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My problem with this book was the audience it was aimed at. I am not part of that audience.
To choose a widely understood analogy, this book was writen for the Homer Simpsons of this world. It is all about how to stop your children ending up as more Homer Simpsons and maybe work their way up to being a Ned Flanders.
For those who don't know about the Simpsons, Homer is a fat, beer swilling, uneducated slob who somehow manages to hold down a decent (if boring) job but blows all his money on stupid schemes and wild purchases, not to mention beer. Ned Flanders, his next door neighbour, is much more careful with his money and hence ends up with a lot more, which drives Homer into fits of jealousy.
This audience is the usual target of all those money and finance books you see at local bookstores, not to mention the magazines and TV shows. I guess the authors figure there are more Homers out there than Neds.
This is all very well if you are a Homer Simpson, but if you are already a Ned Flanders, not to mention a Doctor Hibbert (well paid, already make good investments and want to do better) and you want to become a Monty Burns (Billionaire) then these books will do you no good at all.
In fact, because of the very slow, repetitive way they make points, designed to gradually hammer a couple of simple ideas into the beer sodden and/or cannibis clogged brains of their target audience, these books are painfully dull.
In fact, the author's blithe assumptions about the reader's inability to own a credit card without ending up in debt, or total lack of self control when it comes to saving money, will probably strike the Dr Hibbert or Ned Flanders reader as insulting.
I will acknowledge one other target group. That of teenagers. Even a bright teenager will probably find a lot of this information new and interesting, and so one of the better books (for example Noel Whittaker's Making Money Made Simple) would probably be a good choice for an 18th Birthday present.
Even so the Rich Kid, Stupid Dad books would not be my choice. His constant drifting off into vaguely relevent stories of how his two "dads" educated him and his total lack of any real information (rather than airyfairy philosophy of being rich) would drive any clever teenager to totally reject the whole field of money management as being meaningless and boring.
If you really want to know about money management...well I have yet to find something that is really aimed at people like me. A Random Walk Down Wallstreet gives a good overview of the stockmarket, while there are others that give a reasonable look at all the available investment options in the Australian environment, (or where-ever) provinding you work out the particular assumptions the author has made about the audience, but frankly I think I could write a better introductory book myself.
Actually, that gives me an idea....
Though I should really make my first million first, so as to have some credibility in the field. Something many of these authors have neglected to do.
And I am not alone in my criticism of this book, as this and this will demonstrate.
If you know any real Homer Simpsons who need a clue: Rich Kid, Smart Kid
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