2 comments about When Washington Shut Down Wall Street: The Great Financial Crisis of 1914 and the Origins of America's Monetary Supremacy.

1. In Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day, a blue-blood guest unmercifully grills James Stevens, the head butler at an English estate. The pompous guest is trying to demonstrate that uneducated people should not have the vote. "My good man," he asks, "do you suppose the debt situation regarding America is a significant factor in the present low levels of trade? Or...is the abandonment of the gold standard...at the root of the matter?" Stevens, aware that the question is meant only to baffle him, replies that he has no idea. Poor Stevens! Anyone without a degree in international finance would have an equally difficult time answering such an abstruse question. That's why this intriguing business history book by William L. Silber is so worthwhile: He brings global finance to life by spotlighting America's 1914 money crisis and by explaining how then-U.S. Treasury Secretary William McAdoo used this portentous episode to establish the nation's financial supremacy. We suggest you read this illuminating work of economic history to understand the seminal events that established U.S. monetary policy.



2. This book is a great read. The topic is fascinating (to me, at least). Some of the material is a bit intricate, but the author does a great job of explaining it. He liberally uses footnotes to explain details which to an economist might be pedestrian but to a lay person such as myself are not obvious. (One ongoing topic is the exchange rate between pounds sterling and dollars, and how that relates to the price of gold and the cost of shipping gold between the UK and the US. He does a great job of walking the reader through the process and the arithmetic.) I highly recommend this book, and particularly recommend it to anyone who wonders what the Federal Reserve Board really does.

5 comments about Maestro : Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom.

1. Among collegiate literature which I have been exposed to, I have found Bob Woodward's Maestro to be one of the most informative and educational. With this simple and easy to understand narrative, I have been taken inside the doors of the Federal Reserve, and have been given a picture of how the FOMC truly operates. I feel more equipped to discuss and express opinion towards the operations of the Fed. Upon the completion of this book, I sat back with a sense of gratification, in my newly acquired, practical understanding of the U.S. economy. Woodward was able to portray Monetary Policy in a sense that really applied to my level of thinking.
   With an inside look at the decisions of Alan Greenspan and his role as chairman of the Federal Reserve, I was stuck with a sense of amazement watching this man operate mathematically and politically, still maintaining a sense of pure awareness and concern for the long-term affects of his resolutions. I would definitely recommend this book to any reader in search of a practical and realistic understanding of the economic engine which drives the U.S.



2. The coziness of our nations politically elite always makes for interesting reading. While there are some interesting tidbits throughout, i.e. Alan Greenspans association with Ayn Rand; the familiar names of the politically entrenched and the precarious state of our nation's economic machinations, this book was a bit boring. With that said, there were two things I found fascinating about D.C. life. First, there is an extremely strong current of Ivy League uber-ambition in our nation's capital; along with an extraordinary confluence of academic uber-achievement (PhD's lawyers & double majored PhD's). Second, I didn't know Alan Greenspan, along with his longtime and classy arm-charm Andrea Mitchell, were such savvy political operatives on the so called D.C. cocktail circuit or what a critical role socializing played in the running of our country. Other than that, I was a bit disappointed with this effort.



3. After reading this book I realized how fascinating a book can be when it is written by a washington insider like Woodword. Amazing book describes Greenspan, Fed, Whitehouse and the economics and politics behind it in the most lucid manner possible.
   
   Very true in nature expresses very candidly Chairman Greenspan's political manuevering and how Whitehouse makes a non political instituion political.
   
   Excellent and much more interesting to read compared to Mr. Greenspans own auto biography which in itself is a very good book.



4. ~Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom~ is a rosy bit of economic subterfuge heralding Greenspan as an economic saviour when in reality we're paying the price for the Federal Reserve's inflationary scheme throughout the 1990s. If the markets set interest rates, we wouldn't see the vicious cycles of boom and bust, the subprime mortgage crisis, and the housing bubble. But such subversion is always attendant to fractional-reserve banking. A wiser more honest Alan Greespan wrote an essay entitled 'Gold and Freedom' in the 1960s. Therein, he observed: "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation... The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." Greenspan intuitively knew this was still true when Rep. Ron Paul of Texas grilled him in hearings before the House Banking Committee.
   
