DON'T ask Robert Kiyosaki for tips on how to get rich. He'll just tell you to "get smart".
"The last guy who asked for a tip invested
in Facebook," he said, referring to the social networking site's poor
showing on the stock exchange.
Rather, the author of personal finance best-seller Rich Dad Poor Dad wants people to get smart about debt.
"People are so used to working hard for dollars. But the rich become
rich through debt," the 65-year-old told more than 300 attendees at a
book signing organised by the National Library Board last Thursday.
"It's a fundamental change of thought."
The controversial writer encourages people to use debt to finance the
purchase of assets, which he defines as things that generate cashflow.
These include businesses and rental properties.
Assets can also be as simple as a self-written e-book on how to write
e-books, his wife and fellow author, Kim Kiyosaki, said. "My friend did
that and she makes about US$300 a month on royalties - it's small, but
she doesn't have to do anything else for the money to keep coming."
The underlying principle of Mr Kiyosaki's 22 books is this: be an entrepreneur, not an employee.
Not only do assets generate perpetual income for you, but their
ownership also gives many an entrepreneur tax breaks in the United
States, he said.
"As a business owner with more than 25,000 employees, every state
would give me a tax break for moving there," Mr Kiyosaki told BT in a
phone interview. "And the reason they give me tax breaks is because they
tax my employees."
This is why he rails against the American education system - it
trains students to be employees, which will always leave them poor, he
told audiences.
Determined to bypass what he thinks is wrong, "brainwashing" advice
in American schools, Mr Kiyosaki is rolling out his own financial
education system with his books, and soon, mobile platforms like the
iPhone.
"I teach, even though it's a poor dad's kind of job," he said,
referring to the book that made him a household name. "That's because
I'm very concerned - worried really."
Mr Kiyosaki is especially cautious about a global financial crash, which he predicts will happen in 2016.
"Israel will bomb Iran before 2014, and oil prices will skyrocket to
US$300 to US$400 a barrel. The world economy will collapse because it
can't sustain that," he told BT.
He also thinks America risks going into hyper-inflation, if the
Federal Reserve continues to print more dollars to lower interest rates
and encourage spending in a declining domestic market.
But as worried as he is, Mr Kiyosaki believes he can come out of any
crisis relatively unscathed because of his choice of investments.
Referring to his prophecy about imminent war and high oil prices, Mr
Kiyosaki said: "As much as I hope such a crisis doesn't happen, I'll end
up a rich man, anyway."
This is because he owns around 100 oil wells and oil drilling operations around the US.
"I'm in oil production - I'll be needed because governments need me
to provide oil and jobs. You need me so you can fly planes," he
explained, adding that he does not invest in oil company shares like
ExxonMobil.
Besides oil, Mr Kiyosaki also purchases precious metals.
"I don't save money - I save gold and silver," he said, adding that
investing in precious metals helps hedge against governments'
misprinting of money. "Those will always be real money." Mr Kiyosaki
advised his Singaporean audience to buy gold, especially since goods and
services tax on precious metals will be scrapped here come October.
This means that investment-grade gold will effectively be 7 per cent
cheaper.
He also adds to his long list of properties every year. This
includes, he says, more than 4,000 properties around the US,
particularly in Texas and Arizona.
He is especially fond of rental properties. "This is what I mean when
I say I use debt to get rich - my tenants are the ones who essentially
pay the mortgage for me." While most of these properties were
predominantly financed by bank loans, land appreciation and continual
improvements to the properties have tripled, even quadrupled, the value
of some of his initial investments, he said.
Without working, Mr Kiyosaki said he can earn about US$2 million a
month, part of which comes from royalties from his book sales.
But whether people choose to invest in commodities and properties
like his or not, Mr Kiyosaki is clear about one thing - he wouldn't save
money in this economic climate.
"Europe, China and the US are printing trillions of dollars," he
claimed. "That means for the next 20 years or so, the purchasing power
of paper currency, including the Singapore dollar, is going to go down."
When asked about the difficulties of financing relatively more
expensive items, Mr Kiyosaki said, "That's why I tell people to study
debt. It can be quite the hand grenade if you don't know anything about
it - if you misuse it, it'll kill you."
Young people often tell him that they don't have money, but this situation primes them well to learn about debt, he said.
In a sold-out seminar attended by 3,000
people last Saturday, Mr Kiyosaki recounted how he and his wife bought a
few hundred dollars' worth of silver at US$3 an ounce in the 1980s,
while still in debt of US$1 million. Today, silver is worth about US$35
an ounce.
"Don't be afraid to start small," he advised.
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