Sam Danielson

Are you kidding? I think I'll take the lazy way out on this one. If anyone thinks this is a good book and wants to defend it then please do. I already wasted enough time reading it. It's full of 6th grade math and anecdotal explanation so please leave that stuff alone. There may be some good information buried in there but it's hard for an inexperienced guy like me to pick it out.

A more interesting topic for discussion would be how books like this became so popular. By like this I mean books about how to become rich. I'll never forget a 'job opportunity' (sort of like an interview) I was invited to in high school. A bunch of loudmouths in suits presented a slideshow of folks living the good life, sipping cocktails, driving fast cars, dating hot women, talking on cell phones (it was 1994). It was the basic pyramid scheme and I had to beat the living crap out of my friend to keep him from signing up. There's a sick beauty to it all; poor, desperate guys attempting to look rich in order to hopefully get rich. Like the vacuum in the center of a whirlwind it just keeps sucking round and round, a self-perpetuating lie.

This book is a far cry from anything that empty but I sense the same enthusiasm for 'financial independence', whatever that is.