.

The AGCT was not an IQ test. Nor were the Alpha or Beta test. They both covered more and broader things than an IQ test and their parameters did not fit IQ testing qualifications at the time.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Which is probably good, since apparently reading the right handful of books will boost your IQ score. Since you'll know the stories they're using for the associations part of the test. Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet alone were good for like 8 points.

Guess who has the leisure time to read Elizabethan drama?

IQ 'tests' are just another excuse to put the rich on top.

[darkrose50]

The AGCT was not an IQ test. Nor were the Alpha or Beta test. They both covered more and broader things than an IQ test and their parameters did not fit IQ testing qualifications at the time.

Searching the internet I see that many think both ways. The IQ test was definitely the major predominant source marital. I am sure that you agree that they did not create the AGCT out of whole cloth, and borrowed heavily from the IQ test.

It would be interesting to see the correlation between the IQ test and the WWI AGCT. The modern one has like a 0.8 correlation. I bet a large sum of buttons that the WWI I has a way higher correlation, and this correlation has gone down with time.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Given the number of officers who weren't worth a tin of boot polish in the trenches, getting away from IQ tests would be an improvement.

[darkrose50]

Which is probably good, since apparently reading the right handful of books will boost your IQ score. Since you'll know the stories they're using for the associations part of the test. Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet alone were good for like 8 points.

Guess who has the leisure time to read Elizabethan drama?

IQ 'tests' are just another excuse to put the rich on top.

Tests often drive me nuts. I have to take a lot of tests to keep my insurance license. Some of the questions are so very poorly worded, that it would make your head spin.

I had one question ask "Your customer has two children: one is good with money and is successful, and the other is more artsy and is not good with money. What do you advise?" The "correct" answer was to give all the money to the successful one, and to give the more artsy one the family photos. I bet because of insurance profits, or something nuts that made its way into a test about morals. Now I would do the opposite and give the money to my hippy kid. There was not an answer to have the kid that was good with money help the kid that was not good with money (this is what I would really do).

[AMFV]

The United States Military has never conducted a formal IQ test on recruits. Ever. In the history of our country. The ASVAB is not a formal IQ test and has been the test all branches of the Armed Services have conducted since 1976. The U.S military has a standard on the ASVAB test that they require all members of the Armed Forces to meet. This is an 85. That 85 is not an 85IQ because it is not an IQ test.

The ASVAB AFQT minimum requirement is a 32 which can be waived to around a 26.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Which is probably good, since apparently reading the right handful of books will boost your IQ score. Since you'll know the stories they're using for the associations part of the test. Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet alone were good for like 8 points.

Guess who has the leisure time to read Elizabethan drama?

I didn't know this, but I can believe, since it does fit with my own impression of those tests:

From my own experience, they are only good at measuring one thing: how well you do at thinking like the guy that designed them. And since said guy thinks himself intelligent, he brands you also intelligent if you think like him, on a sliding scale of how fast you are at thinking like him.

I'm sure that to the guy who designed it, the desire, training and time to read Shakespeare "felt" like an intelligence marker. That it is not is another stone in the grave of such tests.

Grey Wolf

[lio45]

Regarding teachers as a general category, Kiyosaki isn't that wrong - their role isn't to give financial advice to their pupils.

Instead of going to "random teachers (of whom 1/6 are millionaires)" or "random white people (of whom 1/7 are millionaires)", a better advice would be to go to the richest person you know in your extended circles (friends and family).

Here's an amusing fact - for the past 5+ years I have been that person for my friends and family, and one ex-gf of mine (we met in university, and unlike me she continued all the way to getting her PhD) recently asked me for advice on what to do with all that money piling up in her bank account now that she's got a high-paying university job and has been used to the grad school / postdoctoral lifestyle for a very long time now.

Interesting case of the real world functioning the opposite way to the OP's premises... normally, I should ask my ex-gf (a physicist with a PhD) for investment advice, not the other way around.

I'd even go as far as to say people like her ("sheltered academics") might be a worse source of advice than, say, "the average baby boomer". (Which isn't that good a source to begin with.)

Also, Willie the Duck, I forgot to answer you, but it's been a very long time since I read "Rich Dad Poor Dad", and while I recall it being optimistic as is standard for such guru-books ("it's easy, just borrow to anyone who'll lend you, buy real estate and wait until time passes, eventually you'll wake up one morning and realize you're now rich") there might be a few bits of decent advice in it.

[darkrose50]

Regarding teachers as a general category, Kiyosaki isn't that wrong - their role isn't to give financial advice to their pupils.

Instead of going to "random teachers (of whom 1/6 are millionaires)" or "random white people (of whom 1/7 are millionaires)", a better advice would be to go to the richest person you know in your extended circles (friends and family).

Here's an amusing fact - for the past 5+ years I have been that person for my friends and family, and one ex-gf of mine (we met in university, and unlike me she continued all the way to getting her PhD) recently asked me for advice on what to do with all that money piling up in her bank account now that she's got a high-paying university job and has been used to the grad school / postdoctoral lifestyle for a very long time now.

Interesting case of the real world functioning the opposite way to the OP's premises... normally, I should ask my ex-gf (a physicist with a PhD) for investment advice, not the other way around.
This is not even close to my original premise. My original premise is that they were a good source of information based on proximity and probability of being from the upper-middle-class and the upper-class (in order to search for cultural capital on investing). In no way shape or form did I ever say that they were the best choice, the only choice, or the preferred choice. Because that would be stupid.

My original premise was that Kiyosaki was wrong. That one should not under any circumstances rule teachers (as a group) out as a source for learning about wealth or investing. Because that would be stupid. A person is not just their occupation. I do a lot around the office that is not even remotely close to my job title. I do things outside of my job description at work. I do this because I am good at it, and they let me because it earns profit. It is nice to be listened to. No one would go to a guy that sells health insurance and ask for financial advice. I don’t do too shabby with investing. I actually quite shock myself.



I'd even go as far as to say people like her ("sheltered academics") might be a worse source of advice than, say, "the average baby boomer". (Which isn't that good a source to begin with.)

Also, Willie the Duck, I forgot to answer you, but it's been a very long time since I read "Rich Dad Poor Dad", and while I recall it being optimistic as is standard for such guru-books ("it's easy, just borrow to anyone who'll lend you, buy real estate and wait until time passes, eventually you'll wake up one morning and realize you're now rich") there might be a few bits of decent advice in it.

I stand by the premise that searching for multigenerational investment cultural capital among the upper-middle-class and the upper-class is wise.

[Peelee]

This is not even close to my original premise. My original premise is that they were a good source of information based on proximity and probability of being from the upper-middle-class and the upper-class (in order to search for cultural capital on investing)

The problem here is the vast majority of teachers that are accessible based on proximity are going to be grade-school teachers, who require the least amount of education to teach their classes, and the education they get is less geared towards their topics and more geared towards childhood development. So even going by the "the more educated are more likely to be good with money" argument you put forth (which I strenuously disagree with, but putting that aside for the moment), they are the lowest ones on the totem pole and, by your own arguments, thus the farthest ones you would want to seek such advice from.

[lio45]

This is not even close to my original premise. My original premise is that they were a good source of information based on proximity and probability. In no way shape or form did I ever say that they were the best choice, the only choice, or the preferred choice.
Well, in my view that's pretty close.

Your original premise is that they are a good source of information based on proximity and probability.

What I'm saying is that IMO they are not a source of information that's very distinguishable from the population in general statistically.

If you deem the Average Joe on the street to be a decently good source of investment information (he'll probably tell you "buy stocks", or "buy real estate", or "buy low sell high") then yeah random teachers are approximately equally "good" sources.

I just disagree with your labeling of "average" as "good", and our entire disagreement boils down to this.






My original premise was that Kiyosaki was wrong. That one should not under any circumstances rule teachers (as a group) out as a source for learning about wealth or investing.Well, of course ruling an entire group out is extreme and irrational. But he's not wrong when he says (very generally) that the school system doesn't equip its students very well for a life as an entrepreneur




The problem here is the vast majority of teachers that are accessible based on proximity are going to be grade-school teachers, who require the least amount of education to teach their classes, and the education they get is less geared towards their topics and more geared towards childhood development. So even going by the "the more educated are more likely to be good with money" argument you put forth (which I strenuously disagree with, but putting that aside for the moment), they are the lowest ones on the totem pole and, by your own arguments, thus the farthest ones you would want to seek such advice from.
Honestly, "my baby boomer uncles who went into skilled trades early in their lives" is a BETTER group to ask than "my uni friends, most of whom are physicists with PhDs".

The former are now retired and have managed/invested their own $ for decades, while the latter are in their mid/late 30s and just starting to have significant savings for the first time in their lives (and often, as I've observed, not yet sure how to invest it optimally).

Education level and even intelligence (any way you want to measure it) are IMO dwarfed as factors by the characteristic "has been managing their own money reasonably successfully for decades" when it comes to who you should go to for advice.

[darkrose50]

Well, in my view that's pretty close.

Your original premise is that they are a good source of information based on proximity and probability.

What I'm saying is that IMO they are not a source of information that's very distinguishable from the population in general statistically.

If you deem the Average Joe on the street to be a decently good source of investment information (he'll probably tell you "buy stocks", or "buy real estate", or "buy low sell high") then yeah random teachers are approximately equally "good" sources.

I just disagree with your labeling of "average" as "good", and all our disagreement boils down to this.


I suppose it all boils down to how much you believe that cultural capital is a thing of value worth seeking out.

We have a profession that has a strong tendency to come from the top two economic quintiles. Not willy-nilly some of the profession comes from the top two quintiles . . . a high concentration of them.

Teachers just may be the only time these kids interact with these socio economic classes. We can't all be like "kids go talk to bankers downtown".

I suppose I am just curious and think that the risk/reward of a conversation with a teacher would be worth a student's time for the chance to learn something.



Well, of course ruling an entire group out is extreme and irrational. But he's not wrong when he says (very generally) that the school system doesn't equip its students very well for a life as an entrepreneur.

I agree that the schools push college too hard, but that is what the parents want. If they tell them to go to not-college, then the parents would burn down the schools. Everyone wants their kids to be a white-collared professional. This is why we don't have woodshop and the like to any degree like once existed. Plumbers (or whatnot) can make bank, they should totally be teaching that more in school.

[Peelee]

Honestly, "my baby boomer uncles who went into skilled trades early in their lives" is a BETTER group to ask than "my uni friends, most of whom are physicists with PhDs".

Oh, I'm not arguing that higher education makes you more likely to be better at investing. Darkrose is. I'm just pointing out how that claim is completely at odds with the claim of "so ask teachers because they're easily accessible to the average person," which he is putting forth as a corollary.

[lio45]

I suppose I am just curious and think that the risk/reward of a conversation with a teacher would be worth a student's time for the chance to learn something.In fact, my whole point can be summed up this way:

"The risk/reward of a conversation with a teacher is usually worth a student's time for the chance to learn something, but if what you have in mind is advice on how to become rich, then the ratio [likelihood of learning something useful/duration of the conversation] is more advantageous if you choose the wealthiest person you know, instead of any of your teachers. (Occasionally, this may happen to be the same person, but in this case, the characteristic that's the basis on which you're selecting that person is wealth, not profession.)"

[darkrose50]

Oh, I'm not arguing that higher education makes you more likely to be better at investing. Darkrose is. I'm just pointing out how that claim is completely at odds with the claim of "so ask teachers because they're easily accessible to the average person," which he is putting forth as a corollary.

The average student child person.

Oh there are a lot of variables here, but teachers evidently just have a multitude of logical sources for inbound wealth.

[lio45]

The average student child person.
I stand by my previously expressed point that even at such a young age, they're better off chatting with their one distant relative Rich Uncle Moneybags than a random elementary school teacher.

As I conceded though, sure, if you're a child in the poorest ghetto there is, it's possible that your solidly-middle-class-at-best elementary school teacher is the wealthiest person you have around. In that case, yes, the least bad advice around you will probably come from that teacher (the other alternatives being your friends and family).

[darkrose50]

I stand by my previously expressed point that even at such a young age, they're better off chatting with their one distant relative Rich Uncle Moneybags than a random elementary school teacher.

As I conceded though, sure, if you're a child in the poorest ghetto there is, it's possible that your solidly-middle-class-at-best elementary school teacher is the wealthiest person you have around. In that case, yes, the least bad advice around you will probably come from that teacher (the other alternatives being your friends and family).

