5 comments about The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything.

1. This book is great for anyone who has been toying with the idea of starting their own business.
   
   I've been kicking around the idea of opening a pub in my city for a few years now. Since real estate has slowed so greatly in recent months (my current career) it has occurred to me that my passionate desire to open a pub should be more seriously explored.
   
   "The Art of the Start", although not concentrating on pub opening, (How many books actually do?) does provide boatloads of useful information that any entrepreneur, no matter the business, can use. Guy Kawasaki informs and reforms ideas and misconceptions I've had about starting my own business, all in a very "Guy Kawasaki" way. It should also be noted that the foundation for his success plan seems to me to be one of a high standard of ethics and selflessness. I can honestly say that its contents have truly lit a fire in me to pursue my dream.
   
   Now that I finished the book I will be recommending it to my mother who currently has a new business of her own. She'll have to buy her own however, mines not going anywhere.



2. I had a chapter preview of this book before I purchased it. Guy was able to cover a lot of necessary ground for startups and some things that he has learned along the way with various startups and his current venture capital company, Garage.com.
   
   I was able to glean some good advice for my startup from this book, including some do's and don'ts.



3. This book is very well written. It is concise, very low on fluff, and great for intuitive people. It gives you motivation and the feeling of - "YEAH! I can do it!". But there is a huge piece missing - people. In today's world, businesses do not have 3 employees. They have 3000. The foundation for a successful business is its people, and the book does not say anything about how to make sure that the people in the organization remain productive and happy. Instead, the book promotes the approach that, if you encourage and inspire your employees, then they will make a great team. This is absolutely wrong, as was pointed out by the pioneer of Management, Peter Drucker ("Inside the Guru Mind"). If you are serious about building an organization that people call home, then this book will not lead you there.
   
   Another big issue that I had with this book, is that the Author says that to create a successful business you need to create meaning and want to do something good for others. But what is wrong about loving to be a manager? wanting to create wealth that you could than give to others? What about the personal goals? I think that an entrepreneur will be much more successful if they start the business because they understand the personal meaning of their business.
   
   I think that the author is a really nice guy, but as the say goes: "Those who can, do; Those who cannot do, teach; And those who cannot teach- teach gym" (no offense to gym teachers).



4. Excellent book! I just finished the first reading/watching of "the Art of the Start" and it gave me so many deja
   vu's and many "Yes! Finally someone said it in clear text!". I wish the book had been around in the late 90's.



5. Every entrepreneur should know and implement strategies and techniques and concepts found in this book. For expansion and/or a complement of concepts found in my own book, "The Expert's Edge," study this book carefully!

5 comments about The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Text on Value Investing.

1. I am a brazilian investor and this classic text helped me the change my attitude when the subject is the capital market.



2. If you are not a better investor after reading the first 2 chapters, you'd better give your money to someone else to invest for you. I will never be a speculator again. No wonder Warren is so filthy rich. This is the man he learned from.



3. This book is hailed, and with strong reason, as one of the cornerstone pieces of investment literature. The ideas surrounding valuation and the like are as valid now as they were when the pen first touched this masterpiece.
   
   It is not one of those over-hyped, over-produced get rich quick in the stock market type pieces, but rather a solidified educational fundamental foundation to theory of value investing.
   
   A warning to the novice: This book is written in a very technical language that will be hard to grasp without an understanding of the market in general. This should not be a first investment book, but rather a compliment to your growing collection.



4. Since reading Graham, I keep running into his name everywhere -- and for good reason. Graham (and his disciple Warren Buffet) does not talk about -- or believe in -- get-rich-quick schemes (those are speculation), but in sound principles of looking for solid, well-run companies, and buying their stock when the price dips. (The market gets hysterical and goes up or down in ways that have nothing to do with the intrinsic value of the company.) If other people are foolish enough to sell off a good company at a bargain price, there's nothing wrong with being smart enough to go against the market and buy a bargain. If you want to invest but don't know how to do it intelligently, read Ben Graham for starters.



5. This is a great book for a beginner. covers a lot of the basics, some of the stuff may be outdated but the fundamentals do not seem to have changed.

5 comments about The Retirement Savings Time Bomb . . . and How to Defuse It: A Five-Step Action Plan for Protecting Your IRAs, 401(k)s, and Other RetirementPlans from Near Annihilation by the Taxman.

1. If you have any retirement accounts (IRA, 401K, Keogh, etc.) the government can take a big chunk after you die unless you carefully choose your beneficiaries (the younger the better). No one else ever told me about this. The author writes clearly and with a good sense of humor. Read this, and more importantly act on this excellent advice.



2. Its hard to believe that you can spend your entire working life providing for your family and saving money to support yourself in retirement only to lose most of your retirement assets to the IRS when you die. Ed Slott's recent book provides strategies and ideas on ways to maximize your IRA and other retirement assets so that more of it stays in your family and out of the hands of the government.
   
   Ed turns the table on the IRS and puts you in greater control of how your IRA assets are taxed and when. Using these strategies, it is possible for your beneficiaries to grow your IRA assets faster than the IRS can tax them! It's not rocket science, but you have to know how to do it.
   
   If you have significant IRA assets and follow the strategies Ed describes, you will be able to leverage your IRA to its fullest leaving a financial legacy for your family that will provide financial security and income for decades to come -- long after you are gone. The alternative? Allow the IRS to take what they want first and let your kids fight over what is left. You decide.



3. A great book to avoid losing your hard earned IRA money. And great tips for passing it on to your kids.



4. Writing reviews for Amazon is getting ridiculous. I received my order before the deadline and in the condition promised.



5. Technical book about 401(k) and IRA retirement plans. It requires some background to understand many of the concepts, but the author tries to make the concepts as understandable to as many people as possible. Useful for people who are of advanced age and required to make decisions about retirement options.

