Читать книгу Why We Want You To Be Rich - Robert T. Kiyosaki - Страница 10
ОглавлениеRobert’s View
Dallas, Texas: February 19, 2006
Once again, on Sunday afternoon, the black limo pulls up to the backstage entrance of another huge convention center for another real estate expo. Once again, the excitement builds as word spreads, “The Donald is here.” And once again, the police escort comes in first to clear the way, two lines form, and Mr. Trump walks the gauntlet of adoring fans.
After about an hour, after the press has left, Donald asks me, “How big is the audience, and how are they?”
“Tens of thousands in attendance, and they’re a great group. People have come from all over the world to be here this weekend. They’re very excited about learning and hungry for knowledge.”
I was excited, too—but for different reasons.
Since our last meeting, I had read Donald’s book, The America We Deserve. The book addresses many of the problems we face as a nation and as a world, such as terrorism, the national debt and healthcare. The following are excerpts from his chapter on the healthcare issue. “The U.S. government’s General Accounting Office, an objective investigative arm of the Congress, paints an ugly picture:
“Unlike Social Security, Medicare’s HI program has been experiencing a cashflow deficit since 1992—current payroll taxes and other revenues have been insufficient to cover benefit payments and program expenses…In essence, Medicare has already crossed the point where it is a net claimant on the Treasury—a threshold that Social Security is not expected to reach until 2013…’
“The current Medicare program is both economically and fiscally unsustainable. This is not a new message—the Medicare trustees noted in the early 1990s that the program is unsustainable in its present form.”
As to what politicians are doing about this healthcare monster, he writes:
“Clinton stared at the beast—and blinked. He chose to avoid the hard decisions that will have to be made down the road where, as the GAO points out, they will be much more painful.
“But let’s face it, Clinton is hardly the only politician to duck a tough issue. It will take a new breed of politician to push meaningful reform. It requires a risk-taker with titanium nerves and vision.”
About long-term healthcare, he says:
“There’s one more aspect of the medical-insurance story that is almost totally off the typical radar screen. This one involves long-term care. With the baby-boom generation heading toward retirement and their parents already there, this is a huge issue.
“A few numbers tell the story: The number of elderly will double to seventy-five million by 2030 and the number of seniors living in nursing homes will increase fivefold.
“I know the response: Doesn’t Medicaid pay for nursing homes? This question is often asked by Boomers who figure their parents will be covered, as they will when their time comes to book some long-term care.
“Here’s the answer: Medicaid was never meant to be a long-term care provider. And as Senator John Breaux and Representative William Thomas have pointed out, ‘The growing demand for long-term care is pushing Medicaid into bankruptcy.’
“Nearly one in two Americans will need some type of long-term care, but only one in four can afford long-term private nursing home care, which now averages $41,000 (in 1999 dollars) a year. Only 1 percent of Americans have bought long-term healthcare insurance. So most are hoping to rely on Medicaid. As things are right now, they’re in for a major disappointment.
“After a short initial contribution, Medicaid will drop out of the picture until the patient’s resources are spent down to the poverty level. If the patients are your parents, that means everything they’ve worked for in life will be gone. And that often means one parent is left destitute. It can also create a massive financial burden on families. The Boomer who planned to sail around the world on his own boat might find himself selling his car to keep mom or dad in a decent facility.”
As I’ve said, after my first meeting with Donald, I knew why we had come together to write this book. But once I read The America We Deserve, I knew—without a doubt—what our shared concerns were, why we were teachers and why we wanted people to be rich.
In the green room, that day in Dallas, I drew the following diagram:
“You’re saying it’s $72 trillion in off-balance sheet obligations?” Donald asked. “Says who?”
“Two economists,” I replied. “In 2004, Kent Smetters and Jagadeesh Gokhale painstakingly spent the time to compute how much, as of 2004, our government’s obligations to the American people were.”
“That’s a lot of money,” said Donald.
