fake robert kiyosaki book review

Publications

FAKE delivers insights and answers that help ordinary people determine what’s real and relevant to their financial lives. Author Robert Kiyosaki pulls no punches in his assessment of what is passed off as fact or conventional wisdom and believes that a strong foundation―for anything we want to build―needs to start with solid, true information. In today’s uncertain times, creating a secure financial future and the peace of mind that comes with it starts with taking action and taking control.

Topics Discussed

Associated people, robert kiyosaki, child publications.

The information contained herein is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. It is not designed to meet your personal financial situation - we are not investment advisors nor do we give personalized investment advice. The opinions expressed herein are those of the publisher and are subject to change without notice. It may become outdated an there is no obligation to update any such information.

• Privacy Policy

Book Review – Fake by Robert Kiyosaki

Robert Kiyosaki is best known for writing one of the highest selling financial books ever written, Rich Dad Poor Dad, I read Rich Dad Poor Dad many years ago and remember really getting a lot out of it. I had not read or watched anything from Kiyosaki in the years since, although I did play his board game CASHFLOW which I enjoyed.

It is hard to know where to begin with this book, I will start by saying it is not your typical personal finance book and a lot of the advice is different to what you would normally hear. I do not mind this as I am more than happy to have my own thoughts challenged as long as whoever is making the argument is able to back it up.

It is worth noting that from the outset, that this book appears to be suited to making significant amounts of money, I am talking tens of millions of dollars amounts of wealth. To make these sums of money, then the typical lifestyle of working as an employee and regular saving/investing will not get you there (unless you are able to achieve a ridiculously high paying job). If you were looking at making these amounts of money, then you would need to adopt different strategies, which this book somewhat goes into, so I appreciate and understand that there is a difference in how to achieve the end goal in that sense. For me personally, since I am not looking at reaching that sort of level of wealth, it was not the most relevant in that aspect. That being said, I still found it interesting and eye opening to see a bit more about the world around us.

The main premise of the book is how society is currently a two-way system, where it is the rich verse everybody else. The gap between the rich and everybody else is growing significantly over time and they effectively built the system to maintain (and increase) their wealth, while exploiting everybody else for their own financial gain. When I said “rich”, I am talking about people who are billionaires (or close to it), the uber wealthy who effectively live in a different world to the rest of us.

I will state now that the book is written with a US perspective, so while it is not completely relevant to Australia, there is still a lot of aspects which are relatable to Australia. There is a heavy criticism of the education system, and while it is focused on the US education system, I can still see a lot of parallels with the Australian education system, and I must say I do agree with a lot of the issues. It is not so much an issue with high school, but more tertiary education, where you are encouraged to take out significant student debt (obviously it is not as bad in Australia), and then taught ways to fit into the system which in the end mostly benefits the rich. It makes sense since a lot of the time these educational institutions were started by the rich at the time who wanted to teach smart people to indirectly work for them.

There is also a big focus on “Fake” money, which is basically all fiat currency, and how it is only paper at the end of the day and there is nothing stopping the Federal Reserve (Reserve Bank equivalent) printing more and more notes, essentially devaluing currency by inflation. This premise makes sense and when Kiyosaki says “Saving money will make you rich” is a Lie, I can definitely see where he is coming from, but I still think it is a bit extreme. Again, the main thing is to see what he defines as being “rich” – to me, if you were able to save around 30% of your income, and invest it in index funds, then after 15 years or so then I would consider that person rich. But in the context of this book, you would be several magnitudes of wealth below what Kiyosaki considers rich.

Overall, there was a lot of interesting aspects to read in this book, and you will not read about these points of view in a lot of personal finance books. I can see why Kiyosaki has become so controversial because he goes against the grain of what a lot of the other “experts” are saying, but I do not believe he is necessarily wrong, and a lot of the time the criticism is because these other “experts” do not like Kiyosaki revealing what is really happening in the financial world.

I can also see criticism of Kiyosaki because there are definitely a few negative aspects of the book I found which I will summarise here:

• Repetition – this is probably the main one, the same graphs, sentences, even paragraphs were used over and over throughout the book. A lot of the time the same point was made but just worded differently. I understand he really wanted to drive the point home, but it just feels like the 450-page book could have been about 250 pages without all the repetition.
• Gods Money – if you read the book, you will hear Kiyosaki talk about God’s money, gold and silver. I have nothing against gold and silver, but the religious tones to call it “God’s money” over and over (again it is repeated a lot) really made me roll my eyes at the end of it. There are also a lot of other religious sections, which personally turned me off. Not that I am against religion in any way, it just is not for me.
• Clickbaity – I am not sure how to explain this next issue, but I just get the feeling that a lot of the book is written in an exaggerated way to make it seem a lot more dramatic than it might need to be. Even the title, “Fake” is quite overly dramatic and clickbaity in my opinion, but then a lot of the book is like that too.
• Salesman – This might be related to the previous point, but I also got the impression that Kiyosaki is just trying to sell you something throughout the book. There is a lot of references to his own products (previous books, his podcast, his board game) and while I understand he is a businessman just trying to make money, it is a bit of a turn off for me to continuously see the cross promotion.