5 comments about A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market.

1. As a professional in the investment business I highly recommend this book. I will sum it up in a few words. A book that all CEOs, World Leaders and anyone serious about understanding the positioning of the United States in the decades to come. A fascinating book written by an intriguing person, the combination equals a must read.



2. I agree with Jim Rogers. China is way too important for investors to ignore. China is growing fast and they are here to stay and perhaps are on their way to become the next great world power. But I found Rogers' book very flimsy. If you are unfamiliar with the changes in China, there are many other better books that can help you to better understand the changes. If you already know about these changes, then this book adds hardly anything. Book is also poorly organized. One minute he can be talking about the different dynasties or the cultural revolution, the next minute he talks about the newest companies in different industries.
   
   From an investor's perspective, it gives you some information about various companies and types of shares (ie: A shares, H shares, etc.). There is no depth though. There are lists of companies in various industries, but Rogers provides hardly any information. He also does not teach you how to find out more about these companies and regulations that might affect investors. For example there are no answers to important questions like: Does China have anything analogous to SEC, GAAP? Where can we get financial statements on companies listed in Shanghai stock exchange? What is executive compensation like? Etc.
   
   If you are thinking about investing in China then it is important to understand their culture, politics and recent business environment and Rogers tries to provide readers with some basic material here, but the lack of depth or new insights make this book not worthwhile. Here are some other books that I recommend:
   
   China Wakes (a little outdated but still very important)
   China Road
   Wild Swans



3. 1. The Chinese saving and investment rate exceeds 35 percent among its 1.3 billion people.
   
   2. There is room for upward growth in Chinese industry, including power and energy, tourism and media, agriculture, infrastructure, and high tech.
   
   3. American Depositary Receipts is a way for Americans to invest in China.
   
   4. Changes in regulation, reduction of tariffs, and the promise of greater market access for foreign first are beginning to shape competition in fields like banking, media, and telecommunications.
   
   5. Commodities will be a way to profit from China's expansion. Owing a piece of the things that china's hot economy simply can't do without guarantees less need to worry about governments, management, or pension funds.
   
   6. In 2006, China attracted $70 billion in foreign investment and brought their foreign currency reserves about $1.3 trillion.
   
   7. Do you want to profit from increased purchasing power of the biggest middle class the world has ever seen?
   
   8. Huawei Technologies sold 1.5 million notebooks in 2006.
   
   9. Lenovo Group (LNVGY) caters to 160 countries and 2006 revenues reached $1.3 billion
   
   10. China Spacesat (SHA) has increased orders for smaller satellites.
   
   11. Shanghai Aerospace Automobile Electromechanical engages in military and civilian work, makes satellite-data-receiving equipment, auto parts, battery panels, and solar battery panels.
   
   12. 2006, there are 137 million internet user in China and 76% have high speed internet. There are eighty million bloggers. Shanda Interactive Entertainment (SNDA) claims 2.29 million active accounts.
   
   13. China has a baseball league, the CBL, Basketball (CBA), football (CSL).
   
   14. 2006, China had sixty million credit card owners. 2009, the banks break even and by 2013, they are $1.3 billion in the black.
   
   15. 2006, there were 440 million mobile phone services and another 48 million expect to join by 2007. China Mobile is the largest cell phone operator with 300 million subscribers.
   
   16. Keeping holdings in the Chinese Yuan, or renminbi, may be a relatively safe way to hitch an upward ride on China's growth.
   
   17. It is reasonable to expect a 300 to 500 percent rise against the debt ridden US dollar over the next twenty years.
   
   18. In 2005, there were an estimated 510,000 public disputes across China, a sign that some forms of protests are being allowed. Will the turmoil rise to the point where it would seriously affect the business and investment climate?
   
   19. Three reason why China's economy will flourish: a. rural dwellers replenishing aging labor b. corruption is comparable to Asian tigers c. foreign companies will invest to solve China's environmental problems.
   
   20. There are 110 million Chinese carriers of hepatitis B and C.
   
   21. Will China float its currency freely. The yuan levels against the dollar are increasingly strong. Will the higher valuations on the yuan cripple Chinese exports? Foreign investment and Chinese innovation should sustain demand for higher quality Chinese products, a similar cycle that the Japanese import/export cycle experienced in the 70s/80s/90s.
   
   22. Is China heading for a "hard landing" as the Chinese government struggles to control growth. China's growth may not be strongly tied to US economics. In 1997, during the Asian financial crisis, China's market soared 38 percent. In 2000, as the US internet bubble burst, China's economy surged forward 49 percent. The US imports are not the only influence in China. Much of China's growth has been internal and stimulated by domestic demand. Because China is a country with high savings, a stock crash won't have the same impact on capital for expansion. Chinese companies have plenty of places other than the stock market for cash.
   
   23. 2006, sixty-five million investment accounts or 10 percent of the population of China, grow from nothing.
   
   24. What are the biggest challenges facing China? Excess liquidity, balooning credit, an asset boom and over-investment in loss-making heavy industries. All factors in Japan's downturn through the 80s.
   
   25. In 2006, China produced 50 percent of the cameras, 30 percent of the worlds air conditioners, and 40 percent of the microwaves sold in Europe.
   
   26. In 2005, 98 percent of villages were electrified and the second largest consumer of electricity in the world. By the end of the 1990s, the Chinese central government controlled less than 50 percent of the power production. The Big five include China Datang Corp, China Power Investment Corp, China Huaneng Group, China Guodian Corp, and China Huadian Corp.
   
   27. China needs $2 trillion in electricity infrastructure between 2001 and 2030. In China, coal accounts for 70% of the electricity capacity. In 2007, China became a net importer of Coal.
   
