Reviews for How Come That Idiot's Rich and I'm Not?

The average rating for How Come That Idiot's Rich and I'm Not? based on 2 reviews is 1 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-07-13 00:00:00 Thomas Richter I'll bet this book makes a great seminar. Shermin is a speaker who goes around teaching people these concepts for a living, and that's how this book reads. For a seminar, it's pretty good: dynamic, not too detailed, and filled with SHARPs (a Decker acronym that stands for "Stories, Humor, Analogies, References and Quotations"). But the problem is this isn't a seminar. It's a book. And books are held to a different standard. Before I talk about what I did and didn't like about the content, let me go over the presentation. Books, unlike seminars, should contain details. If you say, "An article in the New York Times said x," well then, you should say somewhere in the book where the NYT said that. What was the name of the article? The date it was published? Its author? This is the first non-fiction book I've read that didn't include a "Notes" or "Bibliography" section. On top of not adequately referencing his sources, Shermin throws around statistics that he doesn't provide any background for at all (like his chart that shows how normal people spend their money versus rich idiots). I have an economics background, and this is plain unacceptable. If you're going to make an assertion, you have to be able to back it up. This is something other business books (like anything by Jim Collins) do very well, and that eases my skeptical mind. Oh, and the quotations. If you're going to quote someone, don't just take pretty quotations and insert them into your book. This might work for seminars, but it doesn't work for books. A quotation needs context otherwise it's just trite. I realize, though, that this isn't a problem for everyone. This could be fairly unique to me. Maybe I'm the outlier who gets bothered by these things. So let's talk about the content. These are Shermin's laws to go from being a RUB (right side up and broke) to a rich idiot: 1. Everything you know is wrong, but Shermin's going to tell you what's right 2. The universe abides by spiritual laws, and you must follow them to be rich 3. Have just one goal (to become a rich idiot) 4. Live like you're rich today even if you're not 5. Don't be afraid to rely on others 6. Get the right assets 7. Get into the right kind of debt 8. Go into real estate 9. Invest in stocks 10. Start your own business 11. Act Some of these are obviously not bad advice. Relying on others, having confidence in yourself, setting a goal: these are all good things to do. Others are ridiculous. This review is already kind of long, so I'm just going to focus on the one that bugged me the most: the spiritual laws. Ohh, the spiritual laws. (Shermin did include a disclaimer that said people like me shouldn't read that chapter. This, unfortunately, really piqued my curiosity, and I just had to check it out. Like I said, this was unfortunate.) Back to what I was saying earlier in this review, Shermin states, "Many Rich Idiots know with certainty that these spiritual laws govern their wealth." Saying it doesn't make it true; I'm going to need a bit more than that. But anyway. The two laws of spiritual wealth according to Shermin are: (1) accept the help others offer, and (2) if you give money away, the universe will pay you back. I'm fine with the first one; after all, there's nothing wrong with accepting help when you need it and relying on others. It's the second one. Shermin goes on to list all these examples of people who gave to charity or friends and then the universe swiftly "repaid" them with even more money. First of all, we all know that good things don't necessarily happen to good people. There's some confirmation bias going on here. Second of all, um, post hoc ergo propter hoc. Just because you donated money to a friend's charity doesn't mean the check you received in the mail the next day from a guy you had forgotten owed you money came because of the donation. This section is for people who like The Secret. I am obviously not one of them. And because this is already too long, here, in highlighted form, are my other problems with the book: 1. Despite his assertions to the contrary, it definitely feels as though he has something against education 2. This book was written in 2008. This was a pre-recession world. I worked in leasing during this time and, oh, have things changed. For one, the credit markets have tightened. Although interest rates have lowered, it is much, much more difficult to get loans today even with good credit. A good chunk of this book relies on using other people's money. Well, you're going to need to rely on friends because it'll be pretty hard to rely on banks. Shermin couldn't have foreseen this, so this isn't really his fault. I'm just pointing out that some of the tips in this book don't stand the test of time, and it hasn't even been five years. 