   People can mock the alarmists and goldbugs, but the U.S. Dollar is poised to fall over a precipice of hyperinflation in the twenty-first century. For years, it has enjoyed prestige as the reserve currency of central banks and reserve currency for OPEC exchange, but it is steadily starting to unravel. Too much public sector indebtedness, a 10-trillion dollar debt, trillions in unfunded federal liabilities, and an aging workforce will all point to American economic decline. In the 1990s, almost 65-70% of U.S. Dollars in existence were in circulation abroad. There is no telling how much it is today. The results will be catastrophic if a shockwave hits, and those Dollars come back home in mass. It doesn't necessarily entail a 1929 crash, but it will likely result in economic stagnation where inflation surpasses real economic growth and/or near-double-digit unemployment.
   
   There is nothing special about Greenspan. He had wisdom to get out and find a fall guy in the new Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke. Bernanke will take the hit for his mistakes. Bernanke is afraid to do any needed correction, or surgery in the form of tightening monetary policy, and will continue to prime-pump the economy and foment an inflationary shockwave and economic stagnation. The cure for inflationary woes is always more inflation. It's a melancholy fate, and the market correction will be devastating. His career will be short-lived and he will be the scapegoat. John Keynes, hardly a model economist, was prescient nonetheless when he observed: "By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some....The process engages all of the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million can diagnose."
   
   "The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered."
   --Thomas Jefferson



5. I think that this book is very useful in the time we are living now. It show how the economy, especially the north american, but also the rest of the worl works. How the lack of responsability of what you offers to the market can destroy the market itself, and that, somehow must be supervise by some kind of goberment. anyway very interesting book.The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

5 comments about Old Money: The Mythology of Wealth in America.

1. This entirely absurd treatise on the "nobility of old wealth" is the most ludicrous piece ever written by a fully deluded and perverse individual. He attempts to convince us that "Old Money" is somehow tied in with the betterment and refinement of culture, of artistic values and family mores and a sense of "community values". I scoff at the very idea that the "wealthy" are any more perceptive or beneficial than those he calls the "rabble" at the bottom rung, their sole difference is that they are insular, arrogant, unsound and can effectively manipulate the corrupt system in place in the social world. They live in a world of delusion, segregated from the perception of the common man and of their own finality.
   
   Entirely avoiding any attachment with reality or historical manifestations, the author rambles on, endorsing us with his vision of the world as a "better place with wealth". He avoids the mitigation of corruption, political scheming, murderous exploitation of workers, and unethical urgency in the characteristics of the wealthy. Don't waste your time with this unless you want to laugh, pick up Karl Marx again, its a more enriching read. Long live the proletarian!



2. Hint: you can skim the first and last two chapters and learn all you could ever want to know about the OLD RICH.
   
   In a golden nutshell;
   
   Old Money likes old schools, old clubs and old stuff.
   Old Money likes other Old Money.
   Old Money REALLY likes MONEY.
   Old Money is bigoted (for the most part.)
   Old Money is tradition and duty bound to serve the greater good, except when it's not.
   Nelson Aldrich REALLY likes the word "invidious."
   
   I'd only advise buying this book if you are SERIOUSLY interested in the subject. It's not a breezy, humorous read like (outsider) Paul Fussell's "Class." Aldrich doesn't write about what Old Money wears or what kind of cars it drives; he takes a microscope to what drives Old Money, while never betraying his class by revealing anything terribly unflattering that we didn't already know. And, he wants us to KNOW that he's no lightweight rich guy dilettante! Allors! M. Aldrich parle le Francais, ou bien, il a une bonne dictionnaire Francaise! Qu'importe? In English or in French, this is navel gazing at its most erudite.
   
   The book is particularly enjoyable when he writes about recognizable figures; J.P. Morgan, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, JFK, Tommy Hitchcock, etc. Curiously, women do not figure prominently in Aldrich's Old Money enclave. Aldrich does eventually acknowledge Eleanor Roosevelt (quite well done), Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Doris Duke.
   
   The last two chapters are the best. "The Prince and the People" and "Hemingway's Curse" sum things up nicely, explaining exactly why Old Money has painted itself into a jewel encrusted corner.
   
   One complaint: the index could have been more concise. For example, Aldrich draws a clear distinction between patricians and aristocrats, two words often thought of as synonymous. Because of this, his definitions should appear in the index, yet Alrich's index is made up exclusively of proper names. This is odd for a esoteric book that puts forth so many hypotheses.
   
   PS: After reading this, DO read Michael Gross' 740 Park. Gross tells Old Rich tales that Aldrich wouldn't touch. Reading 740 Park is like gobbling a gooey ice cream sundae after dutifully nibbling Alrich's hollandaise covered spinach.