   28. China will reach US oil consumption of 20 million barrels a day within twenty years. China imports 3.5 million barrel/day of oil. Chinese oil refineries are among the best-managed enterprises. Due to price control, China ranks with the US among the countries with the lowest gas prices. The Chinese governments have been will to let gas prices rise to regulate use and allow Chinese oil companies to stay profitable. Chinese oil companies boost exports of diesel to take advantage of better prices on the world market.
   
   29. The Chinese government plans on spending $200 billion on renewable energy.
   
   30. China ranks number one in world farm output. China has a rural population of 940 million. China's farm production remains relatively unproductive. A single US farm hand works 140 acres and is 200 times more productive than his Chinese counterpart, who works one acre. China plans on a $42 billion investment in agrarian infrastructure: more efficient irrigation systems, retail markets, and e-commerce.
   
   31. Between 2000 and 2004, China jumped from nineth to fourth in world agricultural exports by emphasizing products they have a comparative advantage: a half pound peach, fuji apples, Chinese Walnuts, mushrooms, garlic, Christmas trees, Mandrin Oranges, and strawberries.



4. As a big Jim Rogers fan, I am amazed to find myself giving his book a 1 star rating. While his first 3 books were excellent, this book should never have been published.
   
   The book gives a cursory rehash of the "China is the next great super power" argument (which I believe is true) and then just gives long lists of random Chinese stocks with short and shallow rambles in between stock lists.
   
   The book makes it clear that the listed stocks are not recommended stocks, just a long list of all the Chinese stocks that the author could come up with. It's obvious that no research was done on the stocks listed and most have no more than 1 paragraph on them describing what they do.



5. Anytime someone makes you a lot of money, you tend to become a fan. And so I am a fan of Jim Rogers. I believe this man makes a lot of sense when he talks economics. I learned this by reading his earlier books about driving around the world. He admits to being a lousy trader. But he is great at looking at the big picture and investing according.
   
   He made me money with an earlier book, Hot Commodities, which I had for four years before I invested in commodities. If I had invested when I first read the book, I would be retired 2 or 3 times over. Even though commodities have taken a huge tumble lately the bull market is not over yet and they will make me more money.
   
   But this book is about the money that can be made in China. If you watched the 2008 Olympics you saw a new China. The reports from China are amazing. The growth, the production, the consumption, and everything about China is not just super-sized, it's gigantic-sized. With three stock exchanges, close to double digit GDP growth every year, and the largest financial reserves, there is plenty of opportunity here.
   
   I am writing this review to help you decide if you should buy this book or not. I hope this review helps. If you want to read more of my reviews of stock trading and investment book, you can get them at www.thetradingtipster.com.
   
   Another reviewer has already painstakingly detailed the book chapter by chapter. My takeaway is that if you are looking for places to invest, then get this book. It explains why China is growing and why it will continue to grow. This book also breaks down all the sectors of the economy. Everything from travel to agriculture to the Chinese space program is discusses and dissected in easy to understand language. Dozens of companies are also listed with brief descriptions of each. The descriptions are good because you get a sense of what if happening in China, but for the average American investor most of these companies cannot be invested in.
   
   But even if you only focus on Chinese companies listed on NYSE and NASDAQ or get into the Chinese Market ETF (FXI) you can still make a nice long term gain. The author stresses that investing in China is a long term process with ups and many downs along the way. He does not recommend any company in the book, he only mentions them to give the reader a broad understanding.
   
   If you want to know what's going on in China and profit from it, from a man who knows how to make money, this book is a great place to start. It opened my eyes to China when I first read it and am patiently waiting for an opportunity to invest in the largest bull market of our lifetime. The author compares China to the Wild West of America. Lots of money to be made, but you have to be careful.
   
   By looking at the trends in the US market and what is going on around the world, it makes sense to reason that investments for the next few decades will probably get a higher return in places like China than in the US. Even if you don't agree with me on this point, you will probably agree that diversifying by investing in China is not a bad idea. And if you believe that then this book will help.

5 comments about Financial Shock: A 360º Look at the Subprime Mortgage Implosion, and How to Avoid the Next Financial Crisis.

1. Financial Shock provides a detailed and accurate history of the subprime mortgage crisis up through the point Bear Stearns was bought out by JP Morgan. The first 3/4 of the book was great; however, the author states that as Bear Stearns was bought out (mid-March 2008), the crisis hit an "apex." Zandi goes on to say the worst of the crisis was over by the time he wrote Financial Shock. Unfortunately, it's now clear that we have yet to see the worst.
   
   I was mostly interested in this book for where Zandi thought various markets across the world would head as a result of the Financial Shock. The book only briefly covers what may unfold, and now has little relevant information regarding that, as this type of scenario was not even mentioned. Zandi does provide many intelligent steps to preventing this type of mortgage calamity and credit crunch from reoccurring. While it'd be great for lawmakers and bankers to take these to heart, they didn't interest me.
   
   With a title like Financial Shock, Zandi could have reached out to take a look at the broader global market. Yet, the biggest misstep here was simply publishing this book before a proper retrospective could be produced. I also feel that Zandi should have discussed the credit ratings faulty assignments in depth, whereas he glazed over it. Surely being "Chief Economist and Cofounder of Moody's [...]" would give him the proper insight?



2. I went into this book with a certain amount of trepidation -- I wanted to know about the subprime mortgage problem from the ground up, but I didn't have a lot of background knowledge going in, apart from listening to a few programs on the topic on NPR. However, I am *delighted* to say that this book was incredibly easy to read -- I didn't feel like Mark Zandi had dumbed down his subject for me, but rather that he took me step-by-step through the problems and compounding mistakes of the past ten years, using some really good historical examples, until I actually felt like I had a good understanding of what it all meant.
   
