American Thought Leaders - Robert Kiyosaki: Why America’s Middle Class Keeps Getting Poorer
Episode Date: December 6, 2025“I’ve been fighting communism by teaching capitalism,” says Robert Kiyosaki, holding up a copy of Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” and a copy of his book “The Capitalist Manifesto.”Ro...bert Kiyosaki became famous as the author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” a book that has sold 48 million copies worldwide since its 1997 publication.Kiyosaki maintains that in today’s America, plagued by high inflation and a crumbling dollar, rich dads are getting ever richer while poor dads are getting poorer:“Food gets up in price, but the poor and middle class have to pay for it. So my apartment houses go up, but the poor middle class go homeless. And that’s the seed of communism, that’s the seed of revolt,” he says.In this episode, we dive into what he sees as the roots of America’s economic woes and what young people can do in today’s economy to build wealth and prosperity.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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When I was 10 years old, my poor dad kept asking, hey, dad, dad, dad, what am I going to learn about money?
He says, we don't teach school about money.
In this episode, we sat down with Robert Kiyosaki.
His book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, has sold 43 million copies and remains the top title in personal finance.
I said, well, how did I get rich?
He says, well, if you stay in school, get your Ph.D.
Get your Ph.D.
I said, Dad, you have a PhD. We're poor.
He says, well, then you've got to talk to your best friend's father.
And that was Rich Dad.
From reading the Communist Manifesto to becoming an advocate for capitalist financial education,
Kiyosaki warns about the danger of hyperinflation and central bank control.
Every time you print money, the gap between rich and poor is getting wider and wider and wider.
What Marx wanted was his gap between rich and poor.
He also shares three lessons to build wealth that he believes can change your life and help you
become truly self-sufficient.
Your poor dad, Marxist, good man.
He says we should give people money.
Well, that's honorable.
I want to teach them, want to teach people the fish
person out of steel fish.
Let's say you're a young person today
and you don't have a lot of money.
What's your next step?
This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yanya Kellick.
Robert Kiyosaki, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
It's my honor. My honor. I mean, I love what that book of Times is doing.
I'm so honored to be part of your program. So I've got my back and roll quickly.
When I was 18 years old, I read this book here, The Communist Manifesto.
And I was living in Hawaii. And I went to school in New York. I went to military.
military school. And my economics teacher says, you have to read this book. And I went, why? He says,
because you must know your enemy. And my economics teacher was a, I went to King's Point. He went to
West Point, Academy graduates. And he says, and he flew the B-17 in World War II, got shot down,
captured, all this stuff. He says, these guys are not stuck.
And I went, holy mackle, and then so I wrote this book here, the capitalist manifesto, against this here.
Because our school system, as you know, Marx was an academic type, you know, a pointy head guy.
And our school systems are teaching Marxism.
And this here is my, I just happened to find this, this is my hat from Vietnam.
I was a Marine Corps 1st Lieutenant.
That was my gunship drivers.
Our call sign was Scarface.
And I was at the battle in 1972, 71.
I was at the Battle of Quang Tree when the North Vietnamese busted through.
And I was going, so we're a, of the helic with gunship pilots going in, we couldn't stop them.
And these communists were coming through, I was going, oh, my God, what's happening here?
We lost so many men that day.
The worst thing was the North Vietnamese were running.
They carried the AK-47, and they run like this.
I was a U.S. Marine, and they were defending them, and the South Vietnamese turned and ran.
John, when I saw the South Vietnamese turn and run,
one of the saddest days of my life.
And ever since then, I've been fighting communism
by teaching captains.
Well, you could imagine I was surprised
when you came in the door with the Communist Manifesto.
It's worth reading.
The average American has no idea,
and that's the problem.
I have the good fortune or bad fortune
to be in the right places.
the wrong time. Like the Battle of Quangtree, you know, when the North Vietnamese broke through.
Well, and thank you for your service, by the way.