“That’s more money than all the money in all the bond and stock markets in the world,” I said. “I believe the value of all stocks on the world stock markets as of 2000 was around $36 trillion and the value of all the bonds on the bond markets of the world was only about $31 trillion. We owe our people more than all the money in the stock and bond markets combined.”
“I knew it was bad,” said Donald, “but not this bad. We can’t pay it.”
“Only if we print more money, which would wipe out the savings of everyone. One possibility is hyperinflation, but that wouldn’t really solve the problem. Not only would savings be wiped out, people on fixed incomes would also be wiped out.”
“And this is not just an American problem,” Donald said. “While we are discussing in terms of American people and American finances, this problem is being felt around the world. People are living longer, and countries from Europe to Asia are concerned about how they are going to be able to provide for the health and welfare of their people.”
Back to History
In the 1930s, the German government had printed so much money that the money nearly lost its value. One story tells of a woman who pulled a wheelbarrow full of money to buy some bread. When she came out of the baker’s to get her money to pay for the bread, someone had stolen her wheelbarrow and left the money.
Hyperinflation devalues money. And while the social, political and financial environments that enabled Adolf Hitler to be elected German Chancellor in 1933 were complex, his rise to power was in no small part due to the middle class having their savings wiped out.
Back home, the 1930s brought the Great Depression, leading to Franklin Delano Roosevelt being elected president. Roosevelt brought in Social Security in 1935, a solution to a problem we still have to solve today. In other words, a solution to a problem caused over 75 years ago is again a problem today—an even bigger problem, in fact. We are trying to solve a problem with government money, instead of solving the real problem. Other government programs that were meant to be solutions were Medicare (1955) and Medicaid (1966). Today, these problems are much bigger problems, again because we failed to address the real problem soon enough.
We want people to let go of the entitlement mentality and become rich so they can solve the problem…their own problems.
– Robert T. Kiyosaki
In 1971, President Nixon took us off the gold standard, which is exactly what the German government did, and today the U.S. dollar is falling and savers find their savings wiped out with very little left for retirement…except for Social Security and Medicare, which are also in trouble. History is repeating itself; only this time the problem is bigger.
What We Are Concerned About
Donald said it first: “I’m afraid we have developed an entitlement mentality as a nation. And I’m not talking about just poor people. Too many people, from the president and senators on down, expect a pension from the government. I really wish we could afford to solve their problems, but to do that would bankrupt our nation. We could ask the rich to pay for everyone, but would it solve the problem? And for how long would it even solve the problem?”
I agreed. Donald and I want people to let go of the entitlement mentality and become rich so they can solve the problem…their own problem.
Consider the following diagram:
The best way to solve the problem of bad financial results is to change our thoughts—to start thinking like rich people rather than poor and middle-class people. That means losing the entitlement mentality—whether you are a military officer, government worker, schoolteacher, employee or just poor. If we do not stop expecting the government to take care of us, we will continue to have the same results—a bankrupt nation filled with well-educated but financially needy people.
Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In this case, it is my opinion that it is insanity to keep sending kids to school and not teaching them about money.
When you look at the CASHFLOW Quadrant pictured below,
E stands for employee
S stands for small-business person, self-employed or specialist
B stands for big-business owners such as Donald Trump
I stands for investor
I believe we need to train more kids to be Bs, entrepreneurs who create jobs, and all kids to be investors in the I quadrant. Today, our schools do a pretty good job educating people to be Es or Ss, but hardly any education is allocated to be Bs or Is.
Instead of walking away with a solid financial education, most kids leave school—some already deeply in debt—prepared only to work hard, save money, get out of debt, invest for the long term and diversify.
Warren Buffett says the following about diversification:
“Diversification is protection against ignorance.
(It) makes very little sense if you know what you are doing.”
One of the keys to becoming rich is to know what you are doing.
Back Onstage
“Fifteen minutes,” said the event manager to Donald.