   I think that the best thing that I took away from this book was understanding that I myself had a responsibility to increase my financial literacy, and to reduce my own risks. This was a great book, and I have already recommended it to several of my friends.



3. In the wake of this worldwide financial crisis, Financial Shock is a book that must be read. Mark Zandi gives a complete and detailed analysis of the subprime mortgage debacle. This book is well written, very informative, and is an interesting read. I intend to read this repeatedly to fully ingest it. In reading this, the lesson revealed is that balance is essential and greed is not good in the long run. Every aspect of the crisis is analyzed. Everything became too big. Unscrupulous lenders talked prospective buyers into getting more house than they needed and made it very easy for them to do so with lax background checks. Homebuilders bought into the act and built more homes than could be afforded. The bigger the market became, the more the rules were thrown out the window. Deregulation helped make this possible since no one could police what was going on. Even Alan Greenspan bought into it, obviously not learning from the stock market bubble that burst earlier in the decade. Sadly, the new homeowners suffered the consequences and eventually this would snowball into decimating the whole economy. Mr. Zandi also offers solutions so we don't repeat the same mistakes. In particular, his solution of offering money management classes in high schools is an excellent idea. All told, Financial Shock is an excellent read and I would highly recommend it.



4. These are tense times in America. Times that require a moment of reflection before I get to the meat of this review. As I write, the stock market has taken a record-breaking one-week panic-driven nosedive that has wiped out over a trillion dollars of investor wealth. This comes a week after the House voted to approve a 700 billion dollar stimulus bill to try to reopen clogged credit markets by reinfusing cash into the capital-parched banking system. World financial markets are in turmoil, threatening emerging economies and crippling stock markets worldwide. How did things get so bad? What can be done to steady the markets and the banking industry? Some of those answers can be found in author Mark Zandi's book "Financial Shock".
   
   Zandi is the Chief Economist and Cofounder of Moody's [...], a subsidiary of Moody's that provides consulting services to various financial and financially-related businesses. The strength of his analysis relies on the fact that he's writing from the perspective of an insider. His basic premise looks a little bit like this: overheated housing markets and easy access to increasingly risky forms of credit led would-be homeowners and lenders into a giddy state of denial. Everyone seemed to think that the good times and the heady price increases (and the profits that went with them) could go on indefinitely. The bad news, of course, is that price bubbles inevitably pop, and when the housing bubble burst, it began to send the credit industry and the players who supported it (banks, brokers, foreign investors, insurance companies, bonds traders) into a financial tailspin, the effects of which are still being felt today, painfully so for many of us. Zandi, of course, explains this in much greater depth of detail.
   
   I liked this book because Zandi keeps his analysis simple and straightforward. It's a fairly short read at 243 pages, but there's a lot of information packed into the text. Zandi supports his ideas with charts and data, and he leaves the politics out and takes a non-partisan approach to the proceedings. He lays his facts on the table and finishes up by making some good suggestions on how to solve some of the issues at hand. The only weak spot was his inability to explain how the securities ratings industry played a role in this mess, but early in the book he cites conflict of interest issues as a reason for this omission (his parent company, Moody's, is a securities rater, after all, so I can see why he decided not to explore this avenue of thought. It still would have been nice to have some insight on this factor, though).
   
   Information is power, and consumers will need to have as much information as possible in the days ahead. This is not a time to panic, rather it is a time for careful introspection and knowledge. Knowing how we got here will help us to chart a course out of the deep water. This book is a good place to start if you want to find out.



5. There's a good reason why Barney Frank provides a glowing blurb for this book---the author utterly evades the true causes of the current mess and muddies the waters quite nicely on Frank's behalf.
   
   Two things represent the root causes of the subprime mortgage mess:
   
   1. Democrats, Barney Frank in the lead, demanded that banks make more mortgage loans to people who couldn't pay them back, which also had the salient virtue of driving billions of dollars to Democrat-run Fannie Mae and Freddia Mac, which in turn contributed heavily to Democrats like Frank;
   
   2. Democrats demanded that financial institutions account for all of this risky paper under an accounting scheme called "mark to market" which forced these institutions to reserve huge amounts of cash to cover "losses" which had not yet occurred.
   
   The author gives glancing references to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on 2 pages (!) of the book. He references "mark to market" on 4 pages. The ten recommendations he provides do refer to fixing "mark to market" (thus making his recommendations far more likely to help than the Paulson plan), but as Recommendation # 8. No recommendation takes Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or Congress to task for creating the bubble in the 1st place by threatening institutions who could not demonstrate sufficient commitment to making bad loans that they would not be allowed to merge and might be more heavily regulated.
   
   In between, there is a meticulous reporting of the havoc wrought in the markets by these two government-manufactured conditions. For this alone I give the book 2-stars.
   
   We're still waiting for the book which tackles the real cause of this mess---government meddling and corruption.
   
   I suppose we'll need to wait till after the election to see such a book, if ever.

5 comments about Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free (Revised and Updated).

1. Ellen Hodgson Brown has proven herself an absolute genius! I specialized in foreign languages in university, but economics was one language I really had no interest in, until recently, when I was awakened to the mass corruption governing our world and ultimately our lives. This book explains clearly and in an easy-to-understand manner WHO controls our money supply, who and what forces are and have been responsible for or behind the rise and fall of various currencies over the past decades, and why ours is going to be next. She also shows us a way OUT of the global economic crisis we now find ourselves in and proposes a number of possible and legitimate alternatives to the corrupt fractional reserve banking system that is sinking the American people deeper and deeper into debt, impoverishment, and enslavement. There ARE other alternatives! There IS a way OUT, but it is NOT, I'm sorry to say, the gold standard that so many people, most notably Mr. Griffin, author of "Creature from Jekyll Island", are hailing as the ultimate solution to our economic woes. Gold and silver backing didn't prevent the Great Depression! Gold and silver are just as open to manipulation by the people who CONTOL it! It's the fractional reserve system and the banks creating money out of NOTHING, and then charging US for it, that are to blame!
   