Oh I would go to a rich uncle, hands down. But, I would also look around for more sources. The question is not either/or I would want as many as I can find. There are many different investment strategies.

I know lots of teachers, and the amount of wealth that some of them have coming there way is surprising. Some know stuff, others do not.

I know one where she is considered the runt of the litter, and she has a masters degree. Her parents are pretty wealthy. All her siblings are doctors and lawyers.

I know another one that seems very frugal with her money, and stands to inherit a small fortune.

I also know some teachers that are dirt poor, from families that are not wealthy.

I do not talk to a lot of people about money stuff too much, as my wife is privet about it, and these are her friends.

Now my friends I can talk to about money. Most of the time we talk about geek and nerd stuff. The days of a party or more a month were my 20's and 30's. Now many of them have kids and we have considerably less parties.

One of my teachers as a kid owned a HUGE toy store, and he eventually sold it. He drove some Porch or some such. I should have asked him a bunch of questions. Google Dispensa's castle of toys.

In the 1990's I had one high school teacher that made ~$120,000 per year. I should have asked him how he invested his money . . . he wore cloths from the 1970's.

[Willie the Duck]

Plumbers (or whatnot) can make bank, they should totally be teaching that more in school.

Anyone seen 2d8 recently? He'd get a kick out of this. :smallbiggrin:

[darkrose50]

Anyone seen 2d8 recently? He'd get a kick out of this. :smallbiggrin:

I also work with insurance agents that earn in the six figures. Not all insurance agents earn that much, but they could earn some bank. Classes in school on how to do that would be welcome as well.

[Peelee]

I also work with insurance agents that earn in the six figures. Not all insurance agents earn that much, but they could earn some bank. Classes in school on how to do that would be welcome as well.

...imean, I'm pretty sure that the agents who earn that much took those classes in school. Unless you're talking about luck? Do you want a class on how to be lucky?

[Rogar Demonblud]

your solidly-middle-class-at-best Yup. Among other assertions that have been challenged, one that needs to be challenged is that teachers come from the upper class. As part of my job, I deal with about 500 teachers a quarter. I can count on one hand how many are not of lower middle class or upper working class roots (pretty much the same place you'd expect a union heavy field to draw from). They're also nearly universally living paycheck to paycheck, and frequently working another 1-2 jobs (which also means they're generally tired enough to not do their best in the classroom).

Pensions aren't much to consider any more as well. The people in charge of the union aren't any more likely to know how to manage the money, and tend to both award themselves premium salaries and make investments based on friendship. But that's part of a different conversation about how unions are defaulting on pensions and leaving the obligations to the government, which is both off topic and very political.

[halfeye]

...imean, I'm pretty sure that the agents who earn that much took those classes in school. Unless you're talking about luck? Do you want a class on how to be lucky?

Yeah, that would totally work. Why not select for lucky like Discworld?

[snowblizz]

When/where in America are investing and capitalism poo-pooed? We're a capitalist nation, one of the most capitalist and one where, without going into real-world politics very far, most deviations from capitalism are controversial at least. I mean, sure there was a brief period in the mid-90s where business types where vaguely 'the man' and something to resist becoming as a young person (I recall movies like Reality Bites belittling business types and people who drove around in BMWs), but that seems pretty tame compared to labelling investment classes 'filthy capitalism.'

I wasn't talking about America. I was talking about a place which an American would generally dismiss as "socialist". Because taking a complex thing and putting on a deragatory one word is very American. Which I was being in that example. Hence "being American".

When I grew up business, economics and entrepenuer were almost curse words still (obviously not in America). Someone asked if there were no economics in high school to which I replied from my perspective.

[snowblizz]

In fact, my whole point can be summed up this way:

"The risk/reward of a conversation with a teacher is usually worth a student's time for the chance to learn something, but if what you have in mind is advice on how to become rich, then the ratio [likelihood of learning something useful/duration of the conversation] is more advantageous if you choose the wealthiest person you know, instead of any of your teachers. (Occasionally, this may happen to be the same person, but in this case, the characteristic that's the basis on which you're selecting that person is wealth, not profession.)"

I like this one.



Anyone seen 2d8 recently? He'd get a kick out of this. :smallbiggrin:

Busy rolling around his piles of money no doubt. Funnily enough I had a similar reaction.

[Chen]

Busy rolling around his piles of money no doubt. Funnily enough I had a similar reaction.

Tradespeople do make a fair bit of money particularly compared to someone with a random degree and unrelated job. Going into trades SHOULD be taught as viable and a perfectly good alternative to going to university just to get some degree you’ll never use.

[snowblizz]

Tradespeople do make a fair bit of money particularly compared to someone with a random degree and unrelated job. Going into trades SHOULD be taught as viable and a perfectly good alternative to going to university just to get some degree you’ll never use.

2d8 usually talks about not having had the opportunity to go get a fancy college degree. So it's kinda hilarious to see the opposite position brought up.


Our societies has kinda started looking down on manual labour (though that's not entirely a new thing in some senses). Eg my own country had a goal that 70% of kids would go on to get a college degree totally disregarding the notion of where they'll be meaningfully placed if at all possible. Sort of a "if we educate them enough they'll solve that question for us" kinda thing. It's probably ironic that trade types of jobs are probably less at risk from AI and bots and such than a lot of the college career paths.


Though it's not as easy as it used to be. To paraphrase some teachers from when I was young who would note some were destined for tradeschool, the problem started becoming even a practical job like a car mechanic becomes more of hook up computer and push buttons job.

[darkrose50]

...imean, I'm pretty sure that the agents who earn that much took those classes in school. Unless you're talking about luck? Do you want a class on how to be lucky?

I have several friends who were hired after giving them pointers. They do pretty well. Like a lot of jobs and/or workplaces there are plenty of unspoken rules and expectations. They will teach you to do X, but really want you to do Y (or Y is much more effective). There are tips on how to phase things, how to bring up a concept as not to confuse or panic someone, and likely the biggest one that was hard for me was ending conversations with people wasting my time . . . any of my time (different standards depending on the seasons). There are many different types of time sucking callers. The ones that want to recreate the chart over the phone that they can download online (this is a pet peeve of mine). The ones not buying anything that want to call sales, not customer service, and use us as a dictionary (literally just Google it). The ones that want to talk about getting a plan and pricing for a plan that we do not even have yet (how is it confusing that we do not have the plans yet). The most obnoxious ones want to take 15-45 minutes thinking over a plan while on the phone with an agent . . . I just tell them to think about it and call me back (when it is busy this makes a huge difference . . . that would effect your sales, and cause you not to get hired). A close second would be the folks that want to tell you there long story about why they are calling, and do not want to answer 2-6 quick yes/no questions (can't I just babble on incoherently about why I am calling? It is like 95% likely that you are not the person I want to talk to, but let me babble on and on and on).

There are a lot of pointers that they do not teach you. Quirks about the various programs are pretty big. The government program is a nightmare of time sucking hell.

[truemane]

The other thing to consider about professional/tradespeople is that they make decent money AND they don't have the same social pressure to look prosperous. I've worked for doctors, and they spend a LOT of money to look like they have a lot of money, because doctors who don't look rich don't get new patients.

A plumber making $100k a year and spending $20k is richer than a doctor making $300k a year and pending $250k.

[darkrose50]

The other thing to consider about professional/tradespeople is that they make decent money AND they don't have the same social pressure to look prosperous. I've worked for doctors, and they spend a LOT of money to look like they have a lot of money, because doctors who don't look rich don't get new patients.

A plumber making $100k a year and spending $20k is richer than a doctor making $300k a year and pending $250k.

I think that this is one reason why teachers end up with so much money. No one expects a teacher to drive a fancy car, or wear fancy clothing. In fact doing so can be counterproductive, and hurt the students. Teachers just have so many contributing factors that help them as a population to become wealthy.

-----

The problem with only talking to the richest person you know, is that is not the best way to get rich for everyone.

The richest people I know are likely an engineer married to an actuary. Both likely make six figures or more each. Their success is not replicable. Not everyone is a math wizard.

I know an engineer who works on TVs (a friend's dad), he holds some TV patents, he talked at a local college to a standing-room-only crowd of engineering students . . . in an auditorium. Come to think of it he could likely be the richest person that I know. This success is not replicable, not really, not everyone can fill a standing-room-only auditorium full of engineering students. That is rock-star level mojo.

Now is the advice of someone with $100,000 who earns a 10% return in the stock market more useful, or is the advise of someone with $200,000 who earns 8% per year more useful? I would say the 10%, but I would ask them both. They could have differing approaches, strategies, and insights.

[snowblizz]

The other thing to consider about professional/tradespeople is that they make decent money AND they don't have the same social pressure to look prosperous. I've worked for doctors, and they spend a LOT of money to look like they have a lot of money, because doctors who don't look rich don't get new patients.

A plumber making $100k a year and spending $20k is richer than a doctor making $300k a year and pending $250k.


I think that this is one reason why teachers end up with so much money. No one expects a teacher to drive a fancy car, or wear fancy clothing. In fact doing so can be counterproductive, and hurt the students. Teachers just have so many contributing factors that help them as a population to become wealthy.

America is a weird place.

Here you are less likely to be wealthy if you drive around in a flashy car. Most people in an Audi are 20-30somethings who blew all their paychecks and quite a few future one getting an expensive car. Most of them are working middleclass jobs. It's also a type of behaviour which I've seen refered to as "acting like new money" an idea which does support the idea of the "idea of generational wealth".


I'm not sure we can point to it as correlated to jobs. During the "crazy years" of 1980s it was very important to appear with right labels in school. Whether you could afford or not. A specific, outright expressed exception by the "cool kids" was made for me (who only wore mailorder moderately priced clothes) because all the kids knew that my dad as doctor earned quite well and starting a thing about whose parent's earned more wasn't gonna end up well for them. It was just how the times were then. A lot of people were living beyond their means it turned out when the 80s bubble burst. Some of them high wage-earners like one of my dad's colleagues (having a high-education and a good job not always correlating with money sense). Ofc having a well-paid job (in a field not as easily downsized) also meant said person could bounce back much more readily than most others when their investments turned out to be more air than anything else.

Besides, when you go to a hospital how do know what the doctor in a white coat exactly like the ones all the other doctors wear drove there in an expensive car and has an expensive suit tucked away in his locker?

Not that expert are always to be trusted either. Since I enjoy providing anecdotes, when I started at business school at university we visited an investment firm who recommended us all to borrow as much as we could with them. Anyone who woulda taken them up on the advice woulda been badly burnt by the dot.com bust and 2001 crash. Ofc what you should have done was buy a partnership in their firm cashing out with them when they sold at a inflated price to Icelandic bankers and later bought back the business for cents on the dollar.

Ironically another example of doing the thing the rich actually do. Not doing what the rich say they do.

[darkrose50]

I have a cousin who lived in the biggest fanciest house, had the expensive clothing, went bankrupt, and now lives in the biggest fanciest house, and wears the most expensive clothing . . ..

This is not how to get wealthy. You live below your means, save, and invest (S&P 500, don't touch it for 10-30 years, done).

[Willie the Duck]

I wasn't talking about America. I was talking about a place which an American would generally dismiss as "socialist". Because taking a complex thing and putting on a deragatory one word is very American. Which I was being in that example. Hence "being American".
Thanks for the clarification.


Busy rolling around his piles of money no doubt. Funnily enough I had a similar reaction.


Tradespeople do make a fair bit of money particularly compared to someone with a random degree and unrelated job. Going into trades SHOULD be taught as viable and a perfectly good alternative to going to university just to get some degree you’ll never use.

Not to speak for them, but I'm sure it was in the back of darkrose50's mind. In their last 'want to be wealthy, be/marry a teacher' thread, he (2d8) and I were the ones to out themselves as worth 1 mil+, and his is a great tradesperson example. Lovely tale.


The other thing to consider about professional/tradespeople is that they make decent money AND they don't have the same social pressure to look prosperous. I've worked for doctors, and they spend a LOT of money to look like they have a lot of money, because doctors who don't look rich don't get new patients.
A plumber making $100k a year and spending $20k is richer than a doctor making $300k a year and pending $250k.

I work with doctors, lawyers, software engineers, and run-of-the-mill corporate types. The IT guys definitely have the option of spending the least money, although they also seem to love their expensive toys.

[darkrose50]

I work with doctors, lawyers, software engineers, and run-of-the-mill corporate types. The IT guys definitely have the option of spending the least money, although they also seem to love their expensive toys.

