The End... Again?

Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Don McDonald

Investing, Education, Business, How To

4.5 • 810 Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Don and Tom dive headfirst into the wild world of bad financial predictions—specifically, the apocalyptic ramblings of Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki. They dissect his decades-long streak of failed forecasts, poke holes in his fear-fueled pitch for gold, silver, and Bitcoin, and remind listeners that gurus don’t predict the future—they profit from pretending they can. Listener questions cover 529 plan choices, 457(b) vs Roth IRA, the small-cap allocation in AVGE, and a plea for Don to never give up managing his own money. 0:04 Tom banned from pushing buttons—again 1:00 Why do we idolize financial “gurus” who are chronically wrong? 2:21 Enter Robert Kiyosaki: The doomsayer who keeps getting richer 3:05 Don confronts Kiyosaki over his bogus “guarantee” ad 3:53 His silver and market crash predictions: A 23-year flop fest 5:16 Latest Kiyosaki fear-pitch: Gold, silver, Bitcoin… again 6:37 His one right prediction (Bitcoin hitting $100K) 7:55 Critical reviews: Conspiracies, platitudes, and risky advice 9:22 Can Buffett, Lynch, or Bogle be called “gurus”? 10:24 Listener Q1: Fidelity 529 target date fund—too expensive? 11:26 UTANX and low-cost age-based 529 alternatives (like Utah’s plan) 14:02 Listener Q2: Roth 457(b) with high fees vs Roth IRA 16:47 Listener Q3: Does AVGE need a separate small-cap fund? 19:10 Listener Q4: Should Don stop managing his own money? 21:08 Why everyone needs a backup advisor—even advisors 22:17 Don’s voice acting love: Mighty Man Season 3 teaser 22:34 Listener Q5: AVUV vs AVGE—when and why to use each 24:20 AVGE asset breakdown—15 funds in one 26:12 Explaining the podcast schedule (Monday–Friday layout) 27:34 International listeners, Spotify vs Apple, and how to tune in Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Reality Radio for a really great future. We're talking real money. Tom is pushing buttons.
0:11.6	Quit pushing buttons. Don't touch things. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Talking Real Money
0:16.5	podcast where Tom is not allowed to touch the buttons on the screen. Should I raise my hand? No,
0:22.9	Tom, you're a host. You don't have to raise your hand. Welcome to the show. I'm Don
0:28.2	McDonald. Tom is over there. Don't touch any buttons. I think that should just be the general
0:33.5	rule for anything in my life. Anything in your life, probably. I'll blow it up you know that and you
0:38.2	know it fits kind of with the general theme of today's podcast uh because we consider ourselves
0:46.6	human beings homo sapiens we consider ourselves to be as far as we know the smartest form of life in the, as far as we know, the smartest form of life in the universe, as far as
0:58.2	we know. We're certainly, well, we consider ourselves to be the most intelligent form of life on
1:04.4	planet Earth or in our solar system, right? We're smart, right? We have big brains, right?
1:10.0	I haven't met anybody else or anything else that would
1:12.6	suggest otherwise yes i don't think we should think too highly of ourselves because because
1:18.7	we continue to do stupid stuff like pay attention to these you know I have to come up with better words.
1:31.2	I was going to say dumb bunnies who keep predicting things and people keep listening to them.
1:38.4	And gurus, can we call them gurus?
1:40.2	Gurus, gurus, but they're not gurus.
1:42.1	They're perceived gurus.
1:43.9	That's true. I mean, there are people who sell a lot of
1:46.1	bad books with terrible advice, and then they have like the most popular podcasts, and their advice
1:55.0	is absolute and utter idiocy. Their prediction track records are deplorable, and this one guy we're going to talk
2:04.7	about today may have the worst prediction track record of any of them, and yet you guys have
2:14.3	made him very wealthy by buying into his stupid predictions.
	...

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