   The original money used by the colonies was NOT backed by gold, and those were times of unprecedented prosperity! We were prosperous because we printed our OWN MONEY! That's the key! Gold and silver backing will do nothing until we get rid of fractional reserve banking!
   
   To sum up, I have learned SO much from this book! I learned more from reading this one book than I did in all my years of public school education! This is a MUST-read for ALL who are interested in securing our release from the Web of Debt that currently has entangled us all.



2. Yes, OMG! What an education. We really are a nation of financially uneducated, brainwashed, sheeple. This book makes it perfictly clear why today's world and economic events "are as they are", and where we are headed as economic surfs. This book is clear and easy to understand. It should be required reading for everyone. Buy this and read it, you will be furious at our government leaders and want to know more about how all of this very real world wide economic fraud will chage your life. Follow the Yellow Brick Road!



3. I've been interested in the general topic of this book--our flawed and corrupt money creation/banking system and the albatross on the back of our society it represents--for a while now. Until reading this book, educating myself mostly involved absorbing the doom and gloom reality of the situation.
   
   The best part about this book, as one reviewer already mentioned, is not Ms. Brown's immaculate analysis and presentation of the profound absurdity and utterly unnecessary folly of our current predicament. It's her optimistic proposal of an excellent, rational solution to monetary reform that could ultimately get us as close as possible to a utopian society, and in any case represents the system our founding fathers truly had in mind.
   
   This book was the lynchpin for me that completely laid bare and clarified my thoughts about our f*cked up money system as it exists today and the fundamental, structural flaw(s) it inflicts on an otherwise prosperous and benign world, and the miserable consequences of its continued existence--then shows us the way out.
   
   This book will undoubtedly provide every rational, thinking person with a brand new window through which to view the world. Understanding our dysfunctional and corrupt monetary system and how it shapes our society connected the dots for me in a way nothing else has and created an amazingly clear "big picture" that fundamentally changed my perception of just about everything. It also made most left vs. right/liberal vs. conservative political issues and arguments irrelevant since it pretty much overarches and transcends them.
   
   I wholeheartedly agree with the majority of the reviewers here that it's one of, if not THE most important book you'll probably ever read. Get it any way you can and feed your head. Then spread the word to anyone else who will listen. It doesn't matter whether Amazon has it in stock since you can do like I did and buy the eBook version directly from the author's website: webofdebt.com. Given the timeliness of the material and the fact that the author does an excellent job of updating/revising the text and website to reflect the current financial meltdown as it's presently unfolding, that's probably the best method of purchase anyway.
   
   If you agree with the author's general diagnosis and especially her proposed solutions, and believe like I do that she is correct in her assertation that a financial meltdown such as the one we are currently witnessing is the best chance to implement changes, then NOW is the time to act. First step: educate yourself....



4. This book goes into detail about the mystical FED. It confirms things you suspect and things you have concluded, but never talked about. I enjoyed this book and think it would benefit anyone to read.



5. You will need a spare copy, and perhaps more due to the overwhelming desire you will experience to spread the message of this book upon reading it. This urge became overpowering to me in the early chapters, and still remains as my original copy is out on loan.
   
   The truth that is exposed by Ms. Brown is beyond a call to action, or the most powerful civics lesson you will ever come across. The story here, masterfully told, lies at the very heart of the concept of freedom. Inane acceptance of the status quo will most certainly lead to the end of the freedom experiment. It is evident that our Revolution was never won, and that the powers of despotism, oligarchy, and plutocracy live on, confident that we all have become weak in our collective ability to discern truth in a world of smoke and mirrors. This weakness has been enabled by those standard human frailties; greed, self-absorption, apathy, and of course ignorance. All of these deficiencies can be reversed, some reversals more painful than others, and they must be if we are to dig ourselves out from our present state of affairs. The course of correction requires tools, and first on my list is "Web of Debt".
   
   I feel a deep sense of gratitude to Ellen Hodgson Brown for taking on this subject. It is not the fast track to the best seller list, and there will be no invites to appear on Charlie Rose. This effort expresses a powerful desire to put light on truth, and in so doing send a line of hope to the embattled principle called freedom.

5 comments about A Beginner's Guide to Day Trading Online (2nd edition).

1. This $10 book has made me double my money in a couple months in OTCBB/Pinksheet stocks. This explains big board stocks but is everything the same as penny stocks. Buy this book if you want to start trading. The author gives instructions in spoken word not scientific as some books do. This is as if someone was talking to you not a college lecture you can't just jump into.
   
   As with that, I've doubled my money and expect to be a millionaire from HARD work, remember that. My recommendation, it's a buy!



2. I would higly recommend any novice or not so very experienced trader to read this book, and reread it once you have a some experience. She has explained various day and swing trading setups very thouroughly and does it without making it very complicated.



3. I think this book in absolutely a must for anyone who is interested in finding out how to day trade, has the intellectual capacity to feel they can succeed, but has really no clue how the stock market works!! Everything you've always wanted to know about day trading 'but were afraid to ask'. Toni starts from square one and explains everything from bid price, offers, indexes and the history of the stock market. If you are beyond this level, then you will likely feel it is too basic, 'chatty' or 'inspirational' in the first half of her book. Personally, it has proven to be an invaluable resource. Toni's writing style is clear and she gives great analogies and speaks in layman's terms while dissecting and discussing the complexities of trading. It goes from big picture to hands-on detailed examples and strategies. Thanks Toni!