I buy chocolate at Macy's sometimes. I have a friend that works with me. He is quite smart, likely one of the smartest folks I know (but is horrible with money). He was worried about being kicked out of Macy's for looking like a bum (he did not shave for about a week, had on warn jeans and a worn t-shirt), and I told him that folks would just think that he was in IT.

Evidently the NSA has a lot of hippy-looking computer hackers walking around, and this is starkly contrasted by folks in suits walking around. If you are a computer super-nerd, then you can pull that stuff off.

I wish I was nerd-enough, but I think that my geek level far outclasses my nerd level.

[lio45]

I think that this is one reason why teachers end up with so much money. No one expects a teacher to drive a fancy car, or wear fancy clothing. In fact doing so can be counterproductive, and hurt the students. Teachers just have so many contributing factors that help them as a population to become wealthy.

-----

The problem with only talking to the richest person you know, is that is not the best way to get rich for everyone.

The richest people I know are likely an engineer married to an actuary. Both likely make six figures or more each. Their success is not replicable. Not everyone is a math wizard.

I know an engineer who works on TVs (a friend's dad), he holds some TV patents, he talked at a local college to a standing-room-only crowd of engineering students . . . in an auditorium. Come to think of it he could likely be the richest person that I know. This success is not replicable, not really, not everyone can fill a standing-room-only auditorium full of engineering students. That is rock-star level mojo.

Now is the advice of someone with $100,000 who earns a 10% return in the stock market more useful, or is the advise of someone with $200,000 who earns 8% per year more useful? I would say the 10%, but I would ask them both. They could have differing approaches, strategies, and insights.Sure, but that's totally "moving the goalposts". Everyone's path to wealth is different and involved opportunity and luck and being at the right place at the right time.

If you're looking for replicable advice (new goalposts), then that's very limited and very generic. In fact, here you go:

Option 1: find a totally blighted neighborhood that's "the next Brooklyn" and buy several properties there for next to nothing.

Option 2: find extremely undervalued stock that's about to skyrocket in value and buy a lot of it.

Option 3: buy a lottery ticket with the correct numbers on it.

Option 4: marry someone who's already extremely wealthy.

[darkrose50]

Sure, but that's totally "moving the goalposts". Everyone's path to wealth is different and involved opportunity and luck and being at the right place at the right time.

If you're looking for replicable advice (new goalposts), then that's very limited and very generic. In fact, here you go:

Option 1: find a totally blighted neighborhood that's "the next Brooklyn" and buy several properties there for next to nothing.

Option 2: find extremely undervalued stock that's about to skyrocket in value and buy a lot of it.

Option 3: buy a lottery ticket with the correct numbers on it.

Option 4: marry someone who's already extremely wealthy.

My goalpost would be "How can I invest and make a profit by doing nothing". Your goalpost might be different. Basically my outlook is to save, invest, and expect not to touch the money for 10-30 years. In the stock market I invest in a sector fund or in an S&P 500 fund. Never sell it if the market tanks. Seriously, you want to buy into the market after it tanks. If the market tanks, then I will be putting as much as I can into that market! No more ordering out or vacations, just saving and investing. Companies make money, and owning a part of the economy is profitable. This will be true even if the economy tanks, and the economy will recover sooner or later . . . likely well within 10-30 years. Even if the dollar becomes worthless, stocks in profitable companies will be valuable. Stocks (via indexed mutual funds) seem like a pretty good deal to help ward off inflation, or an economic collapse.

[Razade]

My goalpost would be "How can I invest and make a profit by doing nothing." Your goalpost might be different. Basically my outlook is to save, invest, and expect not to touch the money for 10-30 years. In the stock market I invest in a sector fund or in an S&P 500 fund. Never sell it if the market tanks. Seriously, you want to buy into the market after it tanks. If the market tanks, then I will be putting as much as I can into that market! Companies make money, and owning a part of the economy is profitable. This will be true even if the economy tanks, and the economy will recover sooner or later . . . likely well within 10-30 years.

That's not what goalposts mean in this application. The term "moving the goalposts" is an informal fallacy in logic where by a person presents conditions, evidence or prerequisites that must be met and once they're met, changes the conditions to render the previous attempt ineligible. Not like...a goal for you to work to.

[darkrose50]

That's not what goalposts mean in this application. The term "moving the goalposts" is an informal fallacy in logic where by a person presents conditions, evidence or prerequisites that must be met and once they're met, changes the conditions to render the previous attempt ineligible. Not like...a goal for you to work to.

What argument am I defending?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Honestly, at this point I'm not sure. I think we have 4-5 different ones swirling about. Might be a good time to say Good Game, See You Next Time and go discuss the new strip for a while.

[AMFV]

Tradespeople do make a fair bit of money particularly compared to someone with a random degree and unrelated job. Going into trades SHOULD be taught as viable and a perfectly good alternative to going to university just to get some degree you’ll never use.

I think the problem is when people who are seeing trades as an alternative view it as something people that are not skilled enough to do other types of work do. Whereas trades intend involve different sets of skills than other kinds of work but they do involve skills. There are people who would be not as good at my job as I am because they don't have the skill set for it the same as with any other job. So when people are advising people to go into the trades they should always be careful to make sure that it's actually a good fit for the person and that they're not just thinking that either tradespeople may or may not be true depending on what their specialty is how hard they're willing to work how much they're willing to travel people make bundles of money, which may or may not be true depending on what their specialty is, or if they're willing to travel for their work. For a lot of freight where do you have to be really willing to get up and travel you have to be willing to work long hours sometimes very little notice there are a lot of hardships that are not present in most standard office jobs that you have with the trades and if you can't deal with them then you're not going to be making bundles of money at all.

[AMFV]

The other thing to consider about professional/tradespeople is that they make decent money AND they don't have the same social pressure to look prosperous. I've worked for doctors, and they spend a LOT of money to look like they have a lot of money, because doctors who don't look rich don't get new patients.

A plumber making $100k a year and spending $20k is richer than a doctor making $300k a year and pending $250k.

I hate to interrupt you here guy but you are way off base, like yeah the doctor might have a nicer house but I bet you that the plumbers $70,000 dually truck is a lot more expensive than whatever the doctor is driving most likely. The thing is that trades people tend to Value different things and so they spend money on things that are not the same as the doctor would. So they might not look prosperous to you because they don't spend a lot of money on light clothes typically but I bet you they spent a lot of money on random pools I spent a lot of money on truck they spent a lot of money on camping trips and hunting and barbecue equipment for a lot of them. They spent a lot of money on beer and alcohol. So the plumber clearing that hundred thousand which is actually more than I've ever heard of a plumber clearing I mean it's possible in California or New York but eighty or ninety thousand is much more likely in most places as you're expected top end as a plumber and give me doing that you have to be doing a crap ton of overtime and doing all kinds of travel and all kinds of other stuff in a lot of dudes just aren't willing to do that, but they're going to spend the same amount of money is that doctor they're just going to spend it on different things than the doctor would.

[Rogar Demonblud]

A doctor's BMW is a personal status symbol that will sit idly most of the year.

A tradesman's vehicle is a business property granting depreciation on their taxes.

Also, you seem to have odd ideas about how tradesmen live their lives.

[AMFV]

A doctor's BMW is a personal status symbol that will sit idly most of the year.

A tradesman's vehicle is a business property granting depreciation on their taxes.

Also, you seem to have odd ideas about how tradesmen live their lives.

I am a construction Carpenter, in a union, I went to school for welding. I bet I know a lot more people in the trades than you. And yeah and oil rig welder might need a dually truck, but it apprentice plumber or a plumber probably doesn't. It's just a status symbol it's the same as the doctors BMW. I know a lot of people who are blue collar workers who spend money pretty frivolous, I'm not talking down about them I'm just telling you that people who are in that kind of world have their own little crap that they spend money on that's not really worth it. Although I might be worth it to them depends, but again I am in the trades I work with other people in the same I bet I know more people that are in those kind of feels in you do and a lot of them have trucks that are way more truck today need. Heck, I have a truck that's way more truck then I need.

[Razade]

What argument am I defending?

If you don't know then how do you expect us to?

[Rogar Demonblud]

I spend most of my work week out with the lower end of the economic spectrum. Duallys aren't unheard of, but I see far more of them with white collar types who want to pretend to be macho. The actual tradesmen are driving either a F150 or Ram a few years old, or more lately crossovers. They don't go camping; they go to one or maybe two Vikings games a year. Hunting and fishing, yes, but that is not expensive by any means. Ditto softball and hardball leagues.

And then there's the drinking, where you're dead on. And also where I keep coming in.

[snowblizz]

I hate to interrupt you here guy but you are way off base, like yeah the doctor might have a nicer house but I bet you that the plumbers $70,000 dually truck is a lot more expensive than whatever the doctor is driving most likely.

You should probably look more at the numbers than the job titles in that example. I believe the point being made was if you earn 100k and spend 20k (net 80k) you might be better placed than someone who earns 300k but spends 250k of it (net 50k). That old adage "it's not how much you earn but how much you spend". Though there are limits to the applicability to the saying too.
Some people, say Michael Jackson because I remember the example, earned hundreds of millions but racked up close to a billion in debt too. Eventually having to turn over his (part) ownership of the Beatles catalogue (his biggest money-maker) to Sony music to clear his debts. Arguably someone making a net 50k a year could be considered better off than someone doing a negative net of tens of million each year. Though in practice I think most would consider the pop star a vastly richer person. However, if you are looking for solid financial advice you probably want to talk to the net 50k person.

A constant issue I have with many of these "get rich with real-estate" kinda of advice, and IIRC Kiyosaki's belong to that category, is that when everyone starts doing it it doesn't work (usually because the economy is building up a bubble)*. In Ireland before 2008-9 they had a massive boom in realestate. Lots of people got safe, foolproof real-estate investments, totally ignoring that when everyone has a second home, who is going to buy those third and fourth houses? And definitely not helped by the fact it wasn't legally possible to evict tenants...
In Stockholm around the same time it was almost a sport to buy apartments, renovate the kitchen with luxury furnishings and make a 10-15% or more gain. I never understood this, since everyone buying an aprtment surely should know the cost of installing an off-the-shelf 100k kitchen and not pay 200k for that? It worked for a while ofc, until the market got saturated because it was a no brainer will always work strategy...

Basically if everyone was following the advice you are peddling then it wouldn't work for anyone. Maybe it'd be possible to construct such a counter-example to what Kyosaki is expousing. I just don't think it'd be effective because usually whenever someone is taken in by such a con-artists they aren't receptive to changing their minds.


*I'm not just negging real-estate here, stocks have similar problems. Some 3 years ago or so there was a buyout offer off a company I had some shares in, they paid more than the listprice ofc, but what really got to me was how upbeat and great the proposed merger was being sold as. The problem inherent in this was that I wouldn't be a part of that since they'd be buying me (and all other investors) out. If the deal was so bloody good, why aren't I allowed to participate with a share in the future? Never seen a prospect so shooting themselves in the foot. With every line in it they wer effectively suggesting why I shouldn't be selling. Not that it mattered in the end there was a forced buy-out of the last shareholders. Got more than they were offering though.

[AMFV]

I spend most of my work week out with the lower end of the economic spectrum. Duallys aren't unheard of, but I see far more of them with white collar types who want to pretend to be macho. The actual tradesmen are driving either a F150 or Ram a few years old, or more lately crossovers. They don't go camping; they go to one or maybe two Vikings games a year. Hunting and fishing, yes, but that is not expensive by any means. Ditto softball and hardball leagues.

And then there's the drinking, where you're dead on. And also where I keep coming in.

The thing is you're confusing lower end of the economic spectrum with tradespeople. The kind of Trades people that we are talking about can't afford to go camping and often do, and hunting and often do, thing is, if you gave the people that you're spending time with the ones in the lower end of the scale the salary that we're discussing for that Plumber guy a lot of them would buy a really stupid truck. And it's not like I'm saying there's anything wrong with spending your money on something like a stupid truck, but it's kind of weird to me that people are trying to present plumbers And Trades people as being somehow Super Wise with their money when in my experience they are not especially wise with their money. I mean probably some of them are but I imagine they're probably some doctors who also are cheap and don't spend a lot of money


Edit: Snowblizz I'm fairly sure you have me confused for somebody else, I haven't actually given any advice in the threat at all, the only thing I've said is that the trades aren't for everybody which isn't really advise just kind of a counter to the kind of arguing that everybody has been having that the trades are for everybody, and then other than that I haven't really said anything that would constitute advice. Accept it a teacher may or may not be a good resource for financial advice the same way as most people may or may not be a good resource for financial advice

[Chen]

*I'm not just negging real-estate here, stocks have similar problems. Some 3 years ago or so there was a buyout offer off a company I had some shares in, they paid more than the listprice ofc, but what really got to me was how upbeat and great the proposed merger was being sold as. The problem inherent in this was that I wouldn't be a part of that since they'd be buying me (and all other investors) out. If the deal was so bloody good, why aren't I allowed to participate with a share in the future? Never seen a prospect so shooting themselves in the foot. With every line in it they wer effectively suggesting why I shouldn't be selling. Not that it mattered in the end there was a forced buy-out of the last shareholders. Got more than they were offering though.

