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What a great thread! Almost sounds like a rational discourse between Socrates and Aristotle in the agora:-)

Anyway, I discovered John Reed in 1998 or so and read his "guru bashing" then. I emailed him to refute some of his points about one real estate "guru" I knew personally (and whose system helped me make a lot of money as a rank beginner).

He actually replied to me (no doubt because he attended West Point and I attended Annapolis, so I got a grudging respect:-)). His answer was rational, cautionary and not at all mean spirited. So, I do believe he has knowledge (never bought his books, so can't say for sure) and enjoys selective sniping - like O'Reilly on the "O'Reilly Factor" - bombast and hyperbole.

Re Robert Kiyosaki - I agree with the general opinion of take what you can use and move on. Like Dien, his first couple of books caused me to relook at my ideas of wealth. The rest have not (to me) been worth buying after scanning them at the bookstore.

I played his Cashflow 101 game and found it to be fairly basic (not that I'm a financial genius). ALL of the players got out of the "rat race" fairly quickly, and the host was pretty disappointed that he'd shelled out $100+ for the game.

Anyway, great thread and a model for airing differing opinions in a civilized, thoughtful way!

Bob