4. Very informative indeed, and I am more-than-ever convinced NOT to daytrade. I know, now, that I have too little education, the wrong software, not enough energy, and not the gambling spirit. I also learned a bunch of other good stuff that can help my longer-term investing.



5. I don't have time to write a long review about a book, and I assume neither do you to read it. So I keep it simple and to the point:
   
   I have read several books about day trading and this is one of the best by far. It explains in detail what to do and not to do when you attempt to trade stocks as a beginner. It will stop you from losing money and save you a lot of headaches. Make sure to read it twice!!
   This book is an excellent guide to anyone new to this field, even if you don't know the technical terms. It is not boring either... I wish it had been longer..
   
   Read it!!

5 comments about The Great Bust Ahead: The Greatest Depression in American and UK History is Just Several Short Years Away. This is your Concise Reference Guide to Unders Why and How Best to Survive It.

1. This is a great little book that you can read in less than an hour. It's based on the work of Harry S. Dent in Mr. Dent's excellent book The Next Great Bubble Boom. I believe the concept. I think demographics is the most important factor in the economy of the future. The demographics of the United States is very bad. You can't replace 78 million boomers with 48 million Gen Xer's. The Xer's will already have jobs and careers. The numbers of the generation after the Xer's is not good at all. Who will replace the boomers when millions start to retire? Who will replace their spending? Bonds? The author Daniel Arnold talks about bonds on page 47 of his book The Great Bust Ahead. Long term bonds? Nuts! Bonds are just a promise backed my nothing. It's the generational bonds that will be broken. The old people of the future will not be related by blood or race to the young people of the future. Overall, I agree with the author and his computer models, once the huge bulge of the middle aged boomers move through the system and start retiring, markets can only go down. Regards, Keith Renick, Peachtree City, Ga.



2. The ideas in this booklet have some ground. I wouldn't swear by the correlation between demorgaphics and Dow Jones Index, but there is some sense. Worth reading to be better prepared for the upcoming events.



3. You do not need an economics background to write a book like this but the ability to construct a logical argument or a knowledge of history would help. The author ignores even the most basic understanding of monetary supply, fractional reserve banking or GDP. An annoying book demonstrating the authors ignorance and little more.



4. The basic thesis, that there will be another Great Depression, seven times worse in fact according to the author, rests entirely on one premise: the number of 45-54 year olds peaking and declining precipitously will cause the Dow Jones (the economy) to crash just as hard. I must admit, the 80+ year correlation between the inflation-adjusted DJIA and the 45-54 year old demographic is astounding. But as we all should know, correlation does not equal causation. In fact that correlation unraveling as we speak, the Dow was sluggish at around 11,000 until 2006-2007, turned highly volatile, peaked in 2007 at over 14,000, and declined since then to well below 12,000. We are now in a bear market if not a recession, and All while the "big-spender" demographic skyrocketed, which will continue until 2011! Where is the boom? The Dow should be on its way to 26,000 and eventually crash to 5000 according to the author. Although this was not the first time the two graphs diverged, he seems to have an explanation for the other divergences (e.g. the New Deal, birth control, etc.). If the New Deal could turn things around, how come this time he says the government will not be able to do anything about it? This book leaves the reader with more questions than answers.
   
   I do believe we are in for some rough times ahead, but demographics is not the reason. The credit and housing crises, combined with high oil and food prices (really just a commodities bubble that has popped), has been hammering away at the economy for the past year or so, and things may still get worse before they get better. Stagflationary recession is likely if we are not already in one, and it may be longer and deeper that expected. But a 13-year depression? The only things that could do that (given all the safeguards we now have in place thanks to FDR) are a) Peak Oil happening suddenly, b) a major war or severe terrorist attack, or c) The Fed. Even Bernanke admits the Fed turned the mild recession of 1929 into a full blown depression through overreacting and using an outdated playbook (i.e. raising rates before and during a deflationary recession).
   
   As for Japan, their 13-year malaise was caused by their own housing and credit crisis, plus the stock market (Nikkei) bursting. Combined with the BOJ raising rates. And like us, the correlation between the Nikkei and demographics has parted ways since 2007, when it declined again.



5. This book may save your life's savings. Please read it. Kudos to the courageous author for writing this remarkable book, and for giving common people timely and fair warning for what lies ahead. We need more people like Mr. Arnold, who makes this world a better place.

5 comments about Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short Story.

1. This is an excellent read with great insight into the way true hedge funds try to add value and how publicly traded companies can make perception into reality.



2. Although some claims against Allied appear to be exaggerated, or at least are not fully substantiated within the covers of the book, this is an excellent look into the critical bird-dog role of financial analysts.
   
   Plenty of literary criticisms to be made, but it is a relatively easy, even enjoyable, read.
   
   It is also informative, albeit troubling, to read of the indifference and incompetence of many government officials in response to Greenlight's more damning findings of fraudulent and misleading activity. Although this is something we have come to expect over the course of the George "heckuva job" Bush administration, we need more voices in this fight.



3. I like reading books about corporate collapses (eg about Enron and Worldcom), and this book, whilst not about a corporate collapse, details the author's extensive investigation into the accounting and other practices of Allied Capital. Both as a story and technically, this is an exciting book.



4. Fooling Some of the People All of the Time catalogs the incredible events that followed the author's fast rising hedge fund and the investment community that attacked him after sticking his neck out in a speech. The investment community attached to protect its interests, which provides a good lesson in today's financial crisis. The book gives an informative look at the ins and outs of wall street, and the lengths people there will go to attack companies and individuals who attempt to uncover untoward behavior. It's a very interesting, if detailed, read and necessarily so.
   
