DR is successful because so many Americans are fiscally ignorant and\or irresponsible, not because he has compelling strategies for educated and responsible risk-takers. RK is more in line with the latter type of person.
DR's 7 step process is focused on the simplest way to improve someone's mental health. Really, it is a mental health program, not a wealth-building program. Money problems can tear families apart and drive normally good people to do bad things. There is a place for DR and I'm appreciative that he has helped so many relieve stress and gain confidence. I'm positive that DR has helped improve society and proactively prevented crime. However, this is all predicated on a W2 job and he never explains the risks and opportunity costs associated with income coming exclusively from W2. As someone who has recently "seen the light" I firmly believe that it is a greater risk to the experience one will have in life to NOT leverage debt responsibly.
From a wealth-building standpoint, by the time someone gets to Step 7, their investor friends have already increased their net worth and have many of their expenses paid by tax-exempt assets. This is not anecdotal, I'm comparing myself with my buddy who is a huge DR fan and won't invest a thing until his primary residence is paid off in another 5 years. Meanwhile, I just started investing and have three rental homes under my belt in which the cashflow pays for the mortgage on my primary residence plus added $200K in net worth. In 5 years, I expect to have all my expenses paid for by passive assets and my W2 job will be pure "profit", while my buddy will have just eliminated a single expense by paying off his house. We make similar household income and have similar expenses.
No matter how much I tell my friend that he is losing millions of dollars and doesn't even know it by putting so much money in tax-deferred programs and keeping cash in savings accounts, the DR way just feels better to him. I point out the low average return of the stock market compared to real estate, how he is bleeding money with fees from people he doesn't even know or have control over, that we have historically low taxes now and 20 years from now taxes will most likely be much more, why he plans on being poor at retirement to take advantage of 401K, that not being able to leverage his savings for 20 years creates massive opportunity costs because of the time value of money, that inflation will skyrocket due to this crisis and real estate mitigates inflation because property price and rents rise like all goods and 30 year debt becomes cheaper and cheaper every year. These are all principles that DR doesn't explain because they are complicated and his audience needs a simple path.