3. The book was just what I expected. I had done some prior research on the topic, and the book confirmed my research efforts.



4. The author of this book makes no excuses for his own wealth, nor for what he's done with his life of privilage. His ancestor who generated his inherited wealth was, basically, a crooked politician. His own achievements with his life of privilage have been pretty humble. He does give a spirited defence of an american WASP upper class which probably no longer really exists; it's hard to see the three character building trials (trial by school, the outdoors and combat) in modern wealthy folks. It's also hard to see the upper class having the privilages it used to: the NYT society section is hardly filled with the exploits of the Knickerbockers and Morgans any longer. It used to be, people like Mr. Aldrich ran the nation from the top; protecting their class interests in ways which are unimaginable today. Think, "robber barons;" -men in top hats who would give baksheesh to wastrels who would wait for them to drive by at the gates to their imperial factories or skyscrapers. Oh, his wealthy descendents still exist, but they simply are not important any more. More important are the class that makes up billionaires today; mostly new money and entertainers.
   
   People should realize, he is talking about a very american group of people; the upper classes of other countries have nothing in common with them. I don't care if you're a Marxist or whatever; the american upper classes are different than Mexican or French ones. In fact, that's why you often find them in political alignment with the working classes (aka George Bush and the NASCAR set); they share a fundamental nationalism which the upper middle classes will never understand. America has in fact been very lucky with its plutocracy. They may start out pretty bad, but they mellow and work for the betterment of the nation after a few generations. Compare to the Russian upper classes at any point in history (or even the patricians of ancient Rome), and you'll see my point. One of the great fortunes of america has been that our upper classes are largely benign. It is a shame the folkways of this american social class have decayed with its confidence. The world could use another Teddy Roosevelt.



5. This is a perfectly good book. Not great book in the sense of works that change your philosophy (as might "The Art of War" or "The Prince"), but good in the sense of a book that gives you a useful map of unfamiliar terrain.
   
   The value you derive from this book will depend on your point of view. My point of view is as a child that grew up in southern California of middle-class mid-western parents. My father was one sort of engineer, and I am another. The culture Aldrich ably describes is entirely alien from anything in my experience, and not of immediate significance. The book title could have been "Old Money on Mars" and the contents would have meant pretty much the same (aside from surprise over folk on Mars).
   
   Suddenly the odd references in old Catherine Hepburn movies have gained meaning.
   
   Aldrich has an odd rhythm of expression. This threw me off for a bit, but seems to be product of his "class" and education. Once you get past the odd rhythm, the remaining text is easier to read.
   
   It seems that Aldrich and much of his "class" are both caught up in a common mythology, and troubled by the unclear coupling with reality. Aldrich tries to be objective, but is also clearly embedded within that micro-culture.
   
   This is a good book, it provided a map to a place I did not know existed.

No comments about Managing Credit Risk: The Great Challenge for Global Financial Markets (Wiley Finance).

2 comments about Financial Crises, Liquidity, and the International Monetary System.

1. Tirole has written an invaluable book that sheds light to a complex and extremley actual topic. By showing once again his seriousness as an economist (as opposed to others; i.e. Stiglitz), he goes back to first principles to understand the source of problems in international contracts. The application of modern corporate finance to international finance is extraordinary.
   Even the first chapters should be obligatory reading to any student of international macro (even in the first macro course). The first one gives a concise history of modern currency crisis -the so called first twenty-first century crisis- while the second one masterfully summarizes the economists views on the subject.
   Good economics, great topic, amazing timing.



2. While most economists are still puzzled by the most recent foreign exchange and banking crises - such as the ones that took place last year in Argentina and Uruguay - and some of them (like Stiglitz) are proposing reckless and innefective solutions, such as abolishing the IMF and most of the existing international agencies, Jean Tirole presents a more pensive and fruitful explanation of why these crises occur, and sheds new light towards a much more effective solution. His approach is based on a new field of agency theory called Corporate Finance, which deals with the set of institutions that make it credible for the suppliers of funds to recover their investments in an specific firm.

   Tirole applies the basic principles of the prudential regulation of banks, that he worked before in collaboration with Mathias Dewatripont (MIT Press, 1994, ISBN: 0262041464), and which contains much of what we have learned through the twentieth century about financial crises. According to this approach, both the international financial and monetary systems would work much better if we had international risk classifying agencies on the one hand, providing information to investors about the liquidity and solvency of debtor countries, and a lender of last resort on the other. The trouble with the IMF is that it tries to perform both functions.