   As an investor and fan of the financial markets, I don't typically read psychology books, but a colleague passed along The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book to me this week when we were discussing the chaos that has befallen the financial markets of late. I devoured that book! It's really great at revealing the role emotions play in ANY decision you make, and I'm a smarter investor for having read it.



5. Very boring to read. Explains at length reasoning that leads to short sales. Unless short-selling is of particular interest to you or, if you face an imminent encounter with SEC, this book is unlikely to be of any value to you.

5 comments about Wall Street Versus America: A Muckraking Look at the Thieves, Fakers, and Charlatans Who Are Ripping You Off.

1. One of the most controversial aspects of "Wall Street Versus America" by Gary Weiss is the author's assessment that SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt was not the champion of the small investor as the press made him out to be; that, in fact, he aided and abetted the abuses against the small investor by refusing to curtail the corrupt practices on Wall Street. Weiss' assessment of Levitt is tersely summed up in the opening pages: "Levitt presided over the worst abuses to descend upon Wall Street since the 1920s. He failed miserably at dealing with the problems that he did not ignore entirely, but he did a couple of things better than just about any recent SEC chairman in history - give speeches, and court the press."
   
   And this is the crux of what makes "Wall Street Versus America" a work of historical dimension. Each of the Wall Street abuses detailed in the book, most of which continue to this day, were by themselves a fraud on the public investor. But together, they rendered Wall Street not a fair and efficient capital allocation system but an institutionalized wealth transfer system. No book has, heretofore, shown this so clearly. Wealth was sucked from the masses of little investors and transferred to the corporate and Wall Street insiders while the cop on the beat, the SEC, looked the other way.
   
   I recently retired after 21 years on Wall Street, during which time I made numerous written appeals to the SEC, the Fed, and in GAO testimony to halt the same areas of corruption covered in "Wall Street Versus America:" the rigged arbitration system; the 1920s style creation of conflict-riddled mega banks/brokerages; the rampant kickback schemes with lofty sounding names. One word aptly describes the outcome of each of my appeals: coverup. Thus, I am not surprised that Weiss has borne the brunt of threats and backlash for this comprehensive and courageous work.
   
   For those skeptics who can't believe that "Wall Street Versus America" is a keenly insightful and accurate portrayal of the corruption-riddled practices of the largest and most lauded financial system in the world, here's background to digest before you move on to the main feature: "Wall Street Versus America."
   
   In a 1994 article by Business Week (4/4/1994: Beware the IPO Market) regulators had
   the goods to clean up the systemic looting of American investors by bulge bracket Wall Street firms and their cronies. The article quotes Lynn A. Stout, professor of securities regulation at Georgetown University Law Center: "The IPO [Initial Public Offering] market is rigged. It's rigged against the average investor." The article goes on to define exactly how a "penalty bid" works. "This is a penalty imposed on brokers who flip or sell their customers IPO shares right after the offering. The practice, devised by a group of top Wall Street firms during Securities Industry Association meetings in the 1980s, is used by underwriters to help prop up the stock price of an IPO in the sensitive weeks following its issue. Brokers whose customers flip, risk having their commissions taken away, giving them an incentive to discourage customers from selling out." The article points out, however, that the Wall Street firm's institutional clients were allowed to cash out while the individual investors are left "holding the bag" and serving as a prop under the price of the shares.
   
   Two and a half years later, the Wall Street Journal took up the issue of the penalty bid. (12/2/1996: Tough IPO Market Triggers Penalty Bids Against Brokers by Deborah Lohse) "Even though penalty bids are taken out of brokers' commission, many investors gripe that they are the ones being penalized, since their brokers exert subtle, or not so subtle, pressure on them not to sell their IPO shares while the penalty bid is in place."
   
   One and half years later comes Michael Siconolfi and Patrick McGeehan in the Wall Street Journal, who decide to take the gloves off on this penalty bid issue. (6/26/1998: Big Institutions Can Cash Out Quickly; the Little Guy Can't Without Penalties) "It's one of Wall Street's best kept secrets: While securities firms allow big institutional investors to dump hot new stocks at their whim, often within hours or minutes of the stock's first trade, they try to persuade investors to hold on to IPOs, for better or worse." This article clearly points out that while the little investor continues to be fleeced, the SEC has its lens fogged.
   
   It's now March of 2001. It's seven years since Business Week first tipped off the regulators and the Wall Street Journal reporters did everything short of filing the brief and buying the handcuffs. And there are no more hot IPOs. There are only drowning IPOs. Ron Chernow in the New York Times summed it up: "Let us be clear about the magnitude of the Nasdaq collapse. The tumble has been so steep and so bloody - close to $4 trillion in market value erased in one year - that it amounts to nearly four times the carnage recorded in the October 1987 crash." Chernow likens the NASDAQ to a "lunatic control tower that directed most incoming planes to a bustling, congested airport known as the New Economy while another, depressed airport, the Old Economy, stagnated with empty runways. The market functioned as a vast, erratic mechanism for misallocating capital across America."
   
   This misallocation of capital, capital that should have been feeding American innovation to secure our economic future but went instead to build millions of miles of unneeded fibre optic cables or now bankrupt dot.coms while shifting wealth to such unprecedented levels of concentration in America as to threaten our democracy, can be placed squarely at the feet of Arthur Levitt's SEC.
   
   That most of these practices continue unabated today means Gary Weiss needs to start work on a sequel immediately and that regardless of who is sitting in the oval office, there's likely to be a Wall Street crony at the helm of the SEC.
   
   Pam Martens



2. Gary Weiss is a fervent believer in the efficient capital markets hypothesis (which I'll call ECMH hereafter, because I'm a lazy typist.)
   
