Rich Dad Poor Dad Auf Deutsch
Lakia Limthong
Although Germany is one of the richest countries in the world, signs of increasing poverty are becoming increasingly visible across the country. Homeless people sleeping rough, mothers forgoing meals in order to feed their children, and pensioners looking for discarded bottles to trade for the deposit.
According to the Parittische Wohlfahrtsverband, Germany's umbrella organization for welfare organizations, 13.8 million Germans either live in poverty or are at risk of slipping below the poverty line. The German government also voices its concerns about the growing gap between rich and poor.
The term poverty in this context does not mean that millions of people in Germany are at risk of starving or freezing to death. Instead, it refers to relative poverty, which is measured by the average living conditions of the society in question.
In Europe, although relatively few people live in absolute poverty, millions are affected by poverty relative to the national average. This means they live with severe material restrictions, and can only make ends meet by restricting their lifestyles in a way that the majority of the population takes for granted.
In the EU, a person is considered to be at risk of poverty or poor if their income is less than 60% of the median in their respective country. If it is less than 50%, it is considered extreme poverty.
As inflation skyrockets in Germany, more and more people will find themselves unable to make ends meet without assistance. It is becoming increasingly difficult for many to afford bread, milk, fruit, and vegetables, which are over 12% more expensive than they were a year ago. In 2020, around 1.1 million people made use of food banks. That number is now closer to 2 million.
Poverty is also on the rise amongst the elderly. Even after decades of work, a monthly pension is often not enough to cover all expenses. Women in particular are feeling the strain, as they are more likely to have worked part-time and been paid less. According to a new study from the Bertelsmann Foundation, old-age poverty is expected to affect 20% of Germans by 2036.
People with pension payments below a certain threshold are allowed to claim government assistance. However, many shy away from doing so out of a reluctance to be seen as needy. Studies show that two-thirds of those entitled to claim benefits are ashamed to do so. Older people often prefer to try to work longer, or collect cans and bottles with a refundable deposit from rubbish bins, in order to put a few more euros in their wallets.
Rich Dad Poor Dad is a 1997 book written by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter. It advocates the importance of financial literacy (financial education), financial independence and building wealth through investing in assets, real estate investing, starting and owning businesses, as well as increasing one's financial intelligence (financial IQ).
Rich Dad Poor Dad is written in the style of a set of parables based on Kiyosaki's life.[1] The titular "rich dad" is his best friend's father who accumulated wealth due to entrepreneurship and savvy investing, while the "poor dad" is claimed to be Kiyosaki's own father who he says worked hard all his life but never obtained financial security.
The story begins with the author as a young boy, observing the contrasting financial mindsets and behaviors of his two dads. His poor dad, who held a high position in education, emphasized the importance of academic success, job security, and living within one's means. On the other hand, his rich dad, a successful entrepreneur, believed in building assets, investing wisely, and acquiring financial knowledge. It describes how rich dad teaches the author and his friend finances by using actual life situations.
Throughout the book, Kiyosaki shares anecdotes and conversations that he had with his rich dad, who guided him on various aspects of money, wealth creation, and financial independence. He learns valuable lessons about the difference between assets and liabilities, the power of financial education, and the importance of taking calculated risks. Kiyosaki emphasizes the significance of acquiring assets that generate income, such as real estate and businesses, as opposed to liabilities that drain money, such as excessive consumer debt and unnecessary expenses. He introduces concepts like the cash flow quadrant, which categorizes individuals as employees, self-employed, business owners, or investors, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of each quadrant.