   However, what makes external borrowing more complicated than a typical financial arrangement is the presence of a third player, that is the borrower's government which has both the incentives and the means to affect the foreing investor's return by manipulating the exchange rate or the capital mobility. Because the investors' return is affected by the behaviour of two agents, the borrower himself and its government, Tirole calls this a dual agency problem.

   Tirole proposes an institutional reform in which the IMF should redefine its original mission, by concentrating in the role of facilitating the country's favourable access to foreign borrowing. This role underlies the (controversial) task of pre-qualification and conditionality. The IMF should also redefine its internal structure if it wants to perform well this new role. Its Board of Governors is too big and too heterogeneous to allow rapid and efficient decisions.

   In summary, this book presents and original and groundbreaking approach to financial crises which, as we expected from the beginning, arises more questions than answers. However, we know that the only way to find the appropriate solution to a problem is by formulating the right questions, and this is exactly what Tirole does. I am convinced that if the international agencies follow this approach they will soon find the right way to prevent or to lessen international financial crises, in the same way as central banks and financial regulatory agencies did with domestic banking crises during the last century.

5 comments about Secret World of Money.

1. Mr.Gause gives the novice and the expert an informative tour of the seldom exposed, true nature of the fractional reserve banking mechanism, which IS the root cause of the financial debacle we, as a nation now face in the coming few years. His revelation of the un-avoidable , immenant inflationary cycle that must come to pass, and the prudent wealth preservation stategy he advises one take,gives the reader an opportunty to explore an alternative investment plan that one may not ever have considered.



2. The Secret World of Money by Andrew Gause SDL PressReviewed by Joe Fuhrig Chief Economist, Michael H. Clement CorporationThe Secret World of Money by Andrew Gause comes prepared to instruct the reader and to tackle the tough issues of modern finance. This comprehensive work on money, banking and credit creation takes on fiat money, central banks, and the IMF. This worthy attempt to expose institutional causes of macroeconomic instability utilizes historical fact, theory and contemporary empirical evidence to build a case for an impending economic Armageddon.The serious reader, accustomed to discourse in modern world finance, will come away unconvinced and, in the final analysis, not impressed. It is not that Gauss does not summon a significant amount of historical fact for his ultimate arguments, but that some of his history is plainly incorrect, and that some of his conclusions do not connect with his historical narrative.His misunderstanding of the Jacksonian Revolution in American banking and finance leads the reader to believe that the author needs a refresher course in the fundamentals of money and banking. The genius of the Jacksonian Revolution in the U.S. circa 1835 to 1860 was to free banking from the perverse signals of State entry restrictions, abolish the Second Bank of the United States, and to subject the nation's currency system (comprised of competitive private bank notes) to the healthy incentives of a competitive market order. Gauss misses this significant point by arguing that this period was evidence of proper government interference in money and banking replacing improper interference.The well known Austrian notion that money is an emergent result of spontaneous market forces fully capable of producing a system which correctly prices time and risk is sadly absent from the author¹s analysis. His suspicion of modern institutions such as the Federal Reserve and the IMF, while well intended, gets confused by a suspicion of the people, motives, and collective interests which, to Gause, forms the outline of a massive world conspiracy. This conspiracy seems intent to bring ruin to the modern world economic order, which they themselves have created, by a regime of unbacked paper currency, hyperinflation and massive government debt. There is no notion presented here that modern social democracies might prove to be incentive incompatible.The simplistic analysis leads to a simplistic solution. We should distrust the current global system of banking and finance and invest in precious metals. We must prepare for a system programmed to implode by investing in coins. When H. Ross Perot was spreading his own version of deficit panic, one presumes that he must have used Gauss as a reference.There are genuine reasons to be suspicious of modern and historical intrusions by government into money and banking. The less government we have in world financial matters, the better. But one need look no further than the works of Murray Rothbard to find a more informed and articulate presentation of the warnings.



3. This comprehensive work by Andrew Gause really opened my eyes to the machinations of the system of banking that is destroying this country. The fact that our Government is paying billions of dollars in interest to a deceptively named private bank which holds the rights to creating our national currency is utterly shocking. Gause also points out the dangers of a currency that is created at the whim of an institution that is unaccountable for it's actions. Every American who is concerned with our future should read this book.