Thank you. It's worth fighting. Our freedom is worth fighting for. So when they broke through,
I went, what am I seeing here? When I was not 18 or 19 years old, I held up a coin,
1965. A silver dollar was no longer silver. It was copper. And what they were doing, the U.S.
government. They were violating Gresham's law. And what Gresham's law says, when bad money enters a
system, good money goes into hiding. And I wonder what the heck's going on here. So in 1965 as an
18-year-old kid, I go to school, a military school, I read this book, and I see our currency, our
dollars going down. We used to be a silver certificate. Now we're
a Federal Reserve note. And as most people know, there's a big movement on to end the Fed,
the Federal Reserve Bank, because it's not federal, it's not reserve, that's not a bank. It's a
Marxist organization. It's a central bank. And in 1912 or 1913, when the Fed came to America,
it was the end of America. And our freedom is being stolen via our money. You see,
that you had to run from your parents,
was that you or your parents ran from Poland?
My parents actually left Poland in 70.
Yeah, 1970.
People haven't seen communism.
And the problem is our school system,
the communists, our academics,
I mean, our professors.
We got attacked by 39 professors
at Arizona State University.
I think the fourth or fifth largest university
in America.
I was teaching capitalism.
And they said, stop.
So I respect the Epic Times for your fight against communism, Marxism, because I'm still in the fight.
I just fight as an author, though.
And I have a board game and all this.
I teach capitalism.
But our schools are taught by Marxists.
Before we jump into dealing with our fraught economy, how to actually build wealth as a young person today, all these types of questions.
all these types of questions. You also told me that you were actually in Zimbabwe. Tell me about that.
Yeah, Zimbabwe, because I was a student of money, I'm a politically incorrect hunter.
So I was out in Zimbabwe, I think in 2000, 2002. And I was there for the collapse of Zimbabwe
because they printed too much money. Remember they had like $25 trillion bill, couldn't buy you an egg.
They kept printing money.
holy miracle and zimbabwe collapsed america is doing the same thing we're now 38 trillion dollars
in debt and climbing because of the federal reserve bank which is marxist so i'm in
zimbabwe watching this collapse i thought i was back in vietnam again i was already back from
vietnam i'm in a truck i'm a hunter and when the economy collapsed in zimbabwe they called them
war vets. These young black guys come up with AK-47s. I went, and I put the gun right here.
They took everything. They took the farm. They took it all. They called it reparations.
So I just went back this year, 2025, to teach my cash flow game. And the Zimbabwe Economic
Council asked me to teach money to Zimbabwe, through the cash flow.
slow game, you know. And it was such an honor to go back there. So I have a, I'm writing a new book
call. I kept my promise. I said, I'll return. I'll come back and I'll teach. But I've seen too
much. Zimbabwe was such a wake-up call. Quang Tree was what's a wake-up call. 18, going to military
school, reading this book, and then holding up a coin at 18 going, why is our money? Why is our
silver coins. Why are they copper now? And they were stealing our wealth via our money. And that's what
happens when central banks take over. Well, I think we're not quite there yet, not this sort of
hyperinflation. I remember seeing that. It was just something, it was kind of unimaginable,
the level at which it was growing, even as a, you know, when a, a lot younger, I saw that as being
hugely problematic. But, you know, how do we deal with $38 trillion?
in debt.
Can't.
So that's why, you know, one of the questions we're talking about before this program
started, that's why I own gold mines and I own silver coins because they can't print
gold and they can't print silver.
And I own a lot of Bitcoin, Ethereum, I want to get away from my government as much as
I can.
I hate to say this, but the U.S. government's
corrupt. And, you know, my friend here is Donald Trump. And we've written two books together.
And he became president. We're supposed to write the third book. He goes, hey, Robert, I can't
write the third book. I'm going to run for president. I said, good luck, you know. Just amazing that
he keeps going. But we got together to teach money, teach financial education. But our school system
stop us. So it's in academics. Exactly, you know, what Marx believed was the intellectual
should run the world. People like my poor dad, PhDs. They think they're superior to all of us.