3. Although he says relationships are important, one of his tips is to ditch friends who make the same amount of money as you in your RUB state. He says, "People around us influence the level of wealth we attain." (The same logical fallacy again!) Maybe this book just wasn't for me. Different things work for different people. This method worked for Shermin, and I'm sure there are those who benefited from his tips. I received my copy of this book through 12 Books.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-12-05 00:00:00 Jose Cordoba For someone like me who hardly knows shambles about investment, the money market, wall street or something Chinese sounding like equity funds, commodities or shares; I was under the fallacy that Robert Shemin's "How come THAT idiot'0s rich and I'm Not?" book would be the required dosage of Nirvana for my financial soul. However, it was not the case. Having to torture myself with a long drawn out boring program filled with the obnoxiously placed "spiritual laws of money" to the foolhardy mind bending laws of "attracting wealth to myself', to the even greater stinking assumption by the author that the readers of this nonsensical phlegm would be impressed with his terminologies like RUB (Rightside Up and Broke), OPI (other people's ideas), OPT (other people's time), OPE (other people's experience); to over-selling, over-boring and over-gagging his readers with over-marketing the over-failed multi-level marketing concept; to boring the socks off my legs and giving me a splitting headache by selling his own brand of "himself" to me countless number of times; I would for the life of me wonder why this is guy honestly is such an idiot! Let us review this tragic waste of space, time, ink and paper. The Rich Idiot mindset. He claims that everything that you've ever learned about money is wrong and you need to completely change your mindset regarding wealth accumulation. How? By listening to him In truth he doesn't tell you anything that is new or that isn't covered in most other personal finance books. He doesn't have innovative and new ideas, he simply repackages what is already out there, changes the names of a few financial principles, and calls it the Rich Idiot way. A Robert Shemin here and a Robert Shemin there, Here a Robert, there a Robert, Every where a Robert He repeatedly tortures the listener on multi-level marketing, keeps bugging you to go to his website so that you can sign up and receive some 'benefits. Time management - The Shemin way. Like every other moron I have listened to, they will once again tell you this How they work less, earn more and have plenty of time on their hands to do the things they love. This doesn't make any sense. Have you ever met any successful person who does not work? This misguided concept is being advertized and marketed so aggressively that it has lost its charm. He also advocates investing in the real estate business, having property manager work like a dog for you and have everyone else work harder for you. This is all great - but only in theory. Education is Hogwash - The Shemin belief. Though he does not say it directly, he keeps indirectly demeaning the very foundation on which his nuts and bolts were put into place (something didn't sound very right there). I mean what are you trying to say? That being educated is the fastest way to fail? In as much as it sounds great that one needs to study only what he is going to specialize in, I think the author needs to know that we don't like on planet Pantooni. Gratitude, Giving & Good Garbage Shemin talks about giving back a percentage of your available cash to charity. This I believe is a personal choice and by no means a scientifically proven system to generate more cash. So where he is trying to get into our good books as a nice guy, I think he is trying too hard to make himself believe the same truth. Goals . Get ready to give the bugger a slap. He tells you to throw away all of your goals because you only need one goal. That goal, of course, is to become a Rich Idiot. How do you accomplish that? Simple. Set goals and accomplishing them, of course! Action . Here are a few of his "Rich Idiot" action steps... - Forgive others, forgive yourself. - Write yourself a wealth check - Live rich today - Set only one powerful success goal-and make it a big one. - Play while your money goes to work. - Stop building someone else's business and start building your own. - Live and think like a millionaire while you're becoming one. - Use the power and "smarts" of other Rich Idiots to help you join the Rich Idiot Club. - If you rent buy your first house, if you own a house buy your next one - Write your simple business plan - Make a blessing list and say thank you for each one So in a sad conclusion of me having wasted my money making this idiot rich, let me summarize. Like so many others in the same genre, here is once again another "How to get rich book" from a so called expert. Most of the advice is half baked and full of BS and though the author tries his best to sound intelligent, he fails terribly, horribly and miserably to impress anyone but himself. So what do I recommend? Don't buy this book from this idiot. Overall Rating 0 out of 10 Loy Machedo loymachedo.com