Book Review: Fake by Robert Kiyosaki
So, I am done with another book by my favourite author Robert Kiyosaki and TITLE is fake. Although there are a lot of references to his old book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, which I read earlier, still it never felt boring in any instance. The book also reiterates many same things again and again in a fascinating way to leave an impact on readers minds and souls.
If you look at the cover page of the book, it says Fake Money, Fake Teachers, & Fake Assets & it is not a marketing gimmick to attract more readers but really mean it. His book is spread over 18 chapters and contains 461 pages divided into three sections of Fake Money, Fake Teachers, & Fake Assets with an estimated average of 200 words a page. Trust me I am not writing these facts to make it daunting for you but to contrary trying to motivating people to read it with the same passion and enthusiasm, I read it. You may first demur to the opinion that Robert if you are reading his work for the very first time but once you go a little deep, you won’t stop yourself from finishing the book.
Robert read a thought-provoking book Grunch of Giants by Dr Buckminister Fuller published in 1983. GRUNCH stands for GRoss Universal Cash Heist. This book and many other past experiences motivated Robert to write this book.
FAKE MONEY
The first section of the Book Fake Money mainly talks about paper money and how it replaced gold and silver, which Robert says is GODs money, and become the mainstream. Robert calls the gold and silver GODs money because of two reasons. One is the fact that gold and silver were here long before the humans and they will remain here after humans. The second argument in favor of his claim that Robert gave is the money is something that has an intrinsic value. Paper money is just a paper with a third part confidence which is centrals banks in case of fiat currency.
If someone like to read about the Islamic point of view on the subject of money then I would highly recommend to listens to the lectures of shaikh Imran Hosein and his small book “THE GOLD DINAR AND SILVER DIRHAM: ISLAM AND THE FUTURE OF MONEY”.
Robert goes into further depth on the subject of FAKE Money and eagerly wants to educate his readers about the reason why paper money is fake. He talks about the Bretton Wood agreement in the 1944 conference of all of the World War II Allied nations announce the prohibition of trading using gold and silver. Federal Reserve Bank of America (FRB) will issue U.S Dollars and can only trade gold and silver. An exchange rate of gold to the dollar was set. This illusion of FRBA will provide gold to countries against the dollar ended in the year 1971 when President Richard Nixon ended dollar convertibility to gold.
FAKE TEACHER
The Section of Fake Teacher mainly crisis the educational institutes which do not teach their students about money, taxation, tax incentives, creating business, and entrepreneurship. While reading this section of the book, I wondered how many Business Graduates in Pakistan knows how to register a Business in a proper legal way locally?
Robert strongly criticizes the overall educational system and wrote that corporation among students in educational institutes is considered cheating while cooperation among businesses is perceived as a partnership and business growth.
FAKE ASSETS
General non financially educated people, as Robert says, consider their home, car, insurance, and retirement plan as their asset but the Robert has an intriguing definition of assets. Robert was financially educated by his Rich Dad who himself was not very well educated formally but was rich. He starts working for his rich dad at a very young at and to make him explain things his rich dad uses the method of KISS. I am not writing about any romantic novel not it’s not the French one but it “Keep It Super Simple”.
Coming back to Roberts fascinating definition of Asset. He says that asset is something that puts money in your pocket and liability is something that took money out of your pocket. This definition is another reason why Robert doesn’t like the formal education institutes which teach their students of assets and liability in another.
Robert goes on and explains that if your home, your car and even your insurance policy is taking money out of your pocket then it is not your assets but that is a liability. However, if you hire the services of some smart accountant, attorney, and a great real estate agent to either save you from paying huge taxes in a legal way or get you a great profit-earning real estate deal, then it’s great because they are helping you increase your assets.