   ECMH, a theory developed by Eugene Fama in the mid 1960s, on first principles derived from the great Austrian economists, has been the object of proselytizing by Burton Malkiel starting in the 1970s and continuing to the present. The idea is that given a competently-managed capital market (i.e. a stock exchange), and given a certain respectable level of liquidity (e.g. above a minimum volume of sales), all significant information will be reflected in stock prices very quickly.
   
   To get an idea of what this means, suppose you've made a careful study of the beer market. You've been a saint of erudition. You know every available fact about, say, Anheuser Busch's production methods, Miller's labor troubles, the rise of microbreweries, the marketing plans of Grupo Modelo (the nice folks who bring us Corona) and so forth. On the basis of your erudition, you've formed the firm opinion that SAB Miller is going to have a couple of very profitable years. So you buy their stock, right?
   
   Don't bother. According to the ECMH, everything you know is already 'known' to the inorganic entity known as the market, and has already been factored into the price. Good news for Miller has already pushed the price up, before you have a chance to buy it, so you'd be buying on already-discounted information.
   
   Another way to look at this is to say that stock prices are a 'random walk.' All your efforts at predicting and acting on a pattern will be outsmarted by the market itself, so the actual moves will appear, from any of our own limited points of view, random. We'd do as well throwing darts at a stock chart while wearing a blindfold as we would picking stocks through the kind of study of corporate fundamentals instanced above.
   
   Still another, more poetic, way of looking at this is to say that any given buyer or seller is but a neuron. The market itself is the brain of which they are each parts. A belief in one's ability to outsmart the market is equivalent to the belief of a neuron that it can outthink the brain.
   
   So: what is to be done? Invest passively. That is the advice that Malkiel and others give. Invest in funds that are tied to broad indices, so that you are in effect investing in the market itself, in the whole brain, rather than trying to outthink it.
   
   Various theorists give various exceptions to this general rule. but the ECMH by definition means at least that most would-be buyers and sellers are better off in index-based or passive funds than they would be trying to pick stocks themselves, and/or paying someone else (an active manager) to do the picking for them. Active managers charge higher fees than passive managers. In the view of ECMH advocates, they are almost always charging you those fees for the purpose of losing you money. Even if they break even, by comparison with their passive counterparts, you lose the fees differential itself. If you were sucker enough to pay it.
   
   That's the theory. Weiss, as I've said, is a passionate believer in it. That is the implication of the provocative title of his book. It might more accurately, but more pedantically, be titled, "Active Fund Managers Against Ordinary-Folk Investors."
   
   Let me just say now that I found it well written, and I think there's a lot of truth in Weiss' viewpoint. He applies ECMH rather too mechanically for my taste, but that's an issue for another day.



3. I'm just an ordinary investor who has been feeling like a piece of bait for the securities industry- until now.
   
   I applaud you for Wall Street Versus America. Reading it made me realize that my concerns and suspicions are valid and that I'm not alone. Not only that, it provided the beacon I need to have the confidence to be aggressive with my questions, bold with my actions and to never again blindly follow the "advice" of a broker and never again exist only to have my portfolio's mission priority be to fill a broker's pockets ahead of mine. I am lucky to have learned this before Wall Street had a chance to ruin me.
   
   I was fortunate to retire with a pension lump sum. When I started looking into how to invest it, I found the brokerage industry to be like the Big Bad Wolf licking its chops, just waiting to brainwash me and take my money. So, I left my broker and found another, then I left the new one too. After that, I sold everything and put my money safely into Treasuries and Money Market funds so I could take all the time I needed to get my act together. Then, I found your book, bought it and read it carefully. Life changed. Thank you.
   
   Oh yeah, I said your book enabled me to be "bold with my actions". By that, I mean that I have already written to my congressman and to the chairman of the SEC to demand that Arbitration be made optional. I'm expecting little in return, or maybe some polite "baloney" but I'm not backing off. This absolutely feels like swimming up a waterfall, but it's a start.
   
   Great book.



4. I was hired to co-author a book on the stock market, and initially was skeptical of the claims made by my client about Wall Street. However, when I began doing research, it was "Wall St. Versus America" that made me take notice and realize that we are being manipulated by a group of people who addicted to accumulating wealth without remorse.
   
   Weiss' makes a powerful and well-documented case that there is a powerful group of Wall St. execs, CEO's, government officials, Congress and the financial press that band together to protect their own investment. Weiss also points out that the regulatory commissions are toothless, and we are generally unaware of how this affects our daily lives.
   
   Hopefully, when my book, "Crazyman's Economics" comes out in early '08, it will be another in a series of warnings to 'fly-over country' that Wall St. is not after your best interests. (www.crazymanseconomics.blogspot.com)



5. I recently received a small inheritance, and bought this book for some suggestions on what to do with it. After reading this scathing account of how careless, and frequently criminal, Wall Street is with investors' money, I think the best thing to do with it is stuff it in a pillow case and throw it in the closet.
   I looked at other reviews here to see if anyone in the know disputed any of Gary Weiss' claims, and, alarmingly, no one did. A former Business Week columnist, Weiss definitely appears to know his subject, and, more importantly, he adopts a tone that makes the book readable for a complete layman like myself. Though his style may occasionally come off as glib as facetious, he presents a view of Wall Street you are not going to get anywhere else, packed with information that pesents the world of investment as nothing more than an Old Boy's Club that simply doesn't care at all about you.
   
   Brief list of things I learned from reading this book: The regulation and punishment of criminals on Wall Street is usually done by the very people committing the fraud, hedge funds don't behave any differently with your money than any other investors, boiler room scams are alive and well (not hounded out of existence by the SEC, as I believed) and "punishments" meted out for criminal behavior by the SEC usually consist of being asked nicely to stop it.
   I can't recommend this book enough to anyone considering investing. I'm very glad I got it when I did. A Must Read!