DON’T COUNT ON A SECURE JOB

No longer can we count on safe and secure jobs to carry us to retirement, according to Robert Kiyosaki, author of The Business of the 21st Century.

“In my opinion the United States and many Western nations have a financial disaster coming, caused by our educational system’s failure to adequately provide a realistic financial education program for students,” The Business of the 21st Century, Robert Kiyosaki, page 4.

NO LONGER THE INDUSTRIAL AGE

My parents lived through the Depression. What they learned from that was to put their trust in themselves, not in the government or some financial institution.  Because they saved they were able to send both me and my brother to college while providing for their own retirement.

Counting on a safe and secure job today is believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.  A myth.  Corporate downsizing, foreign competition, outsourcing has changed everything.  American jobs are no longer secure.  It is our responsibility to understand our own finances and design our own retirement.

I’m reading the RichDad books by Robert Kiyosaki because he’s right about financial education.  I didn’t get much in school.  I didn’t get any, really.  My parents taught me, but they, and our country at that time, lived in an Industrial-Age paradigm.  None of us realized the Industrial is gone.

AMERICA’S GOLDEN AGE AFTER WORLD WAR II

After World War II we lived a Golden Age.  Our factories produced goods for the world, much of which had been destroyed by the war.  We rebuilt Europe, and at home had money to buy all manner of new appliances, clothing, and goods.  Prosperity was relief from war rationing, and we took advantage of it.

During this Golden Age factory workers stayed with a business and retired with pensions and the proverbial “gold watch.”

Too bad today. The rest of the world caught us. Today those same factories in the U.S. are closing, downsizing, outsourcing.  Workers walk out with pink slips.  No employment, no retirement package, no security for old-age.  Chances are good the government won’t be there to pick them up either.

KIYOSAKI LEARNED FROM TWO FATHERS

Kiyosaki was raised in Hawaii by two fathers: his own, who was an educator: teacher, administrator, everything we think of when we tell our children to go to school, study hard, go to college, get a good education, and get a good job with benefits and a pension.

Kiyosaki’s good friend’s father, though, was important in his life, too. The “Rich Dad” of Kiyosaki’s books is his friend’s father, with a view life very different from his real dad.  Rich Dad didn’t talk as much about education, although he believed education was important.  He spoke mostly about educating yourself in finances and economics so you can prepare to take care of yourself in a changing and challenging economy.  Understand finances, understand economics so you’re not blindly working for money and never getting ahead.  The Industrial Age and stable, secure factory jobs is gone.

CORPORATE AMERICA, A DINOSAUR

“There is no longer such a thing as a safe and secure job.  Corporate America is a 20th-century dinosaur, trembling on the edge of extinction, and the only way for you to have a genuinely secure future is for you to take control of that future,” The Business of the 21st Century, Robert Kiyosaki, p. 4

AMERICANS EXPECT ECONOMIC CRISIS

In a 2009 USA Today survey, 60 percent of Americans polled said they see today’s economic situation as the biggest crisis in their lifetime,” The Business of the 21st Century, R. Kiyosaki.

If Kiyosaki is correct most of us are ill prepared to understand world economic events, let alone our own finances.  School curricula are without any organized financial education beyond a feeble attempt to teach students how to balance a checkbook.

Where have you gotten your financial education?  Did you get any in-depth understanding of how banks work, the role of the Federal Reserve, who sets interest rates? The truth is American schools are still preparing young people to work in factories. They’re not educating them to survive and succeed in today’s complex economy.

I’m starting with Rich Dad.  Reading the books and checking out the webpage.  Let me know how you’re navigating these challenging financial waters.

https://www.richdadworld.com/

P.S. Let me know how you’re navigating these challenging financial waters.  Drop a comment or two below.

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