Almost everything you say here is true, except...

Back in the 1980's Dave Del Dotto and similar authors started writing books on how to profit from Real Estate. I actually coughed up the scratch and tried it.

I bought several houses with no money down, and even took checks at closing for no less than $17,000 - on every house I ever purchased. In 2008 I owned a 4 bedroom house on ten acres, that I paid off in full in less than three years.

Dodd-Frank and the housing crisis ended all that, and none of it changed the fact that my ex wife decided that house was more valuable to her than our marriage, and now I live in a tool trailer I built from jobsite scrap and a few bedframes I bought at Goodwill.

Life isn't predictable, but not all financial advice books are just bullshit. Education, skill, and hard work can be used to good effect, but we are not in charge of our destiny. Strange that, but true nonetheless.

Thanks for being a skeptic. It is the first quality of a scientist. The second is humility, and very few scientists can get over how great and smart they are to reach that second quality. The third quality is being open minded and willing to follow the evidence, even if it goes where you don't expect.

Don't let your knowledge get in the way of learning the truth.