Not really a merger if one company is buying all the shares of another. Thats a takeover (which is why you want all the shares in that company).

Presumably the new company then offered shares to whomever they wanted to have any ownership in the company. How were they shooting themselves in the foot?

[snowblizz]

Edit: Snowblizz I'm fairly sure you have me confused for somebody else, I haven't actually given any advice in the threat at all, the only thing I've said is that the trades aren't for everybody which isn't really advise just kind of a counter to the kind of arguing that everybody has been having that the trades are for everybody, and then other than that I haven't really said anything that would constitute advice. Accept it a teacher may or may not be a good resource for financial advice the same way as most people may or may not be a good resource for financial advice
No I'm specifically referring to the tradesperson/doctor thing. The point earlier was about relative spending your income not about tradespeople or doctors per se. The professions and whether they buy trucks, BMWs or hunt/go to opera is irrelevant (you can swap the out to any profession really). The larger points was a higher income can lead to more expensive habits. I felt the discussion on what a plumber might spend money on was beside the point.



Not really a merger if one company is buying all the shares of another. Thats a takeover (which is why you want all the shares in that company).

Presumably the new company then offered shares to whomever they wanted to have any ownership in the company. How were they shooting themselves in the foot?
There's the word I couldn't think of.
Well they need my shares, and many others' to be able to do a take-over. If you want my shares then maybe don't try and sell me on how better everything will be when I no longer can enjoy those benefits? An offer that would have made more sense in the context of positive the prospect made the deal out would have been an offer that gave me shares after the take-over. The two possible options boiled down to:

*Sell to us so we can be more successfull and you won't get anything of that.

*Become part of this new better company.

The second one would have been more likely to entice me. As is, it took them a year of arbitration they had to pay for to get my shares. I obviously wasn't the only hold out.
Had they not gotten 90% to trigger a forced buyout they'd be in massive pickle. By no means a guarantee. I've seen that one happen too. That time some minor owners with large enough share to push over the required limit managed to leverage the deal quite heavily.

[darkrose50]

If you don't know then how do you expect us to?

I am not sure at all what goal post was moved, but here are some of the arguments:

Hypothesis: Teachers can be a source of information on investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are intelligent
Hypothesis: Intelligence is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are educated
Hypothesis: Education is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers tend to come from the upper-middle-class and are highly likely to have this cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance . . . and that is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are *a* source to be specifically targeted for information on investing (due to likelihood of possessing cultural capital, and the ease of access)

And then there are others . . ..

Hypothesis: Multigenerational wealth is a feedback loop, and is both a cause and an effect.
Hypothesis: The source of the wealth a person has is important if you want to be able to replicate it.
Hypothesis: Free money via compound interest is a great way to invest your way to more money.
Hypothesis: Saving is more important than what you invest in (but you need to invest, and diversify).
Hypothesis: Do not dismiss what people flag as a paradox, or a correlation, and look at it anyhow.
Hypothesis: Do not just look for one source or person for investing knowledge.
Hypothesis: Save and invest in the S&P 500, for 10-30 years.
Hypothesis: Do not sell when the market goes down, buy more if possible when the market goes down.

I bet there were a lot more points that I said than the ones listed above.

Honestly it confuses me to no end that I can say something like "I am hungry, ergo I ate lunch", and then later if I said "It was lunchtime, ergo I ate lunch", then even later said "I had a coupon, ergo I ate lunch" someone would come along and say that I was lying because my story changed, as if one cannot have multiple reasons for doing something like eating lunch. Judge Judy did/does this all the time, it drove/drives me nuts.

-----


. . . a lot of them would buy a really stupid truck.

They made a documentary about giving a homeless man a $100,000. He bought a ~$60,000 truck, and said "you would think that $100,000 would last forever", or something like that.

A lot (most?) of the folks that are homeless have mental health issues, and likely do not have or care about money skills (enough, as they likely have bigger issues to deal with), so I am not at all surprised at the results.

-----

I would like to see a documentary about someone giving like ten hard-working lower-class families each a house, and how it would change there lives. More precisely competently or mostly removing housing as a cost, and granting them equity . . . not here is a house you can't afford the taxes on, or something like that.


. . . trades are for everybody

I really think that just about everyone should save and invest in at least an index fund like a S&P 500 index fund, and leave it alone for 10-30 years (as in don't sell it, but add savings to it over time). This is the basic premise, but there would be more parameters (retirement vehicles like a 401(k) or Roth IRA being good to save on taxes, preparing for retirement 10-years before by shifting 5-10 years of money around to bonds/cash, and I am sure some other things). Compound interest is a frightfully powerful thing. Basically you make money via doing nothing, and that is peachy keen.

-----

Now I am no stock guru, but the stock market has been going sideways for an awful long time. In the past when this going sideways occurred it went straight up at some point with the trend being the longer that the market has historically gone sideways the more sharply the market went up. We just might see that again at some point. I would consider this a risk/reward calculation folks should make by looking at historical charts, and thinking about if this is the time in history where this trend would stop. It seems likely (based on history) to me that at some point we will see a sharp uptick, but no one can tell when that uptick might occur. This possibility is mouthwatering.

[Willie the Duck]

Now I am no stock guru, but the stock market has been going sideways for an awful long time. In the past when this going sideways occurred it went straight up at some point with the trend being the longer that the market has historically gone sideways the more sharply the market went up. We just might see that again at some point. I would consider this a risk/reward calculation folks should make by looking at historical charts, and thinking about if this is the time in history where this trend would stop. It seems likely (based on history) to me that at some point we will see a sharp uptick, but no one can tell when that uptick might occur. This possibility is mouthwatering.

If we're going strictly by a 'history is an indicator' model, yesterday's bond inversion suggests a sharp uptick is not something to expect in the near (2 year) future. I certainly wouldn't be moving my safe money into high-risk ventures.

[Tvtyrant]

It is also important to realize that economics is the dire alpha werewolf of statistical background noise. No one is good at predicting its behavior in the long run.

[darkrose50]

If we're going strictly by a 'history is an indicator' model, yesterday's bond inversion suggests a sharp uptick is not something to expect in the near (2 year) future. I certainly wouldn't be moving my safe money into high-risk ventures.

Depending on my choices in one of my two 401(k)'s I tend to just buy the S&P 500 or some other index fund either (a) for the long-haul, and/or (b) for the political goals of who holds power. So usually I end up investing for ~8-year allotments. I could just be lucky so far.

I was attempting to suggest that folks should think about upping ones investment into the market (I like dollar cost averaging). I am thinking that within 10-years we just might have that skyrocketing market. We might be in one now, even if it does go down for 2-years, I would like to get ready for it.

The longest recovery in the last ~120-years was ~25-years long. So, you know, we will likely be above where we are now at some-point, at least likely the market would be up within the next 25-years.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-dows-tumultuous-120-year-history-in-one-chart-2017-03-23

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sidewaystrend.asp

Depending on situations in 2020, infrastructure seems like it might be some low-hanging fruit. Everyone wants to be responsible for this economic boom. Everyone sees it, and everyone is putting it off. When some-group can take all of the credit for it, there will likely be lots of money to be made.

I am no expert, but I bet that perhaps within 5-years to 9-years or 13-years we will have an expansion phase. One group seems to be good for consolidation that lags for a while and one group seems to be good for expansion that lags for a while. The setup seems to work overall. The consolidation phase seems to be great to invest in at a steady price (perhaps a higher pace), and the expansion seems to be great for the market going higher. They are both great, and seem to work well together. I look forward to both seemingly more-or-less predictable phases (or probable phases).

[lio45]

I am not sure at all what goal post was moved, but here are some of the arguments:

Hypothesis: Teachers can be a source of information on investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are intelligent
Hypothesis: Intelligence is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are educated
Hypothesis: Education is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers tend to come from the upper-middle-class and are highly likely to have this cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance . . . and that is useful in investing
Hypothesis: Teachers are *a* source to be specifically targeted for information on investing (due to likelihood of possessing cultural capital, and the ease of access)

And the counter-argument is that all of this is so marginal, it's dwarfed by the error bars.

Select a person at random, and you've got about ~49% chance that their advice will be slightly better than a random teacher's, and ~51% chance that their advice will be slightly poorer than a random teacher's.

[darkrose50]

And the counter-argument is that all of this is so marginal, it's dwarfed by the error bars.

Select a person at random, and you've got about ~49% chance that their advice will be slightly better than a random teacher's, and ~51% chance that their advice will be slightly poorer than a random teacher's.

Would you just ask anyone about fishing, or would you first ask the son of a fisherman? Grabbing anyone off of the street is not nearly as probable in providing the information that you seek as grabbing the son of a fisherman would be (the fisherman is not available to you).

Investing is not gambling. Investing is not random. Investing is not common sense that everyone has. Investing is both a learned behavior, and also a learned skill. Everyone does not have the behavior, the same skill, or the same training in investing. You need money to invest in order to have experience investing.

Multigenerational wealth is not just money. It is also the training that the money gives. It is also the experience surrounding how money is managed. The kids of investors learn stuff about investing, honest to god.

If your goal were to locate potential multigenerational cultural capital surrounding wealth.

I would not start by asking at random. You would want to narrow down the population.

I would not start by talking to those in the lower quintiles about investing. It is much less probable to get at the cultural capital surrounding investing that you are look for.

I would certainly start by looking for those born into the higher quintiles where the wealth resides. This also happens to be where the teaching population tends to comes from.

Below is a study about investing by quintile:

"The majority of lower socioeconomic status (SES) households do not have any stock investments, which is detrimental to wealth accumulation. Here, we examine one potential driver of this puzzling fact, namely, that SES may influence the process by which people learn from information in financial markets. In an experimental setting we find that low SES participants, relative to medium or high SES ones, form more pessimistic beliefs about the distribution of stock investment outcomes and are less likely to invest in stocks. The pessimism bias in assessing risky assets induced by low SES is robust to several ways of measuring one’s socioeconomic standing and it replicates out of sample. These results suggest that SES shapes in predictable ways people’s beliefs about financial assets, which in turn may induce large differences across households in their propensity to participate in financial markets." https://www.nber.org/papers/w21214

The child of someone born in an upper quintile is not as probable to know about wealth than someone born in the lower quintile. Unfortunately this is not how things work.

[Keltest]

If I wanted to know about fishing, I would ask somebody defined by their experience with fishing, ie a fisherman, not somebody who is in proximity to fishing such as his son.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Especially given how little interaction there is between generations. Sitting in the same room playing with your smart phones doesn't do anything.

[darkrose50]

If I wanted to know about fishing, I would ask somebody defined by their experience with fishing, ie a fisherman, not somebody who is in proximity to fishing such as his son.

Of course you would. This is not that argument. This (last post) specifically is in relation to the notion that anyone has just about the same probability of understanding wealth. That notion is not born out in any data.

Also these (the upper quintiles where teachers tend to come from) are often the very same people that know about wealth. Wealth has a multigenerational feedback effect. It is not simply the money, but is often also the learned behaviors and skills surrounding what to do with the money. Now this does not have a guarantee of success, but has a much larger success rate than not having any cultural capital surrounding wealth at all. The rich have a high tendency to stay rich from generation to generation, and cultural capitol surrounding wealth is one of the reasons.

What do you think the rate of wealthy people inheriting and keeping there wealth would be compared to those who won the lottery? I would put my money on those that inherited the wealth.

[lio45]

If I wanted to know about fishing, I would ask somebody defined by their experience with fishing, ie a fisherman, not somebody who is in proximity to fishing such as his son.
Exactly. To slightly rephrase the same point as previously, in a world where there are actual resources readily available, such as "googling 'how to fish'", "getting then reading 'Fishing for Dummies'", and even "asking a fisherman", we can approximate "asking someone who happens to be related to a fisherman" as being, in comparison with the aforementioned options, pretty close to "asking a random person".

