1、中国英语学习网 英语畅销书文库 1Rich Dad, Poor DadINTRODUCTIONThere is a NeedDoes school prepare children for the real world? “Study hard and get good grades and you will find a high-paying job with great benefits,“ my parents used to say. Their goal in life was to provide a college education for my older sister a
2、nd me, so that we would have the greatest chance for success in life. When i finally earned my diploma in 1976-graduating with honors, and near the top of my class, in accounting from Florida State University-my parents had realized their goal. It was the crowning achievement of their lives. In acco
3、rdance with the “Master Plan,“ I was hired by a “Big 8“ accounting firm, and I looked forward to a long career and retirement at an early age.My husband, Michael, followed a similar path. We both came from hard-working families, of modest means but with strong work ethics. Michael also graduated wit
4、h honors, but he did it twice: first as an engineer and then from law school. He was quickly recruited by a prestigious Washington, D.C., law firm that specialized in patent law, and his future seemed bright, career path well-defined and early retirement guaranteed.Although we have been successful i
5、n our careers, they have not turned out quite as we expected. We both have changed positions several times-for all the right reasons-but there are no pension plans vesting on our behalf. Our retirement funds are growing only through our individual contributions.Michael and I have a wonderful marriag
6、e with three great children. As I write this, two are in college and one is just beginning high school. We have spent a fortune making sure our children have received the best education available.One day in 1996, one of my children came home disillusioned with school. He was bored and tired of study
7、ing. “Why should I put time into studying subjects I will never use in real life?“ he protested.Without thinking, I responded, “Because if you dont get good grades, you wont get into college.“Regardless of whether I go to college,“ he replied, “Im going to be rich.“If you dont graduate from college,
8、 you wont get a good job,“ I responded with a tinge of panic and motherly concern . “And if you dont have a good job, how do you plan to get rich?“My son smirked and slowly shook his head with mild boredom. We have had this talk many times before. He lowered his head and rolled his eyes. My words of
9、 motherly wisdom were falling on deaf ears once again.中国英语学习网 英语畅销书文库 2Though smart and strong-willed, he has always been a polite and respectful young man.“Mom,“ he began. It was my turn to be lectured. “Get with the times! Look around; the richest people didnt get rich because of their educations.
10、 Look at Michael Jordan and Madonna. Even Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard, founded Microsoft; he is now the richest man in America, and hes still in his 30s. There is a baseball pitcher who makes more than $4 million a year even though he has been labeled mentally challenged. “There was a lon
11、g silence between us. It was dawning on me that I was giving my son the same advice my parents had given me. The world around us has changed, but the advice hasnt.Getting a good education and making good grades no longer ensures success, and nobody seems to have noticed, except our children.“Mom,“ h
12、e continued, “I dont want to work as hard as you and dad do. You make a lot of money, and we live in a huge house with lots of toys. If I follow your advice, Ill wind up like you, working harder and harder only to pay more taxes and wind up in debt. There is no job security anymore; I know all about
13、 downsizing and rightsizing. I also know that college graduates today earn less than you did when you graduated. Look at doctors. They dont make nearly as much money as they used to. I know I cant rely on Social Security or company pensions for retirement. I need new answers.“He was right. He needed
14、 new answers, and so did I. My parents advice may have worked for people born before 1945, but it may be disastrous for those of us born into a rapidly changing world. No longer can I simply say to my children, “Go to school, get good grades, and look for a safe, secure job.“I knew I had to look for
15、 new ways to guide my childrens education.As a mother as well as an accountant, I have been concerned by the lack of financial education our children receive in school. Many of todays youth have credit cards before they leave high school, yet they have never had a course in money or how to invest it
16、, let alone understand how compound interest works on credit cards. Simply put, without financial literacy and the knowledge of how money works, they are not prepared to face the world that awaits them, a world in which spending is emphasized over savings.When my oldest son became hopelessly in debt
