All Forum Posts by: David C.

@Bryan L. said:

"My father learned a skill in the Army, but his best advice to me when I was young was to "go off to state college and get that engineering degree so you can get a good j.o.b.". He didn't even know to insert the periods. Anyway, the economy has changed so much since then. At the time he was giving that advice, it was pretty good advice. But not now. And, unfortunately, our state colleges also prepare students for "high paying j.o.bs like engineering"."

You see - my problem is - I still believe that's great advice. I don't think engineering students should be taught entrepreneurship - I think the idea you can teach it is a bunch of bunk. I think a high paying job like engineering is the 'most likely path to wealth for most people'. Now - its still not very likely - because most people enjoy doodads and don't pursue wealth. But - I still think, for most people, a college education and a 401k are the most likely ways for them to have a good solid life. It gives them the option of investing, even quitting for a while in their 30's to chase their dream of being a landlord, but if they have a strong marketable skill - they will be operating from a position of power.

The economy has NOT changed that much - if you look at the data, the unemployment rate during the great recession was rarely over 5% for the college educated, while it was well over 10% for those without college.

@Duncan Taylor - I've had jobs I didn't like. I took pride in doing them well. Following your passion is bad advice for most people, as their passion will be art, or music or some such nonsense with very low probability of ever having any kind of financial security. Passion is best relegated to your hobbies if its not a lucrative passion.

As for the tomatoes, like whichever ones you like, but if you start saying one of the best books ever written said you should eat them green and covered in arsenic and anyone who eats a red-one is a stupid sheep, I'm going to call you on it and beg you to not recommend that book.

I believe RDPD is BAD ADVICE that HURTS PEOPLE - it tells people that the stock market is a zero sum game and that they should not invest in mutual funds or their company 401k.

Pushing the masses toward 'go in business for yourself' and 'go buy rental houses' is bad advice. Most people don't have the drive or the skills to succeed in those areas. Instead this book turns them away from a reliable proven path to a better life: using your company 401k to a life of chasing the dream where they blow their money on gurus, they buy loser houses from charlatans or take your duds off your hands. They scrounge together downpayments, then can't finish the projects. They overpay at auctions, they overpay for properties. You all profit from their mistakes, buying them out later when they have collapsed.

Every one of you who recommends this book is hurting a family somewhere. If you recommended a book that was not full of anti-stock nonsense and tax-cheating, and disrespect for honest work, you might be helping some.

@Bryan L. and @Dell Schlabach

I agree most people should be able to read a book and pull the good and leave the bad behind.

My problem is how much credit this terrible book is given by so many people, and that it is a 'top recommended book' and all that.

Its a terrible book that anyone with any kind of financial education will cringe when they read it. The fact that so many people had basically no clue about money at all is what's really sad, you all read this horrible book - and it was the first time you got the concept of 'saving money gives you power and freedom' or 'money is a tool' ?

I'd much prefer if The Millionaire Next Door was the top recommended book - its written by a statistician and is backed up by real data. It does not put forth piles of fallacies, straw men, etc... to make points that are of dubious truth, it is not full of anecdotal stories that were modified to make a point.

But I don't get to choose, and its not just a problem here - the problem is that in real life, there are many of you who started with absolutely zero clue, and the RK enthusiasts are at least out there running around talking about money and encouraging people to read this terrible book - and it does get out the message that money is powerful and you get that power by investing, not spending.

I'd love to hear from some of you who recommend this book: what did you learn from it, and then find that in the book and cite a passage that really taught you something.

@Ali Boone what did you learn?

@Justin B. what did you learn?

@Will Barnard you learned about operating in the right part of the cash flow quadrant? was it truly a novel idea to you when you read the book that you won't get rich by buying more cable channels? I know I'm being an azz here, and I guess maybe I'll get moderated out of here - but it drives me crazy. You are clearly a smart, driven, highly successful person. Before you read RDPD did you really think that fancier car leases was how you would get rich? What did you learn? Did people really NOT KNOW that living in a bigger/fancier house costs more money? they really thought that buying a bigger fancier house was how you MADE money?