Just because they went to school and we got a PhD, they think they're smarter than you and me.
You know, as we were preparing for this interview, one of my producers mentioned to me that
she first heard about you when her father told her, I'm the poor dad, actually, and you should learn
how to, you know, you should learn the rich dad principles. But things have changed since you
wrote that book. Got worse. Yeah. So, so, so where are we at today? What is the situation for
young people or for their parents or grandparents who want to, you know, help them basically be
successful today? Well, the question I start with is, what does school teacher bought money?
Why not? It's because our school system is Marxist. They're like my poor debt. They're good people.
They just don't know. And their whole value system is, you know, I'm a straight-A student. I got my PhD,
or I'm a doctor, I'm an accountant, I'm an attorney. I'm smart. But they don't know.
anything about money. And one of the things that this guy talked about here was income tax.
He said, Marx said taxes. Taxes are essential for the spread of communism. Now, think about this.
America was founded as a tax-free nation. 1773 was a thing called the Boston Tea Party.
America was founded as a tax revolt against Mother England.
And so 1913, I think, was my old man now, when the Fed came in,
the next thing was formed was the 16th Amendment, which allowed taxes to come back into America.
So what's happening, as you can see it, the gap between rich and poor is getting wider and wider and wider.
and every time you print money, fake money, you know, fiat money,
I get richer, rich get richer, poor and moral class get poor
because inflation sends my price, I have oil wells
because you can't print oil.
So I have oil wells, the price of oil goes up.
The price of chickens go out, food goes up, real estate goes up.
But when mom and pop, you know, Mrs. Middle Class
go to the supermarket, they go, I can't afford to eat anymore.
So I could think what Marx wanted was his gap between rich and poor.
In fact, that was his plan.
As you just studied Mark, he says, he wanted equality.
He says the way you destroy anybody is you pull the poor up, but you pull the rich down.
And that's what Marks was trying to do.
and so I see all that going on right now
and today
I've never seen such homelessness
spreading all across the world
but also America
and I've seen homelessness in Africa
and things like this
but we're in Phoenix, Arizona right now
we have whole zones full of homeless people
because they can't afford real estate
their dollar doesn't pay it much
so that's why I saw when
when I saw in Vietnam
when the North Vietnamese punched through the line
again this is my squadron here
and very proud to be U.S. Marine
and gunship pilot
and they kept coming
and then they were running like this
with their AKs this way
and a few years later
I'm in Zimbabwe
I'm getting the same thing going
it's repeating
it's just repeating
And just to clarify, with Marx's intention, the way I understand it, what you said was very interesting, right?
What I understand it is he was trying, he wanted to increase that division, right, between the rich and the poor, so there would be struggle.
Did I get that right?
He wanted to bring the poor up and the rich down.
You know, his thing was the take away the means of place.
He wanted to control the means of production.
That's what he wanted.
And he says, the abolition of private property is what Marx wanted.
And this guy, what his name, forget his name,
someday you'll owe nothing and you'll be happy.
But the situation that you described is one where they're richer getting richer
and the poorer getting poorer, so they're separating from each other,
not coming together.
Can you clarify that?
Well, when you print money, I get richer.
because I own real estate, I own oil wells, I own cattle.
You know, food gets up in price.
And then, but the poor middle class have to pay for it.
So my apartment houses go up, but the poor middle class go homeless.
And that's the seeds of communism.
That's the seed of revolt.
You know, that was the Russian Revolution, Lenin and Stalin.
It's happening all again.
And the way this was so stupid that only an intellectual from a U.S. university or a school would believe this crap.
Oh, yeah, that's a good idea.
Yeah, it was a good idea.
But the only way they could enforce this was by force.
So you look at what happened in China.
They had to use force to get the people to comply with this stupid man's idea.
It was ideologues ideas.
In Russia, they had to use force to get them to, you know, to comply.
So that's the foul on going and all this stuff.
They suppress people.
Because Marx wanted everybody to be equal, pull the rich down, pull the poor up.