17、 with his credit cards as a freshman in college, I not only helped him destroy the credit cards, but I also went in search of a program that would help me educate my children on financial matters.One day last year, my husband called me from his office. “I have someone I think you should meet,“ he sa
18、id. “His name is Robert Kiyosaki. Hes a businessman and investor, and he is here 中国英语学习网 英语畅销书文库 3applying for a patent on an educational product. I think its what you have been looking for.“Just What I Was Looking ForMy husband, Mike, was so impressed with CASHFLOW, the new educational product that
19、 Robert Kiyosaki was developing, that he arranged for both of us to participate in a test of the prototype. Because it was an educational game, I also asked my 19-year-old daughter, who was a freshman at a local university, if she would like to take part, and she agreed.About fifteen people, broken
20、into three groups, participated in the test.Mike was right. It was the educational product I had been looking for. But it had a twist: It looked like a colorful Monopoly board with a giant well-dressed rat in the middle. Unlike Monopoly, however, there were two tracks: one inside and one outside. Th
21、e object of the game was to get out of the inside track-what Robert called the “Rat Race“ and reach the outer track, or the “Fast Track.“ As Robert put it, the Fast Track simulates how rich people play in real life.Robert then defined the “Rat Race“ for us.“If you look at the life of the average-edu
22、cated, hard-working person, there is a similar path. The child is born and goes to school. The proud parents are excited because the child excels, gets fair to good grades, and is accepted into a college. The child graduates, maybe goes on to graduate school and then does exactly as programmed: look
23、s for a safe, secure job or career. The child finds that job, maybe as a doctor or a lawyer, or joins the Army or works for the government. Generally, the child begins to make money, credit cards start to arrive in mass, and the shopping begins, if it already hasnt.“Having money to burn, the child g
24、oes to places where other young people just like them hang out, and they meet people, they date, and sometimes they get married. Life is wonderful now, because today, both men and women work. Two incomes are bliss. They feel successful, their future is bright, and they decide to buy a house, a car,
25、a television, take vacations and have children. The happy bundle arrives. The demand for cash is enormous. The happy couple decides that their careers are vitally important and begin to work harder, seeking promotions and raises. The raises come, and so does another child and the need for a bigger h
26、ouse. They work harder, become better employees, even more dedicated. They go back to school to get more specialized skills so they can earn more money. Maybe they take a second job. Their incomes go up, but so does the tax bracket theyre in and the real estate taxes on their new large home, and the
27、ir Social Security taxes, and all the other taxes. They get their large paycheck and wonder where all the money went. They buy some mutual funds and buy groceries with their credit card. The children reach 5 or 6 years of age, and the need to save for college increases as well as the need to save fo
28、r their retirement. .“That happy couple, born 35 years ago, is now trapped in the Rat Race for the rest of their working days. They work for the owners of their company, for the government paying taxes, and 中国英语学习网 英语畅销书文库 4for the bank paying off a mortgage and credit cards.“Then, they advise their
29、 own children to study hard, get good grades, and find a safe job or career. They learn nothing about money, except from those who profit from their na 飗 et? and work hard all their lives. The process repeats into another hard-working generation. This is the Rat Race.“The only way to get out of the
30、“Rat Race“ is to prove your proficiency at both accounting and investing, arguably two of the most difficult subjects to master. As a trained CPA who once worked for a Big 8 accounting firm, I was surprised that Robert had made the learning of these two subjects both fun and exciting. The process wa
31、s so well disguised that while we were diligently working to get out of the “Rat Race,“ we quickly forgot we were learning.Soon a product test turned into a fun afternoon with my daughter, talking about things we had never discussed before. As an accountant, playing a game that required an Income St
32、atement and Balance Sheet was easy. So I had the time to help my daughter and the other players at my table with concepts they did not understand. I was the first person-and the only person in the entire test group-to get out of the “Rat Race“ that day. I was out within 50 minutes, although the game
33、 went on for nearly three hours.At my table was a banker, a business owner and a computer programmer. What greatly disturbed me was how little these people knew about either accounting or investing, subjects so important in their lives. I wondered how they managed their own financial affairs in real