[darkrose50]

Exactly. To slightly rephrase the same point as previously, in a world where there are actual resources readily available, such as "googling 'how to fish'", "getting then reading 'Fishing for Dummies'", and even "asking a fisherman", we can approximate "asking someone who happens to be related to a fisherman" as being, in comparison with the aforementioned options, pretty close to "asking a random person".

So we no longer need schools, universities, or training?

We no longer need to talk to people with wisdom, we can just read there book? It's not the same thing.

Who would do better . . . an Olympic athlete with a coach, or one without?

Are there even Olympic athlete's without coaches?

Why do professional sports have coaches? They could just read a book, or look it up on the interwebs.

Why have bosses, or mentors, if we could just read a book and be done with it.

[Peelee]

So we no longer need schools, universities, or training?

Who would do better . . . an Olympic athlete with a coach, or one without?

Are there even Olympic athlete's without coaches?

Why do professional sports have coaches, they could just read a book, or look it up on the interwebs.

You're moving the goalposts again. Unless "talk to a teacher because proximity" really means "take dedicated classes and devote substantial chunks of your life to learning and training on investing, which the teacher will provide apparently free of charge. "

[lio45]

So we no longer need schools, universities, or training?You don't seem to understand my point here, which is not entirely unrelated to Robert Kiyosaki's. Schools aren't there to train kids to become wealthy beyond comfortable living levels. In fact its goal is partly opposed to that objective... the idea of school is to produce contributing, happy members of society. And since being rich is defined by how you measure up to others (i.e. if you don't have any more than the same level of wealth as average, then you aren't "rich"), if school focused on telling schoolchildren that the real goal of life is to become rich and that the rest is secondary and sucks, it would be a problem, because only a small subset of the population can ever "be rich".

[darkrose50]

You're moving the goalposts again. Unless "talk to a teacher because proximity" really means "take dedicated classes and devote substantial chunks of your life to learning and training on investing, which the teacher will provide apparently free of charge. "

I am not.

I am not giving advice on how to be an economist. That is what you go to school for. Not just read a book about it either.

We are shooting for "a conversation worth money" . . . not an education on a profession.

You most certainly do not need to go to school for that. Although you might find a teacher at your school who has some pointers, as he or she is likely to be from a family with money. In fact if you were looking for pointers teachers would be a good place to look. Not a bad place like the author this thread says.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yeah. Most teachers don't know beans about anything except the subject they teach, and they aren't great there either due to the general lack of a subject degree in addition to the education degree (i.e., teachers are taught how to teach, not what to teach). And I still haven't seen a source on teachers coming from the wealth class (heh).

[Peelee]

I am not.

I am not giving advice on how to be an economist.

Then comparing reading advice on the internet to being able to compete in the Olympics without a couch is such a colossal stretch that I can't even come up with a good analogy for it.

[lio45]

I am not.

I am not giving advice on how to be an economist. That is what you go to school for. Not just read a book about it either.

We are shooting for "a conversation worth money" . . . not an education on a profession.

You most certainly do not need to go to school for that. Although you might find a teacher at your school who has some pointers, as he or she is likely to be from a family with money. In fact if you were looking for pointers teachers would be a good place to look. Not a bad place like the author this thread says.
Your goalposts were "having a casual outside-hours, non-professional conversation with a teacher". That's totally comparable (and inferior, IMO) to googling investment advice or reading a basic investment advice book.

[darkrose50]

Yeah. Most teachers don't know beans about anything except the subject they teach, and they aren't great there either due to the general lack of a subject degree in addition to the education degree (i.e., teachers are taught how to teach, not what to teach). And I still haven't seen a source on teachers coming from the wealth class (heh).

Is your argument that cultural capital is not a thing? You never learned any wisdom from you grandparents or parents?

Is your argument that cultural capitol surrounding wealth not a thing? Is holding onto and growing wealth is not a skill then?

Is it your argument that money alone causes the wealthy to be wealthy? If so why do the wealthy hold onto their wealth to a much higher degree than lottery winners?


Your goalposts were "having a casual outside-hours, non-professional conversation with a teacher". That's totally comparable (and inferior, IMO) to googling investment advice or reading a basic investment advice book.

My goalpost was to point out that teachers are a good source for learning about money skills. Teachers are the exact opposite of a bad source for money skills.

Have you never had a good conversation with a teacher about some idea that holds wisdom? That experience is somehow the same as Google?


Then comparing reading advice on the internet to being able to compete in the Olympics without a couch is such a colossal stretch that I can't even come up with a good analogy for it.

Fair enough. Let us change that to high school sports. Or music. Or chess. Or math. Or science. There are coaches and teachers there for more than one reason, and one reason is that they work . . . it works to teach things.

[lio45]

Then comparing reading advice on the internet to being able to compete in the Olympics without a couch is such a colossal stretch that I can't even come up with a good analogy for it.Ironically, his analogy has some merit (but runs against his argument)...


Who would do better . . . an Olympic athlete with a coach, or one without?
In fact, Usain Bolt without a coach would do much better than a random person who has casual after-hours access to one of his acquaintances who's a professional coach in an unrelated discipline to track & field.

In other words, there are so many factors that come into play for investing that the opinion a random teacher may give you is, approximately, worthless (i.e. worth about as much as anyone's opinion, on average) in the grand scheme of things.

[darkrose50]

Ironically, his analogy has some merit (but runs against his argument)...


In fact, Usain Bolt without a coach would do much better than a random person who has casual after-hours access to one of his acquaintances who's a professional coach in an unrelated discipline to track & fiel.

One data-point does not tell the whole story. We are looking at all the data-points and probabilities of a desired outcome.

Rolling 2d6 has the probability of rolling a total of 7. I saw someone roll a 2 last night, ergo the probability of rolling a 7 is not true? <-- Making a point.



In other words, there are so many factors that come into play for investing that the opinion a random teacher may give you is, approximately, worthless (i.e. worth about as much as anyone's opinion, on average) in the grand scheme of things.

How can this be so?

So population X has:
[1] multigenerational wealth as a thing (this is no secret)
[2] proven to be able to hold onto multigenerational wealth to a high degree (this is no secret)
[3] learned the skills and behaviors surrounding wealth (this should be no secret)
[4] teachers that tend to be from this population X (this is no secret)
[5] asking a teacher = just as good of a probability as asking anyone? That is nonsense.

What part of this chain of probability am I not properly communicating?

So a teachers are extremely likely to be from the top ~40% wealthy families.
* Why would they be a bad choice? They would not be, they would be a good choice.
* Why would they have the same probability to know about wealth than randomly asking 100% of the population? Because looking at 40% of the population would save time, as opposed to looking at 100% of the population.

[lio45]

Fair enough. Let us change that to high school sports. Or music. Or chess. Or math. Or science. There are coaches and teachers there for more than one reason, and one reason is that they wrok.And since Robert Kiyosaki markets himself as a coach... your argument has just gone full circle. :P

[darkrose50]

And since Robert Kiyosaki markets himself as a coach... your argument has just gone full circle. :P

Yes teachers are important. But a conman taking the role of a teacher/coach expressly to con you out of money is something to be fearful of.

[Peelee]

One data-point does not tell the whole story. We are looking at all the data-points and probabilities of a desired outcome.

Rolling 2d6 has the probability of rolling a total of 7. I saw someone roll a 2 last night, ergo the probability of rolling a 7 is not true? <-- Making a point.



How can this be so?

So population X has:
[1] multigenerational wealth as a thing (this is no secret)
[2] proven to be able to hold onto multigenerational wealth to a high degree (this is no secret)
[3] learned the skills and behaviors surrounding wealth (this should be no secret)
[4] teachers that tend to be from this population X (this is no secret)
[5] asking teacher = just as good of a probability as asking a field-worker? That is nonsense.

What part of this chain of probability am I not properly communicating?

So a teachers are extremely likely to be from the top ~40% wealthy families.
* Why would they be a bad choice? They would not be, they would be a good choice.
* Why would they have the same probability to know about wealth than randomly asking 100% of the population? Because looking in 40% of the population would save time, as opposed to looking in 100% of the population.

OK, since other avenues don't seem to be working, let's try something new: let's assume, for the moment, that you are absolutely 100% correct.

You know what adult group talks to teachers the most? Other teachers. So, if what you claim is true, other teachers be learning how to invest and save money at a significantly greater rate than others, which would lead them to have a greater ratio of wealthy to non-wealthy, which would feed right back into itself and create an an effective "teacher class" that would be the wealthy elite in America, if not the world.

We can thus assume, since this has not happened and is not in the process of happening, that you have at least one, if not several, critically incorrect assertions.

[darkrose50]

OK, since other avenues don't seem to be working, let's try something new: let's assume, for the moment, that you are absolutely 100% correct.

You know what adult group talks to teachers the most? Other teachers. So, if what you claim is true, other teachers be learning how to invest and save money at a significantly greater rate than others, which would lead them to have a greater ratio of wealthy to non-wealthy, which would feed right back into itself and create an an effective "teacher class" that would be the wealthy elite in America, if not the world.

We can thus assume, since this has not happened and is not in the process of happening, that you have at least one, if not several, critically incorrect assertions.

We see that teacher is listed on the professions that end up to be wealthy lists quite a lot.

The only time I hear people talk about money is when they do not have any, usually on pay-day. I don't really hear folks go on about how they made money on this or that. I do not think that most people talk about money at work. The last time I attempted it was with a co-worker that was once a banker. He assumed that I was talking about cryptocurrencies when I mentioned investing. We chatted a little, and then he simply disbelieved the returns I was getting, and the conversation stopped.

I am sure my wife talks to her close friends about money, but not to her co-workers. She does not want to talk about investing much at all with our kids. If we showed them the portfolio she thinks it would ruin them or that they would embarrass us by telling other people our business. I am thinking about just telling them the % change of the accounts every so often. It is a fine line to walk.

I try to tell them about how to save, and invest. I try to use examples.

I try to point out that I do not have all the bells and whistles as my friend X (all the movies, board games, comics, toys, music concerts and so on), and that my friend X (or Y or Z) is always having money problems. I have a simple and relatively cheap hobby (table-top RPGs, and maybe a handful of video games a year). I save, I invest, and as a result when the car breaks we can afford to fix it, whereas my friend needs to borrow money. All those things he has could have been a fixed car and then some.

----

Also the children of the wealthy tend to stay wealthy to a high degree. It is a thing. Wealth often is also grandparents to grandchildren . . . even with a buffer lower SEC job (or a lower paying job) in the middle . . . wealth is very sticky.

[Willie the Duck]

Is your argument that cultural capital is not a thing? You never learned any wisdom from you grandparents or parents?

Is your argument that cultural capitol surrounding wealth not a thing? Is holding onto and growing wealth is not a skill then?

Is it your argument that money alone causes the wealthy to be wealthy? If so why do the wealthy hold onto their wealth to a much higher degree than lottery winners?

None of those things are remotely what they were arguing. Why do you think it was.


My goalpost was to point out that teachers are a good source for learning about money skills. Teachers are the exact opposite of a bad source for money skills.

Those two things are not the same goal line. The later is (as has been repeatedly pointed out) so noncontroversial that no one is arguing against it. The former is a supposition that could be proven, but has not been.

[darkrose50]

None of those things are remotely what they were arguing. Why do you think it was.

Those two things are not the same goal line. The later is (as has been repeatedly pointed out) so noncontroversial that no one is arguing against it. The former is a supposition that could be proven, but has not been.

It is proven that teachers tend to come from high SEC families.

It is proven that kids from high SEC families tend to end up in the same quintile as there parents.

It is proven that teachers tend to be a profession that holds a lot of wealth. Look up lists/studies of professions/occupations likely to be a millionaire.

It is proven that other professions with pensions do not end up on these lists.

So basically it is proven that teachers tend to start from money and end with money.

-----

What is not proven is why teachers would be wildly different than others who come from their SEC. Why would that notion fit the last point above?

Would they be singled out by the parents and family and not be taught cultural capital surrounding wealth?

What seems to me to be the point of contention is the notion that learning money skills from ones parents and family is a contributing factor.

[AMFV]

Hypothesis: Teachers can be a source of information on investing

This is true, teachers can hypothetically be a source of information on anything, but if that thing isn't specifically what their job requires them to know then they may or may not. So a history teacher might know about investing, but they might not. I've not personally known any teachers that made what I would consider to be "really good" money, but that's beside the point.



