RICH DAD'S RICH KID, SMART KID is written for parents who value education, want to give their child a financial and academic head start in life, and are willing to take an active role to make it happen. In the Information Age, a good education is more important than ever. But the current educational system may not be providing all the information your child needs. This book was designed to fill in the gaps, to help you give your child the same inspiring and practical financial knowledge that Robert Kiyosaki's rich dad gave him. RICH KID, SMART KID will show you how to awaken your child's love of learning using the same methods that Robert's smart dad used to help Robert stay in school, even though he had bad grades and often wanted to drop out. And RICH KID, SMART KID will open doors that you never knew existed, enabling you to pass down the skills and understanding your child will use for the rest of his or her life.
Introduction
Why Your Banker Does Not Ask You
for Your Report Card
Education is more important today than at any other time in
history. As we leave the Industrial Age behind and enter the Information
Age, the value of one's education continues to increase. The question
today is, Is the education you or your child receives in school adequate
to meet the challenges of this brave new world we enter?
In the Industrial Age you could go to school, graduate, and start your
career. You usually did not need additional education to succeed simply
because things did not change that fast. In other words, the education
you learned in school was all you needed for your lifetime.
As millions of baby boomers get ready to retire today, however, many are
faced with the realization that they have not been adequately educated
for the new world they face. For the first time in history, many
well-educated people are facing the same economic difficulties that the
less educated are facing. They repeatedly find themselves having to get
additional education and training in order to satisfy their current job
requirements.
When Do You Measure the Success of Your Education?
When do you measure the success of your education? Is it the final
report card the day you graduate from school, let's say at age
twenty-five, or is education's effectiveness measured when you retire,
let's say at age sixty-five?
In the Sunday, July 16, 2000, issue of my local paper, the Arizona
Republic, an article included the following statistic: "About
700,000 seniors will be cut from their Medicare Choice HMOs according to
a survey released earlier this month by the American Association of
Health Plans."
The article went on to state that providing health care for senior
citizens was too expensive and was not profitable for insurance
companies, so senior citizens are being dropped from supplemental health
care protection. The health care problem for seniors will only increase,
as seventy-five million baby boomers hit that age bracket in the next
ten years.
Health Education and Welfare Stats
Based on a study performed by the Department of Health, Education and
Welfare, of every one hundred people at age sixty-five, one is rich,
four are comfortable, five are still working, fifty-six are needing
government support or family support, and the rest are dead.
It is not becoming the one rich person that this book is about. It is
the fifty-six who still need someone else to support them I am concerned
about. I do not want you or your child to wind up in that big statistic.
People often say to me, "I won't need much money when I retire because
when I retire, my living expenses go down." While it is true that your
living expenses may go down after you retire, there is one thing that
often goes up dramatically, and that is health care. And that is why the
HMOs (health maintenance organizations) in the previous article are
cutting seniors from supplemental medical coverage. Senior citizens are
just too expensive to cover. In the next few years it will be clear that
health care will literally be a life-and-death issue for millions of
older people. Putting it bluntly, if you have money, you may live; and
if you don't have money, you may die.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and CASHFLOW Quadrant, here is the definitive guide for parents everywhere who are eager to educate their children on how to understand, master, and accumulate substantial wealth.