@Account Closed His takeaway was:

Spend your money wisely. If you get a paycheck, don't spend it all on wants, save some and invest.

Really? nobody ever told you that? This is a 'great book' and a 'top recommendation' because it provides that gem of absolutely basic common sense? Did you not have parents? I think I learned that from winnie the pooh. My 9 year old knows this - he was told to learn it from cub scouts and I taught him that. I did not taught him to hate work, or to expense rolexes like RK says I would be teaching my kids.

I'm sorry - it infuriates me that this pathalogical liar is held up as 'helpful' and given credit by so many of you, and you continue to spread his thought cancer by recommending his books.

I absolutely can't believe how many followers RK has.

That so many people I respect on here seem to have gained so much from him really tells me that financial education is so horrible in this country that RK's terrible book being popular is still a good thing for so many people.

I don't see how anyone can respect him when he clearly recommends cheating on your taxes - he says to expense a Rolex, right? He lost me right there, its indefensible and shows terrible character. I don't care that he was your first cheerleader and nobody ever taught you anything about money, find another inspiration and leave RK in the loser pile.

I read the book, it was terrible and made me angry, he is dismissive of hard work and is dishonest and advocates dishonesty.

I think some of you who took this book as inspiration and then bettered yourself, should go back an re-read it now that you have educated yourself and done business and become successful. I doubt you are living has he advocates or that you would even give him the time of day if he showed up in your life espousing his beliefs.

I think I just puked in my mouth a little bit.

Regarding filling it in - do some searches on here - I recall a thread talking about lots of different regulations about what you must do with an old pool, just filling it with dirt is not OK in may areas.

Well it got up to a steamy 24 degrees today and the dishwasher worked again. So I seem to consistently have 0 degrees = no draining, once it get warms It drains again. I guess we'll run it during the day when its crazy cold, and try to get back there and insulate it some day.

sink works fine, no freezing, those pipes are in the same wall. But they are real pipes, the drain form the dishwasher to the garbage disposal is a very flimsy looking plastic tube, so I thought that might freeze more easily then the copper that feeds my sink.

Good question though. We do use that kitchen sink a lot though, while the water in the 'trap' in the line from the dishwasher sits still all day and night, until its once daily 'drain' duty is called on.

@Sean Kuhn

it does go through the side of the cabinet - but its far in the back of the cabinet, very close to the outside wall.

If it was the solenoid, would it be intermittent? in between occurrences it worked perfectly for about 2 weeks.

Thank you for your response. The guy didn't charge us, so I'll just keep calling GE.

OK, we had our kitchen redone in our primary residence this spring.

a few weeks ago when we got the first 'polar vortex' our dishwasher failed to drain overnight. Since it was still under the 1 year warranty, we had the GE guy come out to look. He got here Thursday, the polar vortex was gone, and it looked fine to him and drained fine. He said: the drain line must have frozen.

Well a couple days ago it happened again, again it was zero degrees. The dishwasher is on an 'outside wall' and its the wall the gets slammed with wind when we have storms.

We never had this problem with our old dishwasher which was in the same location.

Is the drain line freezing a good explanation for this?

Would you uninstall the dishwasher and try to add insulation behind it, or route the drain line differently?

We attempted running a space heater under the sink(next to the dishswasher, where the drain line arrives to feed the water into the garbage disposal, but even after a few hours of that, we ran the dishwasher and it failed to drain?

@Chris Clothier if I were to go 'turnkey' - part of turnkey means to me that I'd be outsourcing the DD on the property to you.

Its like when I send money to Vanguard. I don't dig into each fund's holdings, I my confidence is in Vanguard, not in each company they invest in.

Of course, this comes back around to: what is turnkey? Is it a tool for a confident experienced RE investor to diversify geographically? or is it a tool for a non-RE investor like me to outsource all the RE ugliness, and get some of the return, and the tax benefits, while sharing some of the return with you, as compensation for your expertise and work dealing with the property.