Hypothesis: Teachers are intelligent

Sometimes true, I was definitely brighter than some of my teachers growing up and I am not the most intelligent person in the room. You don't have to be a genius to be a competent teacher, you don't even have to be all that bright. Think of it this way a 9th grade math teacher only ever has to know how to do math at a 9th grade level, so they don't have to be any smarter than the average person (since most people can pass 9th grade math).



Hypothesis: Intelligence is useful in investing

WAY WAY FALSE. Intelligence gets you into a lot of trouble in investing, patience is more useful than intelligence, and the ability to maintain a cool head. Intelligence causes you to try to "time the market" which always screws you over. Instead of just keeping the amount of risk you want and then gradually shifting to less risk as you get older. Intelligence is a problem here, not an asset.



Hypothesis: Teachers are educated

Teachers are educated in general education requirements and in teaching. Neither of which is inherently useful for investment or money management. Unless they did coursework on that specifically, which they may have, but they don't have to have done so. A teacher who has taken no economics classes beyond the required and no math classes beyond the required knows less than any person who has done any research at all. Education is specialized, and teachers do not need that particular kind of specialized knowledge (though they may have it).



Hypothesis: Education is useful in investing

Depends on what kind of education. Lit 242: The History of Poetry in Tolkien's Middle Earth, is not likely to give you any useful financial pointers.



Hypothesis: Cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance is useful in investing

Not really, at least it isn't likely to teach you things that are inherently useful for general investment, since very few people make their money that way. A person whose father runs a multimillion dollar construction company will know how to make money doing that probably. But they might not necessarily know anything more about the stock market than anybody else might. If your family are investment bankers, then that's different, if your family are stock brokers. But that's a really small percentage of people.



Hypothesis: Teachers tend to come from the upper-middle-class and are highly likely to have this cultural capital surrounding wealth accumulation and maintenance . . . and that is useful in investing

Actually people who come from the upper middle class tend to remain in the upper middle class, they don't have information on how to get from the lower class to the upper middle class or from the upper middle class to higher. Generally speaking. The best people to talk to about jumping up a class are people who have done that specific thing, not people who are only maintaining their current financial position.



Hypothesis: Multigenerational wealth is a feedback loop, and is both a cause and an effect.

False, people who are born from money tend to wind up with only what they had to start with, or less. It's rare (although not unheard of) for children of wealth to wind up with substantially more wealth. Although again, there are examples of it happening. But as you point out, people tend to remain in the same economic quintile as their parents. Meaning that it's not a cause and effect, it's only maintaining your starting position.



Hypothesis: The source of the wealth a person has is important if you want to be able to replicate it.

Yes, but that's kind of a pointless and obvious thing to say.



Hypothesis: Free money via compound interest is a great way to invest your way to more money.

Not really, compound interest is generally the lowest amount of money you can get back from an investment and investments that only match compound interest are usually thought of as VERY poor, although they are good because they are low risk, so if you're 55 or 60, you're right, but if you're 30 you should be looking for a much higher ROI than compound interest at least if you want to make real money.



Hypothesis: Saving is more important than what you invest in (but you need to invest, and diversify).

Saving and investing are I would argue not related. Saving is setting up for like a rainy day or an emergency, investment is planning on increasing your overall wealth.



Hypothesis: Do not sell when the market goes down, buy more if possible when the market goes down.

This is true, this is why intelligence and education can hurt you when what you need is a cool head and patience.



They made a documentary about giving a homeless man a $100,000. He bought a ~$60,000 truck, and said "you would think that $100,000 would last forever", or something like that.

A lot (most?) of the folks that are homeless have mental health issues, and likely do not have or care about money skills (enough, as they likely have bigger issues to deal with), so I am not at all surprised at the results.

We aren't talking about a homeless guy though, we're talking about somebody who can make those truck payments. They might be choosing to buy more truck than they need, but they can afford it, the same way as a hypothetical doctor can afford a BMW. And they buy them for largely the same reasons.



I would like to see a documentary about someone giving like ten hard-working lower-class families each a house, and how it would change there lives. More precisely competently or mostly removing housing as a cost, and granting them equity . . . not here is a house you can't afford the taxes on, or something like that.

Right, but we aren't talking about LOWER CLASS working class folks. We're talking pretty much upper middle class, if we're talking a plumber who is clearing 100k a year, that's really unusually high. Even for most plumbers though, they'd probably clear around 60-80k in most places if they're decent and union. I mean prevailing wage for plumbers in PA is like 35 an hour, so supposing no overtime they'd be netting something like 72 a year.

[Xyril]

So we no longer need schools, universities, or training?


The next time you want to rebut somebody's argument, look at what you have typed. Look at what you're writing. Look at the other guy's argument. Ask yourself--honestly--whether the thing you've just stated is in any way at all an accurate reflection of what the other guy just said. Revise your post until the answer is yes.

Nobody is arguing that teachers or schools are useless. Most people are arguing that randomly picking a random primary school teacher and expecting him or her to be particularly good at investing based on your specious reasoning that "1/6 of teachers are millionaires, thus teachers are good at investing" is idiotic. A high school math teacher is a great source of information for learning basic math. A gym teacher is a great source of wisdom on general physical fitness. And if you want to learn about wealth and investing in an academic setting, go to Harvard and take Ec 10. Go to Wharton and take a class with a visiting scholar who actually makes a living investing money. Or if you're just starting out, talk to the AP Economics teacher at your high school.

As others have repeatedly and futilely tried to explain to you, education is specialized, and there's a limit to how much the"intelligence is generalized and helpful for everything" mantra can be applied. You* wouldn't randomly ask a gym teacher to explain differential equations to you. You wouldn't ask the economics professor or the hedge fund manager to teach you how to shoot a crossbow. You would find wisdom from a person who you have a specific reason to believe has specialized knowledge in that field. Maybe you know somebody personally. If not, you buy a book, or go on google, and do what you have to in order to get the wisdom without contacting the person directly, or to identify the person who can help you. Your first solution shouldn't be, "Well, Europeans developed firearms and had them longer than most people. Let's go randomly asking white people to teach me about sport shooting."

*By "you" I mean the hypothetical reasonable person. Obviously, after calling you out for strawman arguments, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to presume to know how you personally would act in those situations.



We no longer need to talk to people with wisdom, we can just read there book? It's not the same thing.


No, the point is that you are repeatedly advocating asking the wrong person with wisdom, for all of the wrong reasons.



Who would do better . . . an Olympic athlete with a coach, or one without?


I don't know, but I would argue that asking either of those hypothetical Olympic athletes, or the hypothetical coach, would all yield much better results than asking a guy who just inherited the Olympic medals that his great grandfather and his great-great grandfather won during the early modern games--which is really not far off than the advice you're being so defensive about.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Is your argument that cultural capital is not a thing? You never learned any wisdom from you grandparents or parents?I learned nothing from any relatives. I never met one of my grandparents, and actually have no idea what their names would've been. Parenting consisted of saying you're on your own as soon as you're out of high school. Not that that happened, since I was in foster care at 6. And those people considered brokers to be glorified bookies.

How did I learn about investing you ask? I watched a movie called Trading Places and went to the library to try and figure out what they were doing in the third act (quick answer, selling short*).


Is your argument that cultural capital surrounding wealth not a thing? Is holding onto and growing wealth is not a skill then?Two separate questions there. Getting money, and keeping it. Getting tends to be a lot more like gambling, in that you have a lucky stroke. Your ship full of spices makes it back to port. You make the app that becomes popular instead of the others just like it. You piggyback on someone else's work. What usually happens is that what made you successful once wrecks you later. Your next ship sinks. Your next program sinks into obscurity. You get sued for muddling the product identity. Keeping the wealth going is a different skill set altogether. You bribe politicians to give you a monopoly on the spice trade (East India Company). You arrange for barriers to entry to keep the competition out (Microsoft). You dilute the branding until it's worthless except as a general term (Aspirin, Kleenex, Spandex, X-Ray Machine, almost happened with Xerox). Or you do the simple route and out-source the wealth retention to somebody with that skill set (brokers, estate managers, investment advisors, etc). And these people have no generational pool of experience. They are employed only as long as they turn a profit, and are fired and replaced by someone else when that changes.


Is it your argument that money alone causes the wealthy to be wealthy? If so why do the wealthy hold onto their wealth to a much higher degree than lottery winners?

Most people who make the money will not pass it on. For some, it's because the source of the money will not transfer. For others, it's because they believe others should make their own way. Many investments can't get cashed out or transferred without being savaged by taxes. But for the most part, it comes down that as expensive as living can be, dying is worse.


My goalpost was to point out that teachers are a good source for learning about money skills. Teachers are the exact opposite of a bad source for money skills. The only money advice remotely worth a damn I ever got from a teacher or professor was that money belongs in a bank. They meant a savings account making a fraction of a percent of interest, but the concept that money just sitting around is money wasted is actually true.


Have you never had a good conversation with a teacher about some idea that holds wisdom? That experience is somehow the same as Google?

Occasionally, but never involving money. Literature, generally.


*The long version is Insider Trading, Market Manipulation, getting everyone at Duke & Duke fired and all assets of said company seized (including the corporate pension fund). It's not for nothing the last scene is set somewhere that translates as "Island Without Extradition".

[Peelee]

Keeping the wealth going is a different skill set altogether..... You dilute the branding until it's worthless except as a general term (Aspirin, Kleenex, Spandex, X-Ray Machine, almost happened with Xerox).

Kleenex is still a brand name and hasn't been genericided, and Kimberly-Clark most likely spends millions every year making sure it stays that way. And genericide is usually not so much a competitor diluting branding so much as it is a brand being the victim of its own success. If Google is genericized, for example, it sure as hell won't be because of anything Yahoo did.

[Saintheart]

On the actual topic of the thread, and only because I haven't seen it referenced thus far, this is an old site breaking down the errors (https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-investment-blog/61651011-john-t-reeds-analysis-of-robert-t-kiyosakis-book-rich-dad-poor-dad-part-1) of Kiyosaki's book.

[snowblizz]

Kleenex is still a brand name and hasn't been genericided, and Kimberly-Clark most likely spends millions every year making sure it stays that way. And genericide is usually not so much a competitor diluting branding so much as it is a brand being the victim of its own success. If Google is genericized, for example, it sure as hell won't be because of anything Yahoo did.

But surely if I am using Bing to google things....:smallbiggrin:



On the actual topic of the thread, and only because I haven't seen it referenced thus far, this is an old site breaking down the errors (https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-investment-blog/61651011-john-t-reeds-analysis-of-robert-t-kiyosakis-book-rich-dad-poor-dad-part-1) of Kiyosaki's book.

An interesting read. I knew there was a lot of stuff about the Kiyoskai works I didn't like but it's been a long time since I've had contact with it.

[Willie the Duck]

It is proven that teachers tend to come from high SEC families.

It is proven that kids from high SEC families tend to end up in the same quintile as there parents.

It is proven that teachers tend to be a profession that holds a lot of wealth. Look up lists/studies of professions/occupations likely to be a millionaire.

It is proven that other professions with pensions do not end up on these lists.

So basically it is proven that teachers tend to start from money and end with money.

And...?
I'm serious, what next? Let's ignore the huge number of caveats we have to include to call all of these proven (and do not tell us to look up lists/studies, you are the one trying to support an argument, the burden of proof falls on your shoulders), and even how it directly contradicts your previous thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?583720-Want-to-become-a-millionaire-Become-or-marry-a-teacher), where your argument was that the primary benefits to financial security of teacherhood where that much of their payout was in differed benefits and stable insurance options, and not learned cultural capital knowledge coming from their pre-existing high SEC background. Let's just assume everything to this point is 100% solid. Now, take this starting point, and get it to "teachers are a good source for learning about money skills." That's all we've asked for and all you can't seem to provide.



What is not proven is why teachers would be wildly different than others who come from their SEC. Why would that notion fit the last point above?

Would they be singled out by the parents and family and not be taught cultural capital surrounding wealth?

What seems to me to be the point of contention is the notion that learning money skills from ones parents and family is a contributing factor.


No. The unproven part is that this translates into the primary reason for teachers to go on to be in a high SEC situation themselves, and that they therefore are a particularly good source of knowledge for others.

[darkrose50]

Thank you for replying, I really appreciate it.

Seriously thank you all for sharing your thoughts. It is really great!



This is true, teachers can hypothetically be a source of information on anything, but if that thing isn't specifically what their job requires them to know then they may or may not. So a history teacher might know about investing, but they might not. I've not personally known any teachers that made what I would consider to be "really good" money, but that's beside the point.