And people actually believe that idea.
But his primary idea was intellectuals should tell the world how to live.
Those are called academics, the liberal left.
And to achieve that revolution, he wanted to destabilize society.
Well, you destabilize it by taking the currency.
You make the currency fake, and that's what happened when the Federal Reserve Bank came in 1913, I think.
At the same time, the 16th Amendment was passed, which was taxes.
and America was founded as a tax-free nation.
You know, 1773.
It wasn't found in 1776.
It was founded in 1773, the Boston Tea Party.
And now everybody says, well, you have to pay your taxes.
They have to pay your taxes.
I'm a capitalist.
I pay zero taxes legally.
I fight like a dog.
I refuse to play that game.
Because what those taxes are used for,
is to create wars.
You know, that's how we finance our wars.
It's tragic what's happening.
It's absolutely tragic.
And I fought in war.
I didn't like doing it.
But I realized Marx was like my poor dad,
head of the labor union.
And my poor dad, what Marxist was workers of the world unite.
So I go home to my high school.
My poor dad's head of the teacher's union.
workers of the world unite.
That sounds familiar.
Today, that NEA National Education Association,
the National Extortion Association,
is the most powerful labor union in America,
and they control our government,
because this is what talks here.
We've got to fight back,
so that's why when I heard that the Epoch Times,
you guys were coming to interview me,
I said, what an honor,
because I've been in the same battle.
You've been battling.
I fight these guys here.
And that's why I wrote this book here.
And that's why my friend here, Donald Trump and I,
fight together for financial education.
So what is the best financial advice right now,
given our current reality for the typical young person who,
many of whom are wondering what their future is going to look like?
They're wondering, could I even afford a house?
Could I even, how do I get into getting assets like Robert Kiyosaki has suggested in his books,
if they're familiar with rich dad, poor dad?
Where do we start with providing that advice and education?
May I give you a long answer to a short question.
Please.
In 1974, I was getting out of the Marine Corps.
And they passed, government passed a thing called ERISA, employee, retirement,
income security act i said what's that mean well i enter the government says income security you know
it's fake it's started the 401k and the IRA that shift in 1974 was that workers shifted
from a defined benefit pension plan a db pension plan to define c dc pension plan so a defined
Benefit, it was like when I worked for, today I work for the Ford Motor Company, I'd have a defined benefit plan.
My retirement was guaranteed.
The 401K or ERISA put in place a defined contribution pension plan.
That means if there was nothing there, you have no retirement.
So my tariff, I just feel horrible, my generation of boomers, they're going to have the rug pulled out from underneath of them.
Because when this market comes down, which it is coming down now, they have no retirement.
Because everything is put in 401Ks, ETFs, IRAs, all that crap, bonds.
You know, when my financial plan on friends say bonds are safe, that is the biggest lie I've ever heard.
You know, bonds aren't safe.
China and Japan are dumping U.S. bonds right now.
What about gold?
What about silver?
What about oil?
What about cattle?
What about real estate?
Do you know what I mean?
So I don't, so because I read this book here,
1965, was 18 years old,
I said, I better start thinking differently.
But my rich dad, which is why I wrote this book here,
agreed wholeheartedly with this book.
He says, you're poor dad.
Arcsist.
Good man. He says, we should give people money. We should take care of them. Well, that's honorable.
But why not teach them? That's what this book here. Want to teach people the fish versus
how to steal fish. And that's what the liberal left is doing. They're stealing our wealth for our money.
So where does that leave the typical young person today?
Well, get financial education. I don't plug my own stuff. I have a board game called
cash flow. Well, you know, this is why I've come here to you, right? Like, we need good advice
for all of us. I mean, I need it, frankly, not just the young people. So how do we, how do we educate
ourselves? You mentioned one thing very clearly that you want to have tangible assets that
appreciate. I think you can't print. Yeah. So the cash flow
board game. The reason I created the cash flow board game, when I was 10 years old, my
my poor dad, I kept asking, hey, dad, dad, dad, what am I going to learn about money? He says,
we don't teach school about money. Then I realized he didn't anything about money. I said, well,
how did I get rich? He says, well, if you stay in school, get your PhD. I said, dad, you have a PhD.