34、 life. I could understand why my 19-year-old daughter would not understand, but these were grown adults, at least twice her age.After I was out of the “Rat Race,“ for the next two hours I watched my daughter and these educated, affluent adults roll the dice and move their markers. Although I was gla
35、d they were all learning so much, I was disturbed by how much the adults did not know about the basics of simple accounting and investing. They had difficulty grasping the relationship between their Income Statement and their Balance Sheet. As they bought and sold assets, they had trouble rememberin
36、g that each transaction could impact their monthly cash flow. I thought, how many millions of people are out there in the real world struggling financially, only because they have never been taught these subjects?Thank goodness theyre having fun and are distracted by the desire to win the game, I sa
37、id to myself. After Robert ended the contest, he allowed us fifteen minutes to discuss and critique CASHFLOW among ourselves.The business owner at my table was not happy. He did not like the game. “I dont need to know this,“ he said out loud. “I hire accountants, bankers and attorneys to tell me abo
38、ut this stuff.“To which Robert replied, “Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of accountants who arent rich? 中国英语学习网 英语畅销书文库 5And bankers, and attorneys, and stockbrokers and real estate brokers. They know a lot, and for the most part are smart people, but most of them are not rich. Since our
39、schools do not teach people what the rich know, we take advice from these people. But one day, youre driving down the highway, stuck in traffic, struggling to get to work, and you look over to your right and you see your accountant stuck in the same traffic jam. You look to your left and you see you
40、r banker. That should tell you something.“The computer programmer was also unimpressed by the game: “I can buy software to teach me this.“The banker, however, was moved. “I studied this in school-the accounting part, that is-but I never knew how to apply it to real life. Now I know. I need to get my
41、self out of the Rat Race. “But it was my daughters comments that most touched me. “I had fun learning,“ she said. “I learned a lot about how money really works and how to invest.“Then she added: “Now I know I can choose a profession for the work I want to perform and not because of job security, ben
42、efits or howmuch I get paid. If I learn what this game teaches, Im free to do and study what my heart wants to study. . .rather than study something because businesses are looking for certain job skills. If I learn this, I wont have to worry about job security and Social Security the way most of my
43、classmates already do.“I was not able to stay and talk with Robert after we had played the game, but we agreed to meet later to further discuss his project. I knew he wanted to use the game to help others become more financially savvy, and I was eager to hear more about his plans.My husband and I se
44、t up a dinner meeting with Robert and his wife within the next week. Although it was our first social get-together, we felt as if we had known each other for years.We found out we had a lot in common. We covered the gamut, from sports and plays to restaurants and socio-economic issues. We talked abo
45、ut the changing world. We spent a lot of time discussing how most Americans have little or nothing saved for retirement, as well as the almost bankrupt state of Social Security and Medicare. Would my children be required to pay for the retirement of 75 million baby boomers? We wondered if people rea
46、lize how risky it is to depend on a pension plan.Roberts primary concern was the growing gap between the haves and have nots, in America and around the world. A self-taught, self-made entrepreneur who traveled the world putting investments together, Robert was able to retire at the age of 47. He cam
47、e out of retirement because he shares the same concern I have for my own children. He knows that the world has changed, but education has not changed with it. According to Robert, children spend years in an antiquated educational system, studying subjects they will never use, preparing for a world t
48、hat no longer exists.中国英语学习网 英语畅销书文库 6“Today, the most dangerous advice you can give a child is Go to school, get good grades and look for a safe secure job, “ he likes to say. “That is old advice, and its bad advice. If you could see what is happening in Asia, Europe, South America, you would be as
49、 concerned as I am.“Its bad advice, he believes, “because if you want your child to have a financially secure future, they cant play by the old set of rules. Its just too risky.“I asked him what he meant by “old rules?“ .“People like me play by a different set of rules from what you play by,“ he said. “What happens when a corporation announces
