My rich dad’s podcast

One of the best resources for financial podcasts is StreetIQ.com, which has an excellent selection of podcasts from well-known market commentators. For example, each week Chuck Jaffe of MarketWatch.com uncovers the 'œstupid investment of the week' while Molly Wood and Tom Merritt of CNET offer their take on what's happening in tech news this week. The newest podcast on the site is from Robert Kiyosaki, best-selling author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, who explains why the rich are getting richer, while the poor and middle class are falling further behind.

While the three-minute podcast is really more of an 'œaudio marketing clip' for a full suite of 'œRich Dad' products, it's a great introduction to the ideas that informed Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Quite simply, adhering to the typical middle class notions of investing for the long term, saving money, working hard, getting out of debt, diversifying, getting a good job, and setting up a 401(K) are all reasons why the typical person will never become wealthy. Robert Kiyosaki puts it bluntly, 'œSavers are losers.' According to Kiyosaki, mutual funds and 401(K)'s are 'œamong the riskiest of all investments.' It's far better to be an active investor if you ever hope to become wealthy, says Kiyosaki.

It's a controversial notion for some, to be sure. But as Kiyosaki points out on the Rich Dad Website, it's the entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and the active investors like Donald Trump that become super-wealthy, not the passive middle-class investors sitting on a nice nest egg that can be obliterated by a single five-year stretch of under-performance. For example, according to Kiyosaki, many 401(K) investors have never recovered from the dot-com market slump that started in 2000.