The initial point was a bullet-point asserting that the Rich Dad, Poor Dad author is a con-man. One bullet-point within the argument was that teachers (a) were not a bad source of information on investing, and (b) in fact would be a good source for information on investing.

They have a tendency to come from a family with money, and/or they have a tendency to be millionaires. Now money is good, but money and knowing about money is better. Not everyone from the higher income/wealth quintiles knows about money, but there is a higher likelihood of finding people with cultural capital surrounding money that come from those upper income/wealth quintiles.

I suppose people do not like to think that those born with a silver spoon in their mouth could be good for knowing about silver spoons.



Sometimes true, I was definitely brighter than some of my teachers growing up and I am not the most intelligent person in the room. You don't have to be a genius to be a competent teacher, you don't even have to be all that bright. Think of it this way a 9th grade math teacher only ever has to know how to do math at a 9th grade level, so they don't have to be any smarter than the average person (since most people can pass 9th grade math).


Certainly, you are not of the opinion that teachers just need to know the content, and that teaching itself is not a skill of its own?

In order to get a degree, and pass the tests one needs a certain intelligence level. If we use IQ, then they have above average IQ with evidently an average of ~105-107+.




WAY WAY FALSE. Intelligence gets you into a lot of trouble in investing, patience is more useful than intelligence, and the ability to maintain a cool head. Intelligence causes you to try to "time the market" which always screws you over. Instead of just keeping the amount of risk you want and then gradually shifting to less risk as you get older. Intelligence is a problem here, not an asset.


There are two ideas at work here. Overall patience is more useful than intelligence for the vast majority of people. I think I use patience and intelligence. Never ever sell your S&P 500 after is crashes, just waiting is ALWAYS the way to. We have people who can make money in the market because they are intelligent, or have some sort of intelligence that is useful. Just being able to say I don’t know what to do with my money right now, I’ll just park it in the S&P 500, I think is a very smart move.

I have friends with IQs way higher than mine that are horrible at investing in the stock market (or just with money in general). Intelligence can be useful in investing, depending on the type of intelligence that we are talking about. Also training, practice, and experience just about always beats out intelligence. Give me a 100 IQ surgeon over a 160 IQ non-surgeon any day.

Warren Buffet, said something like “You only need 20 good investments in your life”, and this is the type of wisdom that one can hope to get from a conversation with anyone (even a teacher). I think I am about at ~3 good investments (~4 if we include the S&P 500). That is certainly using patience and intelligence. You cannot just hunt for the investment and always find one. You need to wait for the investment to be noticeable by you. Some people want to pick the best one, based on intelligence, and roll the dice, rather than wait for the best opportunity to present itself, and then go for it.

I have flaws, I have failures, and I have pain, but managing resources, is not one of them (at least not yet). I may be somewhat naturally suited to resource management. I may be somewhat suited in noticing patterns, and sometimes these patterns are profitable. I can pick out things to buy, trade, and sell, and make money (I always have been able to make some money when I need to).

Now with investing I would never claim to be able to pick a high or a low, or be able to time the market, or know all the technical terms for everything. I am not a trained economist. I just notice patterns. I think that trying to time the market is where most people try and fail miserably. I have never failed at making money over all. It could just be luck. I would like to think it was because I was good at resource management and /or noticing general broad patterns and have not attempted to try to pick highs and lows. I am more like a saver than an investor, and I try only to pick out general sectors that I think are politically backed or suit the economy and are likely to be profitable. I have been lucky or right for 3/3 presidents so far, but someone can win three coin-flips in a row. I suppose I will know more with time.



Teachers are educated in general education requirements and in teaching. Neither of which is inherently useful for investment or money management. Unless they did coursework on that specifically, which they may have, but they don't have to have done so. A teacher who has taken no economics classes beyond the required and no math classes beyond the required knows less than any person who has done any research at all. Education is specialized, and teachers do not need that particular kind of specialized knowledge (though they may have it).


Learning about things bleeds over into other things. This is useful in investing. Invest in what you know. What you know does not need to be investing. You can find a friend, hire someone, or just go for it.

If you know stuff or don't know stuff investing in the S&P 500 for ~10-30 years is likely the way to go.



Depends on what kind of education. Lit 242: The History of Poetry in Tolkien's Middle Earth, is not likely to give you any useful financial pointers.


We are talking about over all probability as a group as opposed to the general population.

Teachers have a strong tendency to be born into a family with money, and end up with money. Part of this, perhaps the lions share, is the money, but part of this is the growing up around knowing what to do with that money.

I would call a population with a tendency to start with money and end with money to be a good place to look for wisdom about money.



Not really, at least it isn't likely to teach you things that are inherently useful for general investment, since very few people make their money that way. A person whose father runs a multimillion dollar construction company will know how to make money doing that probably. But they might not necessarily know anything more about the stock market than anybody else might. If your family are investment bankers, then that's different, if your family are stock brokers. But that's a really small percentage of people.


You most certainly learn behaviors, perceptions and understanding about money that is linked to your SEC. We are talking about the probability of this group to have useful information compared to the general population.



Actually people who come from the upper middle class tend to remain in the upper middle class, they don't have information on how to get from the lower class to the upper middle class or from the upper middle class to higher. Generally speaking. The best people to talk to about jumping up a class are people who have done that specific thing, not people who are only maintaining their current financial position.


This is not one or the other. Never ever would I ever go to just one source for information or understanding about anything I consider important. Money should be important, as it fixes and mitigates so very many stressful situations.



False, people who are born from money tend to wind up with only what they had to start with, or less. It's rare (although not unheard of) for children of wealth to wind up with substantially more wealth. Although again, there are examples of it happening. But as you point out, people tend to remain in the same economic quintile as their parents. Meaning that it's not a cause and effect, it's only maintaining your starting position.


Perception and understanding about investing are not at all equal among the quintiles. There is more than one contributing factor to multigenerational wealth. Multigenerational wealth is a complex beast.

I assure you that having the perception that investing is not gambling, seeing how your parents pick out investments via overhearing the process at the dinner table, and being told flat out good investing rules from people who actually invest is a damned useful thing to experience. This is much more commonplace in the upper quintiles.

Now gamblers can use an investment model to gamble. Gamblers definitely take chances and gamble using the stock market. This is not the same thing as investing. Just like professional grandmaster poker players are not really gambling when they consistently and predictably earn a solidly high-paying living playing poker. If anything they are likely the legitimate version of a con-man, and/or entertainment for people with money to burn and want to pay for the experience to play with the most talented.



Yes, but that's kind of a pointless and obvious thing to say.


That was mostly in response to the idea that one should go to the most wealthy person that they know, perhaps exclusively, to learn about wealth and investing.



Not really, compound interest is generally the lowest amount of money you can get back from an investment and investments that only match compound interest are usually thought of as VERY poor, although they are good because they are low risk, so if you're 55 or 60, you're right, but if you're 30 you should be looking for a much higher ROI than compound interest at least if you want to make real money.


Compound interest is the core of investing. You earn a percentage, over a flat amount. Earning ~10% per year in the stock market is compound interest. It is mind-bogglingly powerful.



Saving and investing are I would argue not related. Saving is setting up for like a rainy day or an emergency, investment is planning on increasing your overall wealth.


They are extremely related. You save money in order to invest some and/or most of it. Investments are like a form of savings for the long-term (that usually should be for the long term).



This is true, this is why intelligence and education can hurt you when what you need is a cool head and patience.


A trait can sometimes be detrimental, even when it is mostly beneficial. Overall intelligence and education are import to investing.



We aren't talking about a homeless guy though, we're talking about somebody who can make those truck payments. They might be choosing to buy more truck than they need, but they can afford it, the same way as a hypothetical doctor can afford a BMW. And they buy them for largely the same reasons.


Money skills are learned. People who did not grow up with money did not grow up learning what to do with extra money, and sometimes as a result mismanage their money, or there extra money. Also lacking resources (money) is stressful, and people sometimes do stupid things when stressed.



Right, but we aren't talking about LOWER CLASS working class folks. We're talking pretty much upper middle class, if we're talking a plumber who is clearing 100k a year, that's really unusually high. Even for most plumbers though, they'd probably clear around 60-80k in most places if they're decent and union. I mean prevailing wage for plumbers in PA is like 35 an hour, so supposing no overtime they'd be netting something like 72 a year.


Mostly I would like to see a documentary about hardworking, honest folks, families around the poverty level being helped out by some billionaire with housing, and associated costs. I would wager that their children would greatly benefit.



Nobody is arguing that teachers or schools are useless.


I apologize for going to the extreme.

I am talking about the probability of teachers being useful for investment information verses the probability of the population as a whole.



As others have repeatedly and futilely tried to explain to you, education is specialized . . ..


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.

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.

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.



No, the point is that you are repeatedly advocating asking the wrong person with wisdom, for all of the wrong reasons.


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.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Kleenex is still a brand name and hasn't been genericided, and Kimberly-Clark most likely spends millions every year making sure it stays that way. And genericide is usually not so much a competitor diluting branding so much as it is a brand being the victim of its own success. If Google is genericized, for example, it sure as hell won't be because of anything Yahoo did.

Kleenex has been genericided to the point you can tell someone to get you a Kleenex and they get you any facial tissue handy. The brand name is more about market share now, and is losing to generic/store brands. You're forgetting that this is more about culture than legality. Or for one from your neck of the woods, Coke being any carbonated beverage.


Certainly, you are not of the opinion that teachers just need to know the content, and that teaching itself is not a skill of its own?

In order to get a degree, and pass the tests one needs a certain intelligence level. If we use IQ, then they have above average IQ with evidently an average of ~105-107+.

Teachers do not need to know the subject. They get a BSEd (Bachelors of Science in Education, for non-USAians, a four year degree), and a subject endorsement that consists of 3-4 freshman level courses (for social studies, that would be US History I & II and any other history course, with Western Civ I being strongly encouraged). That is it.

And surprise surprise surprise, teachers do slightly better than average on a test that only measures how well you do on taking tests.

[Peelee]

Kleenex has been genericided to the point you can tell someone to get you a Kleenex and they get you any facial tissue handy. The brand name is more about market share now, and is losing to generic/store brands. You're forgetting that this is more about culture than legality. Or for one from your neck of the woods, Coke being any carbonated beverage.

If Kleenex is still a privately owned brand name, then the rivals don't want you saying it either, because you're already pre-disposed towards it. Until it's legally genericized, it's bad for business.

Also, coke is any carbonated beverage but Coke is a Southern staple. This clearly makes perfect sense and is not confusing at all.:smalltongue:

[Keltest]

If Kleenex is still a privately owned brand name, then the rivals don't want you saying it either, because you're already pre-disposed towards it. Until it's legally genericized, it's bad for business.

Also, coke is any carbonated beverage but Coke is a Southern staple. This clearly makes perfect sense and is not confusing at all.:smalltongue:

As long as you don't call it Pop, that's fine.

But what do you do if you actually want a Coke, and not just a coke? Do southerners have a way to pronounce capital Cs?

[darkrose50]

Teachers do not need to know the subject. They get a BSEd (Bachelors of Science in Education, for non-USAians, a four year degree), and a subject endorsement that consists of 3-4 freshman level courses (for social studies, that would be US History I & II and any other history course, with Western Civ I being strongly encouraged). That is it.

Yes technically all you need to be a teacher is a degree and a license. There is however tight competition for some positions. For example in order to get a history position, you also often need to be a coach of some sport. Getting any job with a degree in English, where you use your degree to do English things, seems to be difficult. I would imagine that for those positions there is tight competition among people.

Now if you had a math degree and a teaching degree . . . I bet you could find a job with the snap of you fingers. A good one too, in a good school district, with good pay.

We are also coming up on, and evidently are in, a teacher shortage. I am sure that the lower paying schools, or schools in higher crime areas will have a difficult time finding teachers.

Just about everyone wants to work in a low-crime rich area that pays a lot of money. Those places will likely still get the best of the best.


And surprise surprise surprise, teachers do slightly better than average on a test that only measures how well you do on taking tests.

Well yeah. Also they likely did well in school, and test taking is important in school as well.

When they first came out with personality tests they would fire the people with the "wrong" personality for a job. When downsizing they would just use those tests. I would likely have gotten fired for not scoring as extraverted enough (sales).