In summary, I enjoyed how the book did challenge my thinking and did provide a new perspective which I was not too familiar with in the past. I do not believe it really builds on the information provided in Rich Dad Poor Dad. But since Fake was written in 2019, it is a fair bit more current than Rich Dad Poor Dad which was written in 1997. A lot of the lessons are still similar, however.

• Business & Investing
• Personal Finance

Buy new: $25.21 $25.21 FREE delivery: Friday, April 26 Ships from: Amazon.ca Sold by: Amazon.ca

Buy used: $21.26.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer – no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera, scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video, download Flash Player

Follow the author

FAKE: Fake Money, Fake Teachers, Fake Assets: How Lies Are Making the Poor and Middle Class Poorer Paperback – Illustrated, April 16 2019

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 240 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Plata Publishing
• Publication date April 16 2019
• Dimensions 15.24 x 3.05 x 22.61 cm
• ISBN-10 1612680844
• ISBN-13 978-1612680842
• See all details

Frequently bought together

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Product description

About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Plata Publishing; Illustrated edition (April 16 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1612680844
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1612680842
• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 520 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 3.05 x 22.61 cm
• #1,607 in Personal Finance (Books)

About the author

Robert t. kiyosaki.

Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad - the international runaway bestseller that has held a top spot on the New York Times bestsellers list for over six years - is an investor, entrepreneur and educator whose perspectives on money and investing fly in the face of conventional wisdom. He has, virtually single-handedly, challenged and changed the way tens of millions, around the world, think about money.In communicating his point of view on why 'old' advice - get a good job, save money, get out of debt, invest for the long term, and diversify - is 'bad' (both obsolete and flawed) advice, Robert has earned a reputation for straight talk, irreverence and courage.Rich Dad Poor Dad ranks as the longest-running bestseller on all four of the lists that report to Publisher's Weekly - The New York Times, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today - and was named "USA Today's #1 Money Book" two years in a row. It is the third longest-running 'how-to' best seller of all time.Translated into 51 languages and available in 109 countries, the Rich Dad series has sold over 27 million copies worldwide and has dominated best sellers lists across Asia, Australia, South America, Mexico and Europe. In 2005, Robert was inducted into Amazon.com Hall of Fame as one of that bookseller's Top 25 Authors. There are currently 26 books in the Rich Dad series.In 2006 Robert teamed up with Donald Trump to co-author Why We Want You To Be Rich - Two Men - One Message. It debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestsellers list.Robert writes a bi-weekly column - 'Why the Rich Are Getting Richer' - for Yahoo! Finance and a monthly column titled 'Rich Returns' for Entrepreneur magazine.Prior to writing Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert created the educational board game CASHFLOW 101 to teach individuals the financial and investment strategies that his rich dad spent years teaching him. It was those same strategies that allowed Robert to retire at age 47.Today there are more that 2,100 CASHFLOW Clubs - game groups independent of the Rich Dad Company - in cities throughout the world.Born and raised in Hawaii, Robert Kiyosaki is a fourth-generation Japanese-American. After graduating from college in New York, Robert joined the Marine Corps and served in Vietnam as an officer and helicopter gunship pilot. Following the war, Robert went to work in sales for Xerox Corporation and, in 1977, started a company that brought the first nylon and Velcro 'surfer wallets' to market. He founded an international education company in 1985 that taught business and investing to tens of thousands of students throughout the world. In 1994 Robert sold his business and, through his investments, was able to retire at the age of 47. During his short-lived retirement he wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Customer reviews

Reviews with images.

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from Canada

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• Amazon and Our Planet
• Investor Relations
• Press Releases
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Sell on Amazon Handmade
• Advertise Your Products
• Independently Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• Amazon.ca Rewards Mastercard
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon Cash
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns Are Easy
• Manage your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Customer Service
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Interest-Based Ads
• Amazon.com.ca ULC | 40 King Street W 47th Floor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5H 3Y2 |1-877-586-3230