The book also delves into the mindset and beliefs around money, discussing the importance of developing a positive relationship with wealth and overcoming limiting beliefs. Kiyosaki stresses the need for financial literacy and encourages readers to take control of their financial destinies by seeking out opportunities, learning from mistakes, and continuously educating themselves about money. This book was not only to help create ideas on how to become wealthier, but to motivate people to work for themselves and not for others.[3]
A competing financial self-help writer, John T. Reed, says, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad contains a large amount wrong advice, much bad advice, and virtually no good advice." He also states, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad is one of the dumbest financial advice books I have ever read. It contains many factual errors and numerous extremely unlikely accounts of events that supposedly occurred."[12]
Slate reviewer Rob Walker called the book full of nonsense, and said that Kiyosaki's claims were often vague, the narrative "fablelike", and that much of the book was "self-help boilerplate", noting the predictable common features of such books were present in Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He also criticizes Kiyosaki's conclusions about Americans, American culture, and Kiyosaki's methods.[1]
The book was normally self-published in 1997 before being picked up commercially to become a New York Times bestseller. It has since sold over 32 million copies and become a household name.[13] In his audio-book Choose to be Rich, Kiyosaki said that every publisher turned him down, and Barnes & Noble refused to stock the book initially. He places his focus upon talk shows and radio show appearances, of which The Oprah Winfrey Show had the biggest influence on book sales.[14] In April 2017 a 20th Anniversary edition was published and in a preface to this 20th Anniversary edition Kiyosaki asserts that an estimated 40 million copies of the book had been sold globally.[15]
Rarely have statistics been misused so much for political purposes as when recently the ECB published the results of a survey of household wealth in the Eurozone countries (2013a).1 From this survey it appeared that the median German household had the lowest wealth of all Eurozone countries. Figure 1 summarises the main results for the most significant Eurozone countries.
From Figure 1 it appears that not only the median German household has the lowest wealth, but also that the differences within the Eurozone are enormous. The median households in countries like Belgium, Spain and Italy appear to be three to four times wealthier than the median German household. Even the median Greek household is twice as wealthy as the German one.
The publication of these numbers by the ECB quickly led many observers to conclude that it is unacceptable that the poor Germans have to pay for the rescue of the much richer Greeks, Spaniards and Portuguese (see, e.g., Wall Street Journal 2013, Financial Times 2013, Frankfurter Allgemeine 2013).
A comparison of the median and mean wealth reveals something about the distribution of wealth in each country. If the largest difference is between the mean and the median, the greater is the inequality in the distribution of wealth. It now appears that the difference is highest in Germany. We show this by presenting the ratios of the mean to the median for the different countries in Figure 3. In Germany the mean household wealth is almost four times larger than the median. In most other countries this ratio is between 1.5 and 2. Thus household wealth in Germany is concentrated in the richest households more so than in the other Eurozone countries. Put differently, there is a lot of household wealth in Germany but this is to be found mostly in the top of the wealth distribution.
The inequality of the distribution of household wealth is made even more vivid by comparing the wealth owned by the median household in the top 20% of the income class to the wealth owned by the median household in the bottom 20% of the income class. This is shown in Figure 4 (corrected from an earlier version). We find that in Germany the median household in the top 20% of the income class has 74 times more wealth than the median household in the bottom 20% of the income class. Judged by this criterion Germany has the most unequal distribution of wealth in the Eurozone.
We used available information on the capital stocks in OECD countries and updated this to 2012 (see Appendix for more information). We then computed the net capital stock per capita in the member countries of the Eurozone. We use two definitions. The first one is the domestic capital stock per capita (Figure 5). The second one is the sum of the domestic capital stock and the net international investment position vis--vis the rest of the world. We call this the total capital stock per capita (figure 6). We find strikingly different results when compared with the household wealth figures.2
The most important difference is that the northern Eurozone countries are the wealthiest countries in the Eurozone. This conclusion can be made by looking at the domestic and the total capital stock numbers (Figures 5 and 6). When concentrating on the total capital stock (Figure 6), it appears that Germany belongs to the top two countries in terms of per capita wealth. In contrast the southern European countries have the lowest wealth. Wealth per capita is more than twice as high in northern European countries than in southern countries such as Greece and Portugal.
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