IQ is an intelligence test, for a kind of intelligence, but IQ is not intelligence. Now IQ is literally interchangeable with intelligence in many papers about the subject, but I do not think that is the correct way to look at it.


As long as you don't call it Pop, that's fine.

But what do you do if you actually want a Coke, and not just a coke? Do southerners have a way to pronounce capital Cs?

That is funny. In Chicago they often call soda pop . . . pop. In some places they call it soda (folks in Chicago would know what you were talking about and this term is also used). If I asked for a Coke, then I would not be asked what kind of beverage that I wanted . . . I would get a Coca Cola. They might ask me if I want diet or not.

[Rogar Demonblud]

For example in order to get a history position, you also often need to be a coach of some sport.

Other way around. Schools aren't allowed to just have a coach, so they have to pretend to teach something between practices and games. Which tends to liberal arts type stuff like social studies and English. Which helps explain how we have people who can't communicate well and don't know how their own government functions.

Really, they seem to be working towards reducing 'teachers' to the biological equivalent of a computer terminal that just relays what somebody else decided should be the lesson. One of the reasons people aren't going into the field. Another being that you can't pay off your student loans on a teacher's pay if you want to eat as well. Hence also the prevalence of second and third jobs. Teachers have been part of the gig economy for a generation at least.

[Keltest]

Other way around. Schools aren't allowed to just have a coach, so they have to pretend to teach something between practices and games. Which tends to liberal arts type stuff like social studies and English. Which helps explain how we have people who can't communicate well and don't know how their own government functions.

Really, they seem to be working towards reducing 'teachers' to the biological equivalent of a computer terminal that just relays what somebody else decided should be the lesson. One of the reasons people aren't going into the field. Another being that you can't pay off your student loans on a teacher's pay if you want to eat as well. Hence also the prevalence of second and third jobs. Teachers have been part of the gig economy for a generation at least.

Its also one of the reasons why teachers seem wealthier than they are. Its not that teaching makes you wealthy, its that you need to be wealthy in order to live with just a teacher's pay. Their wealth is, by and large, an enabler for them teaching rather than the result of it.

Which is, again, the point. If you want to learn about wealth, select for something that actually has a trend of producing wealthy people, not ones that coincidentally overlap with them a little bit.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

But what do you do if you actually want a Coke, and not just a coke? Do southerners have a way to pronounce capital Cs?

I have had a certain amount of luck with the full name of the drink: "Coke-not-pepsi, please". Although these days it's more "Coke" "It's Pepsi Ok?" "No, it is not. The pepsi sprite, please"

Grey Wolf

[Keltest]

I have had a certain amount of luck with the full name of the drink: "Coke-not-pepsi, please". Although these days it's more "Coke" "It's Pepsi Ok?" "No, it is not. The pepsi sprite, please"

Grey Wolf

I find Sierra Mist to be kind of gross actually. The balance of lemon and lime is off for my tastes. If they have pepsi products, I generally get a Mountain Dew unless its late in the evening, in which case I get water or some other non-soda drink.

[Peelee]

As long as you don't call it Pop, that's fine.

But what do you do if you actually want a Coke, and not just a coke? Do southerners have a way to pronounce capital Cs?

It is both simpler and more convoluted than you might think.

"hey can you get me a coke?"
If all that is around is Coke: "Sure."
If there are options: "sure, what kind?"

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It is both simpler and more convoluted than you might think.

"hey can you get me a coke?"
If all that is around is Coke: "Sure."

... And then they bring you a pepsi. Or, from what I recall of being in that general area of the US, a "Doctor Pepper"(sp?) which was even more bizarrely divorced from coke than even pepsi is, and yet they serve it as if it were interchangeable. Like if you ask for whiskey, and they served you a rum because they're both distilled.

Grey Wolf

[darkrose50]

Other way around. Schools aren't allowed to just have a coach, so they have to pretend to teach something between practices and games. Which tends to liberal arts type stuff like social studies and English. Which helps explain how we have people who can't communicate well and don't know how their own government functions.

Really, they seem to be working towards reducing 'teachers' to the biological equivalent of a computer terminal that just relays what somebody else decided should be the lesson. One of the reasons people aren't going into the field. Another being that you can't pay off your student loans on a teacher's pay if you want to eat as well. Hence also the prevalence of second and third jobs. Teachers have been part of the gig economy for a generation at least.

Depending on the school this could be more or less common. Some schools have really good curriculums and staff. Supply and demand and all that. The rich areas can afford to attract and hire the teachers with the best credentials.

One of the reasons why I moved to where I am is that the high school is really highly rated, and is located in a rich area (I live in a middle class-ish area, and three towns feed the school). Good school scores, highly paid teachers, highly educated/qualified teachers, lots of activities, low-crime, lots of funding, interactions with the upper-class (hopefully positive), and whatnot are some of the advantages.

Now it might not even matter what schools I send my kids to, or it might just matter a little-bit. According to one study I remember the number of books in the home was a determining factor of success in school. According to other studies it just does not matter that much, if at all. Then again it might matter some of the time. It might be especially helpful for my one daughter who likely has high functioning autism to have the (what I expecting to be a higher level of) support that this sort of school can provide.


... And then they bring you a pepsi. Or, from what I recall of being in that general area of the US, a "Doctor Pepper"(sp?) which was even more bizarrely divorced from coke than even pepsi is, and yet they serve it as if it were interchangeable. Like if you ask for whiskey, and they served you a rum because they're both distilled.

Grey Wolf

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.

This soda pop talk reminds me of a my wife's / first-child's baby-shower where the person tasked to bring soda pop brought "both kinds of pop: Coke and Pepsi". This is an inside joke to this day.

[Peelee]

... And then they bring you a pepsi. Or, from what I recall of being in that general area of the US, a "Doctor Pepper"(sp?) which was even more bizarrely divorced from coke than even pepsi is, and yet they serve it as if it were interchangeable. Like if you ask for whiskey, and they served you a rum because they're both distilled.

Grey Wolf

I'm talking about social gatherings, so yeah, they're more or less interchangeable (though pepsi is significantly less popular). Dr. Pepper is not, though; it doesn't try to be the same and I've never met anyone who treats it interchangeably (even among the people who drink it exclusively, they'll always let you know it's not coke).

[darkrose50]

I'm talking about social gatherings, so yeah, they're more or less interchangeable (though pepsi is significantly less popular). Dr. Pepper is not, though; it doesn't try to be the same and I've never met anyone who treats it interchangeably (even among the people who drink it exclusively, they'll always let you know it's not coke).

Cola by me usually means Coca-Cola -> Pepsi-Cola -> RC-Cola -> some store brand cola. Of the colas I think that I prefer RC.

Now if you ever go to a Coca-Cola place (as in the company) where they have different drinks to try, then definitely try Coca Cola's "Beverly" as it tastes like a combination of aspirin and despair. I seriously think it is a joke flavor, and cannot seem to find out where to order some from.

[Alabenson]

As a financial adviser who actually works with a large number of teachers, I can attest to the fact that the majority of teachers are an absolutely horrible source of investing advice. Not only do teachers generally not know any more about investing than anyone else (which includes being prone to the same idiotic investing mistakes that the rest of the population makes), but every time I speak with a teacher who's received advice from a colleague said advice is inevitably terrible.

Regarding the subject of the OP, I can honestly say I would put Mr. Kiyosaki's "advice" as being a half-step above the ramblings of a mentally disturbed homeless person.

[lio45]

Thank you for replying, I really appreciate it.

Seriously thank you all for sharing your thoughts. It is really great!

The initial point was a bullet-point asserting that the Rich Dad, Poor Dad author is a con-man. One bullet-point within the argument was that teachers (a) were not a bad source of information on investing, and (b) in fact would be a good source for information on investing.Of course he's a con-man, nonetheless, he's still correct on a few things, among others, that one.

This thread made me look up a book that I read before Rich Dad Poor Dad... it's THE one that boosted my interest in real estate, and then the person who had lent me that first book lent me Kiyosaki's book, which I read and from what I recall, found somewhat inferior. At that point in time, I was still in uni (working on a M.Sc. in theoretical physics, so I'm clearly not stupid, and able to view both these "guru-books" with a critical eye)... but 1.5 year later, I had acquired my first building (a decrepit downtown 4-story boarding house from the Victorian era, sold by an archetypal "don't-wanter", which incidentally was a major concept in the book I'm talking about).

A good chunk of the book is available online for free, so reading it yesterday evening brought me back 15 years in the past! Just for that, I'm glad for this thread. Thanks!

The guy is also a "guru", yet... there's some sound advice in there. I applied it and I made it, so, that's pretty telling.

However, it's definitely not as easy as some of these gurus like to make it sound.

That book BTW is "Nothing Down for the '90s" by Robert G. Allen. Yes, it's pretty dated by now. And he's a bit too generally bullish on all real estate - if cap rates make no sense (i.e. pre Sunbelt bubble bursting, or Vancouver recently) then that's a red flag, while he from what I recall just recommends to buy, anywhere, anytime, and wait, can't go anywhere but up.

If I had to recommend something to anyone interested in real estate, it would be to read that book, then go chat with someone who's been in real estate successfully for a while AND discuss everything you "learned" from that semi-conman-guru-who's-not-that-wrong-on-the-basics. I'd happily do anyone the favor of providing the appropriate "toning down" of what Mr Allen says.

[darkrose50]

As a financial adviser who actually works with a large number of teachers, I can attest to the fact that the majority of teachers are an absolutely horrible source of investing advice. Not only do teachers generally not know any more about investing than anyone else (which includes being prone to the same idiotic investing mistakes that the rest of the population makes), but every time I speak with a teacher who's received advice from a colleague said advice is inevitably terrible.

Regarding the subject of the OP, I can honestly say I would put Mr. Kiyosaki's "advice" as being a half-step above the ramblings of a mentally disturbed homeless person.

Fair enough.

Some of the best advice I that have ever been given about investing came from teachers. I have had some really bad teachers and some really good teachers. Some I would not even trust to feed my goldfish, but some were quite impressive, and some were downright geniuses.

My High School dean was in charge of the school district's investing portfolio and evidently was some kind of investing wizard.

I don't know even ~5 over my school-years is still enough not to rule them out as a source of advice.

[darkrose50]

If I had to recommend something to anyone interested in real estate, it would be to read that book, then go chat with someone who's been in real estate successfully for a while AND discuss everything you "learned" from that semi-conman-guru-who's-not-that-wrong-on-the-basics. I'd happily do anyone the favor of providing the appropriate "toning down" of what Mr Allen says.

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

[lio45]

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.Just to be clear, this "population not to ignore outright about wealth and investing on the basis that ~15% of them are millionaires" that you're talking about here is "white people", right?

[Peelee]

Cola by me usually means Coca-Cola -> Pepsi-Cola -> RC-Cola -> some store brand cola. Of the colas I think that I prefer RC.

Now if you ever go to a Coca-Cola place (as in the company) where they have different drinks to try, then definitely try Coca Cola's "Beverly" as it tastes like a combination of aspirin and despair. I seriously think it is a joke flavor, and cannot seem to find out where to order some from.

Have you tried ordering it from Italy? Because it's an Italian flavor. The World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, at the very least, lets you know the origin country of every flavor they offer for testing.

[darkrose50]

I find Sierra Mist to be kind of gross actually. The balance of lemon and lime is off for my tastes. If they have pepsi products, I generally get a Mountain Dew unless its late in the evening, in which case I get water or some other non-soda drink.


Awwwww I LOVE handing them to people and say "I MIST you".

My favorite pizza place has Sierra Mist or Pepsi Cola 6-pack that comes with my pizza. I am not a cola drinker, so I pick not-cola every time. Mostly I think I don't like the ones with caffeine, not sure how I could taste it, but just about exclusively all the soda-pop I like is caffeine-free. I like root beer and some of those have caffeine.


Have you tried ordering it from Italy? Because it's an Italian flavor. The World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, at the very least, lets you know the origin country of every flavor they offer for testing.

That is what they say, but I cannot seem to find one to order. I want to give it to people to taste it! It is really super bad.


Just to be clear, this "population not to ignore outright about wealth and investing on the basis that ~15% of them are millionaires" that you're talking about here is "white people", right?

~5.8% of the population as a whole. 1/7 white families. So pretty damned near close to 1/6. It is interesting that teaching seems to pull heavily from this quintile and/or quintile-adjacent.

[Peelee]

I want to give it to people to taste it! It is really super bad.

...this makes me distrust your advice on investing even more!:smalltongue:

[Keltest]

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.

[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 WolfEver 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.