Page 159 - Rich Dad's Increase Your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with Your Money

A few days later a friend and I flew north, just behind enemy lines,
hoping to buy some gold. Our opinion was the Vietnamese gold miners

would be desperate to sell to us their gold since the NVA had just overrun
their village. Our opinion was the miners would jump at the opportunity to
take our U.S. dollars. Our opinion was we would be in a good position to
buy gold at a discount. Because of our opinion, based upon a few facts, we

were willing to break a few rules and risk our lives just to make a few
dollars.
Instead of making a killing, I was nearly killed. Instead of buying gold at
a discount, I learned a valuable lesson about gold and currencies. That day I

found out that the price of gold really was the same price all over the world.
On that day, the price was about $82 an ounce. I found out that regardless of
whether I was buying gold in U.S. territory or NVA territory, its price was
the same.

Standing behind enemy lines, hoping to buy gold at a lower price, is a
perfect example of becoming smart by being stupid. I was getting an MBA
in international finance by standing in front of the bamboo-hut sales office
for the mine, arguing with a red-toothed old woman, stained from chewing

betel nuts. Although I did not ask, I sincerely doubt if this woman was a
Harvard graduate. I doubt if she had any formal education at all, but she
was a great teacher. Even though she did not seem to be well-educated, or
dressed for success, she knew her stuff when it came to the value and price

of gold. She was financially intelligent and tough as nails. She was not
going to let a couple of young American pilots sweet-talk her out of her
gold with rapidly declining U.S. dollars.
To this day, I vividly remember standing in front of her, arguing for a $5

discount. I was willing to pay $77, not the world price of $82. Instead of
taking our money, she just kept shaking her head and chewing on her betel
nuts. She knew the price. She knew the local and geopolitical economic
forces in the world. She was informed, she was tuned in, she was cool, and

she was in no hurry to sell her gold. She knew the trend was on her side and
not on ours, and that there were people far more desperate for her gold than
two pilots trying to make a few bucks.
Once it dawned on me that she was not going to budge, I said silently to

myself, “I’m dead. Today I am going to die, standing behind enemy lines,
asking for a $5 discount. No one will find us. No one will ever know what