RE: "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George Clason (Book Review)
I read this book within the last year, too. Your mom has good book recommendations!
I also didn't like a lot of things about this book... but the good things in it make it worth reading.
On the criticisms I have. I also dislike the language style, not because it's old, but because it's from an author from the mid-twentieth century trying to make it seem like ancient wisdom by using language that hints at King James English in some places and like Greek history in other places. He's taking modern "American Dream" values and putting them in the story context of "ancient Babylon". Also, Babylon isn't a good source of wisdom. I think he just chose that because it's "old" and some people there may have been prosperous long ago, but the wisdom of the book doesn't actually come from Babylon, it's "good 'ol American values", right down to home ownership.
That said, there is a lot of wisdom in this book. I tried to implement it, but I had (and still have) too much of a percentage of my income going to pay off debt for the math to work out. The book recommends negotiating with lenders to reduce the monthly payments down to 20% of monthly income. There's just no way that I could do that. At one point this year, I was paying out over 50% of my monthly income to debt payments (bad business decisions on my part, not consumer debt). I'm still over 20% of my income going to debt payments, but it will soon be below that and then the math that's suggested in this book will actually start to work for me. This book helped me figure out what was going on and what needed to be done.
I also think that the examples of buying and selling and participating in the market that are still very applicable today. Instead of thinking of investments as "shares" that you can own in someone else's enterprise, think of what you can buy and sell for a profit. The warning in the book is that you should actually know about that part of the market, have some experience in it, or have the wise counsel of someone who does. Those are all very solid points and still work well today.
Glad you read this book and thanks for sharing your thoughts on it!
The language style did seem a little try hard at times. I didn't look too much into the author tbh, but what your saying makes a lot of sense as to why there was a disconnect. I also don't know too much about babylon lol. I just said what I said in the description above cause I had to go to work and didn't know what else to put hahaha.
I did find his home ownership point a bit weak. Makes sense in the context of "good ole American values." I obviously see the value of home ownership in terms of security for one's family, but I am not so positive about homeownership in terms of building wealth (but of course, im not wealthy, so i also am probably not a very reliable source on this point lol).
that was actually one of the best takeaways, the part about knowing how to buy and sell for a profit. I have a friend who is starting a VC fund with funding from one of his business partners parents, and I am a bit dubious cause I feel, how are you going to invest at seed level in businesses and companies, if not one of the partners has ever built a successful business. But i hope it works out for him! thank you for your thoughtful comment. they truly make my day!