We're poor. Do you know what I mean? Most PhDs are poor. He says, well,
Then you brought to your best friend's father.
That was Rich Dad.
And Rich Dad was a man who had never finished school.
He dropped out of school at 13.
So I went to see my Rich Dad, and I said, would you teach me about money?
He said, get out of here.
He said, get out of here.
He said, you're wasting my time.
I said, I'll do anything.
He says, did you work for me for free?
So I had to work at Rich Dad owned hotels.
So I had to go there pick up cigarette butts and all that,
and I'd sit down and he said,
okay, I want to teach you about money.
And he'd break out the Monopoly game.
And we played Monopoly, you know,
four greenhouses, red hotel.
Guess what?
I own greenhouses and red hotels today.
I was 10 years old.
It was in my brain.
I said, that's how I get written.
Now, I'm not saying you have to buy real estate.
So I created the cash full board game
because the power of a game,
is better than a teacher a game includes four intelligence mental physical god moves up around
emotional and spiritual when you lose in a game go but losing is good because if you fight you want to
fight back so there's four intelligence in the game mental emotional EQ physical or spirit and
spiritual. Like, if you go to a golf course, can I learn how to play golf? Yeah, but you can't use
golf clubs. That's what schools are like. Can you imagine this? You've hit the ball
500 yards and it's a hole in one. You've hit a whole and one every single time. That's
academics. That's PhDs. I sat there, you guys live in La La Land. And those La Land guys are
Marxists. They're exactly as Marx said. It's intellectual, should run the world.
Let's say you're a young person today. You've just finished, let's say, high school,
you're considering maybe the trades because they're becoming fashionable again. You know,
there's this whole big thing against trades for a while. You're considering university.
And you don't have a lot of money. Your parents are, you know, poor dad style, right?
for whatever reason, maybe just down and out, maybe they tried.
What's your next step?
I'll just tell what my rich dad told me.
I'm kind of at the Marine Corps.
Like I said, I'm a pilot.
And so my friends were all enjoying the airlines.
And so my poor dad was so happy, go fly for you.
That'd fly for American.
And then get your PhD.
I said, that's it, dad.
He goes, yeah.
I went to my rich dad.
And he says, how do I get rich?
He says, be an entrepreneur.
I'm like, so how long did it take you become a pilot?
I said, two years.
Same thing.
You need the skills of an entrepreneur.
So I said, what's that?
He said, skill number one of an entrepreneur, right?
You have to sell.
And in my family, I went, oh, my God.
Because my poor dad's family,
They hated salesmen.
They hated salesmen.
No, I don't want to sell, please.
To my rich dad, please.
I can't sell.
My mom and dad hate salesmen.
You know, they think they're crooks,
their liars, a scum, and all this.
I said, she asked me for my advice.
You have to learn how to sell.
No, no.
I'm about 27 years old.
No, anything but that.
He says, Robert.
how's your sex life i said zero he says because you can't sell i said okay i'll do i'll learn how
so then the next job was to go find a job that paid me to learn how to sell and so i got down
to interviewing with two companies finally ibn and xerox and so the only thing i asked him about
wasn't the pay, I said, tell me about your sales school. So today, you can get that same,
similar sameest training in network marketing. You go to a network marketing company like Amway
or stuff like this. They have to train you to sell. And they'll coach you. If you fail,
they'll coach you. They'll fail to coach you. So I had to learn how to sell. And then the,
so that was number one. Second was, after I,
I was selling rich dad says so what's the next thing he says you have to learn how to use debt
and in my poor dad's family you know debt is trap you know it's dangerous
and rich said says you just came back from vietnam the u.s dollar is debt nixon took the
dollar off the gold standard this is 1974 so in 71 the dollar is now debt he says you've got to learn
to use debt.
