Thursday, May 22, 2014

Mandatory Graduation Gifts

Graduation is coming up.  You or a loved one is about to finish the 13 years of prison hell called "public school" and will shortly be on their way to the real world.  However, unlike K-12 the real world will not be pampering, it will not be cushioned, and it will certainly not be free.  Matter of fact it will be outright dangerous.

There are people out there who are eager and waiting to take advantage of you or your loved one.  Once you/they leave their parent's home, you will have credit card companies, not to mention the trillion-dollar-per-year education industry salivating over the prospect of young, naive 18 year olds ill-prepared and ill-educated by the public school systems, to be foolish enough to part with their money.  Worse, most 18 year olds technically don't even have money to part with, and will likely go into 6 figure debt to "follow their dreams," making it a near-guarantee their financial futures will be ruined, and thus their lives, ruined.

Do not ruin your life.  Get two ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY BOOKS for yourself or your soon-to-be graduate.

Worthless

and

Bachelor Pad Economics.

Between the two Worthless is an absolute must for every high school graduate or prospective college student.  It is short, it is cheap, and it is even in audio book format for easy consumption.  If there is a graduation gift to get it is Worthless.  It is the tough fatherly love adroitly and diplomatically delivered in book form about the real world realities of education, the labor market, and how to achieve financial success that you were too afraid to tell your children or read for yourself.

Bachelor Pad Economics is a close second in that it goes beyond the immediate need for wisdom regarding choosing a major, and provides a financial road map for all young people, guiding them from the age of 14 to death in all of life's major and minor financial decisions.

These two books alone, if read by every 17 year old before they graduated from high school, would ensure there would never be any financial problems ever again.  It is the financial and economic education everybody keeps regretting they don't have, and desperately wished they had 10, 20, 30 even 40 years ago.

However, while for some of us it may be too late, that doesn't mean we don't owe it to our youth to do what we can to make their lives better.  Yes, I do get a commission on every sale of the book.  Yes, I am primarily doing this to enrich myself.  But a close second is the good these books will do for young people (even middle aged people) across the country.

Ergo, I humbly ask that if you are looking to buy a graduation gift for an upcoming graduate that you consider these two books or refer them to a friend or a loved one.

2 comments:

Kristophr said...

Worthless should be a Junior High School grad gift.

That silly 14 year old needs to know what he wants to do with his life right then.

What he does in HS will determine if he can proceed with his goal.

Anonymous said...

The real world is more pampered and cushioned that the living nightmare of K12 education in the sense that if you earn enough money you can buy a cushion.

K12 on its best day is a wobbly ceramic seat designed for someone with a different body shape. My worst day of work is 1000x better than my best day at school.