“OK,” he said. “I’m ready.”
As we headed toward the stage, Donald said, “So the reason we want them to become rich is so they can solve their own financial problems. Too many people are betting on the stock market, the government or a pension to be the solution.”
“That’s a good place to start,” I said.
“We’ll tell people why we got rich, not how…and why we keep working even though we have enough money.”
“We want them to find out their own whys, rather than expect a handout from the government. That’s how we can help solve the problem. Obviously we can’t help everyone, because not everyone has the talent to become rich, but we can help those who do and have the desire to be rich.”
“This entitlement mentality is a monster problem,” said Donald.
“Huge,” I agreed.
“Bigger even than the national debt, the falling dollar, the oil crisis and retirement programs. And those are very big and very real problems,” Donald added.
“Problems aren’t the issue,” I said. “We all have money problems…even you and I. It’s how we solve the problem that’s the issue.”
“That’s exactly right,” said Donald. “We, as a nation, cannot solve our financial problems if we think with an entitlement mentality. It’s this mentality that’s really at the core of the problem. That’s why we want people to become rich.”
As I headed up the stage stairs to get ready to introduce Donald, I said, “Our financial problems are caused by the way we think. We have to change the way we think about money.”
With that, I walked onstage to introduce Donald Trump to thousands of fans and students.
Donald’s View
Groupthink
As Robert says, “We as a nation cannot solve a large financial crisis with the same old thinking.” I couldn’t agree more. This entitlement mentality is everywhere. In fact, it has become epidemic in our economy.
I guess we’ve all probably heard the term “groupthink” by now. It’s that old herd mentality that seems to bring out the best and the worst in people. By the best, I mean that sometimes a shepherd will surface. But that’s an unlikely scenario. It’s usually the wolves that will surface first, and the herd will be primed and ready to follow. What we’re trying to do here is break up the herd before we are incapable of seeing, hearing, thinking and doing for ourselves. People who are capable of thinking for themselves will rarely be part of any herd.
While we are focused on the groupthink that keeps people from thinking for themselves financially and has them blindly turning their money over to financial advisors, it reminds me of another story.
For my radio program on Clear Channel, I decided to speak about “Object Orange.” This isn’t about Jeanne-Claude and Christo’s “Gates” project last year in Central Park, but about something happening in Detroit, Michigan.
Detroit has a problem with ramshackle, empty homes because the city has lost nearly a million people in the last 50 years. A group of artists in the city was tired of looking at vacant, dilapidated buildings around town. So they decided to do something about it.
To call attention to the abandoned buildings, the artists secretly painted the eyesores bright orange overnight. Because it’s hard to miss a bright orange, rundown building, several of the houses have since been torn down—which was the goal in the first place.
The artists are remaining anonymous because obviously they could get in trouble for trespassing. They are also hoping other renegades with paintbrushes will join their project.
This is a great example of people taking action and accomplishing something. They took matters into their own hands instead of waiting for someone else to do something about it. It’s unconventional, but it seems to be working.
People who are capable of thinking for themselves will rarely be part of any herd.
– Donald J. Trump
It’s an overused term at this point, but “out-of-the-box” thinking is obviously alive and well—certainly in Detroit. Artists aren’t the only people around who have the right to exercise that part of the brain—we all do. Let’s try to start thinking like that no matter where we live or what we do. The worst thing for us, individually and as a nation, is to become passive observers—or to slowly sink into our comfort zones.
As I’ve said before, the best way to have an edge is to live on one. We are not in a position—even if we are the so-called superpower—to rest on our laurels. That is the first indication of impending decline. We’ve got some challenges ahead, and it’s best to be aware of them. Let’s not succumb to the Big Groupthink, which is really just a good way of sinking our own ship.
Today, more than ever, people must change the way they think about their finances and their financial futures.
Robert and I want you to expand your thinking. We can all benefit from the wisdom of Descartes: “I think; therefore I am.”
Think bigger!