And as I said before, the more debt they print,
the rich get richer, poor middle class get poorer.
So this gap between everybody is so wide today.
So I said, how do I learn how to use debt?
He says, take a class on real estate.
So I'm searching around and I found one
how to make money millions in real estate with nothing down.
You know, this is TV time before YouTube.
And so I signed up by there's nothing down course.
It was really good.
This guy was a real real estate investor.
And for three days, he taught me how to, you know, how to use debt and all this, debt financing.
And I said, okay, I did the three.
Now what do I have to do?
This was the best advice.
He says, most guys will leave this course and do nothing.
He says, your job is in the next 100 days.
is to look at 100 deals what he says you gotta get to real world so I'm now like
come out of this course for the next day I go to realtor after realtor after
realtor I said I want to look at some property I want to buy for nothing down
they'll throw me out yeah but I kept asking I kept asking kept asking
how do I find a piece of real estate I can get I have no money
and finally there's one guy still remember him he goes i have the deal for you i said really but it took
i didn't i didn't go a hundred times but i was willing to most people quit so this guy says i got
i got a deal for you it's on maui i'm like wow maui is the richest place on the you know the
most expensive island in hawai so i flew it over to maui and sure enough it was a beachfront
on the beach in Maui.
It was $18,000.
This is 1974.
So I broke out my credit card
and I put the down payment on this was 100% debt
and I made $25 a month.
After all expenses, debt and all this, I was free.
But I had to find that deal.
that deal.
Most people are so effing lazy.
They go to a financial plan.
What do you got?
They just take what they sell.
So to this day,
you can ask my assistants.
All I'm doing is looking at deals.
It's called deal flow.
Looking at this deal, this deal, this deal, this deal.
And it becomes a habit, if you know what I mean.
So you can train yourself to have the skills
and the mindset of a rich person, but you have to do the work.
Well, I think that's the key here.
You're pointing out something incredibly important.
You have to do the work.
Amen.
And I've heard that from a lot of young women.
They go, I can't find men today.
You know, they want to be TikTok dancers, or they play video games in the basement.
And they said, we can't find men.
So they can't afford to have kids.
kids, you know, buy apartments or rent and all this.
Let me run an idea by you, okay?
I have a theory that there's a few things if you teach a very young kid, right,
that will really help them in life.
And it's something, here's one example.
I'm just going to use one example because this relates to the communist manifesto, right?
So I, my background is in biology.
I was actually an evolutionary biologist in training, right?
And one of the things we never learned, okay, I literally never learned this until my 40s, okay, is where does prosperity come from?
Okay. And I think one of the biggest lies that is in the sort of the communist approach to the world is that there's the pie is fixed.
You have a pie, it's a fixed pie and the rich people take it from the poor people.
Right? That, I mean, and you, because that's kind of how it works in nature, right? As a biologist, you kind of learn, well, you know, there's limited resources and someone gets the resource, some doesn't get the resource. But with human beings, the pie expands as you get prosperity, right? And you have Adam Smith. He has, you know, division of labors. The cause, you know, there's innovation. There's all these different approaches, but I never learned this, right? And it's, I think it's very easy to convince someone of, you know,
this of the communist approach if they don't understand that prosperity is a thing right it expands
the pie i'm curious what you think about that well that's malthusian economics allocation
scares resources and the reality is we're given a brain you know this this year and this
here you said look at elon musk he's a south african comes to america comes the richest man
in the world he didn't ask for a handout he got government grants and all the
this but you can create your prosperity by creating so i i wrote this book here it was turned down
by every publisher because i said you don't know what you're talking about so i published it anyway
it sold 48 million copies so far number one book in finance today now 48 million you know i make
a buck a book a few bucks there this didn't exist until i wrote it it came out of
here. It's a true story. The same as Donald Trump. He was born a rich man. I wasn't, but we're
good friends because we think we think alike. So, you know, have you seen the picture that Trump's
putting a ballroom onto the White House and said there's a picture, there's a cartoon. There's a
White House with a Trump Tower attached to it, you know. You give him, if you let him do it, he'd probably do it.
He comes out of your head.
You create it.
You create your prosperity.
For someone that does have some wealth, you know, however it's distributed right now,
you know, it could be anywhere from all of it's in cash and fiat, as you described it,
all the way to, you know, something like it's all in gold right now.
What do you recommend people would should do in this current financial reality in terms of their
allocation of that wealth?
Well, my rich dad said that was interesting.
He said, there's a million ways to financial heaven.
In other words, find the way it works for you.
There's a billion ways to financial hell.
And most people are going to financial hell.
So rather than being told what to do, like go to a financial planner or get a job and all this stuff,
I have to find out what I was interested in.
And I like real estate.
I really do love real estate.
I own probably 1,500 rental properties.
I own commercial.
I love real estate.
Life is what you imagine.
Imagine a nation.
So there's a billion ways of financial heaven.
I love real estate.
I don't like stocks.
I don't like bonds.
I don't like paper.
I like something in sea, touch, and feel.
Like I like, I love cars, you know.
I own, I love pens and I have watches.
I'm a sea touch and field guy.
So I stay with what I like and what I'm interested in.
I just love real estate, and it provides a service.
You know, people have a place to sleep.
Unfortunately, you know, people are going homeless.
You know, Thomas Jefferson warned us America about this.
He said, if a central bank takes over,
people wind up homeless in the lands their fathers built.
And today, Jefferson's prophecy is coming true.
homelessness is exploding because every time you print money, two things go up, taxes, and inflation.
I love this idea, right? You have to find the thing you love because that's the thing that you can put
all your heart into. Well, that's what you love, it's legal ethical and moral.
Well, hopefully what you love is all those things. Well, so.
This has been a fascinating conversation for me.
Perhaps a final thought as we finish?
Well, what I love is this is a piece of real estate.
If I own this, I take care of it.
If you don't love it, you don't take care of it.
So I don't like stocks.
I don't own any IBM or Xerox or Jummel Motors or Apple.
You know, I like real estate.
I like oil.
You know, I like cattle.
I like food.
So that's what I invest in.
I just really love real estate and I love debt.
It was a guy like Dave Ramsey.
He's always saying live debt free.
Well, he said, Dave's a friend of mine, but, and most people should follow Dave's advice
because they don't think about money.
So if you're going to be like me, you have to learn how to use debt.
And that's where real estate courses.
come in. They teach you debt to equity ratios and all this stuff. You can have too much debt or not
enough debt and all this stuff. So a lot of times I'll take a property. I'll improve its value.
I'll borrow out the equity, add more debt to it. And it drives people crazy. They go,
it's 100% debt. I said, yes, when it cash flows. So the asset is, you know, because now debt holds this
place that cash i borrow the equity i borrow out i buy another piece and that's my phone there's a
million ways to heaven and a billion ways to hell by the way that you like you like and you have to
and you have to love doing that i think if you are going through the debt if you're going to go
the debt route it's kind of a bit dangerous if you don't love it and smart you have to want to study it
you know what I mean because I've I've lost a lot of money in my time I made a lot of mistakes
but I'm still playing monopoly I'm still a 10-year-old boy going and if you ever go to
Hawaii you know rich dad started he goes I said I asked me he had no money either and he said
someday I'll own that hotel you go to Waikiki beach today as the Hyatt regency
rich dad doesn't own the hotel he owns a lot
land.
You understand he knew his game.
So it's just a game.
If you like stocks, it's a game.
So all of this is fun.
Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
But every time you lose, you get smarter.
Well, Robert Kiyosaki, it's such a pleasure to have had you on.
Thank you very much.
Really, an honor.
I just, I have tremendous respect for what you guys are doing.
We're the same battle.
We're fighting communists.
I fight my financial education.
Well, thank you so very much.
Thank you.
Thank you all for joining Robert Kiyosaki and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders.
I'm your host, Janja Kellick.