4. The book is full of very informative and elusive information about how our monetary system works behind the scenes. The author has taken great pains to explain and in some cases prove his points, and reveals some really scarry information. It's question and answer style was a little hard to take at first, but it's not written for it's style, but it's content. I would give it a 5 if it weren't for it's style. It's not an entertaining book, but the information it gives-- is.



5. The genious of the book is its simplicity. It is written with the beginner in mind, with facts and other tillilating information broken down and explained in elementary stages. In question and answer form this is an easy read and an easy reference book. It is good reading for those interested the inner workings of our monetary systems.

5 comments about Credit Derivatives & Synthetic Structures: A Guide to Instruments and Applications, 2nd Edition.

1. POSITIVE POINTS: Best indepth book on Credit Derivatives. Very readable. Explains very nicely why this derivatives are so important for banks. Non technical.

   NEGATIVE POINTS: Focus on banks with only a little chapter on Credit Derivatives as investment products. No explanation how those derivatives are priced (but hey, there are loads of technical books)




2. I am a Fin Math student and by now a Google search expert. I do have this book from my library and it requires patience .
   Personally I would keep it that way borrow from a library and read free research on the net with more math. It is a good buy for a practioner who needs to refer various structures and market structure in one place. The author has definetely put in effort to collate all her years of market experience.



3. This is my fourth purchase; this one is for a new analyst I hired. I have read Janet Tavakoli's book as well as all of the current literature on credit derivatives. This book is one of the best books on derivatives I have read in terms of style of writing and content (I'm not after the mathematics on finance; there are plenty of those). I am a current successful credit derivatives trader.



4. This is a good book about how credit risk derivatives are handled in the daily practice of a big international bank. Although the author clearly knows her math the book contains hardly any formula. Since I am a model builder and most clients of our treasury consultancy firm are medium seize companies there initially was a misfit. However this book is a very good antidote for people putting too much faith in mathematical models. I can not help being one of them. I liked the down to earth approach very much. In the end I learned a lot more than I thought I would.



5. Great book for introduction of CDS and other structured products. I work in risk and this book helped clarify several things.

4 comments about Inflation Targeting: Lessons from the International Experience.

1. An easy to read book for people of all levels. It takes the reader through case studies on the various countries which have introduced inflation targeting. This is interesting from a historical perspective, but since inflation targeting really is a very simple concept (announce an inflation target, describe why you aim to hit this target, make it clear how you shall go about achieving this target and at all times be transparent in your pursuit of that target) the book tends to be repetitive. This book simply goes over too many similar regimes and thus cannot help but cover the same points over again. The last chapter is a study of the U.S. (a rare example of a country with very steady inflation which has not introduced an explicit inflation target) with some recommendations on how (and why) it should implement an inflation target. This book is recommended if you want very indepth case studies on the introduction of inflation targeting in countries as different as Sweden, New Zealand, The U.K. and Australia, but if you only need a quick overview of what inflation targeting is then buy a good general Economics textbook and read the section on it.



2. I have never been a fan of condensed books for the obvious reason that they leave out content and motivation. This book, however, could be shrunk by 3/4 without any real loss. Yes, there is much in-depth case study information here, but the paper could have been much better used by substituting much of it for some harder, theoretical motivation and analytical discussions. The authors are capable of this. Also, despite the painstaking redundent detail and a few regressions, for me the authors fail to place inflation targeting and inflation targeting countries into the greater context of inflationary policies and countries facing inflation. It surprises me that there is no mention of some of the, especially developing countries, where inflation has been a serious problem and where most battles of the future are likely to be fought.



3. This book is designed essentially all audiences, i.e., it could an easy read for undergraduate economic students. The book, while somewhat repetitive, is a good 'read' especially as one of the authors is now the Chairman of the Federal Reserve who advocates inflation targeting.
   
   The prior reviewer was unhappy that developing countries' central bank experiences were not included in the book. I am afraid that would have made for an unweildy book given that the focus is on credible inflation targeting regimes with a 'track record' - not countries who are in need of such a regime. Such a discussion can be found in other books. It is not a coincidence that the authors focused on developed countries - that is their interest and specialty.
   
   The focus is not on policy prescriptions per se but what has and has not been effective. This is not an IMF prescription manual for a developing country. The countries studied underwent shocks but their relative stability leads to a more certain analysis.



4. Inflation Targeting is a kind of monetary policy first exercised in New Zealand, in practice, and afterwards brought to the academy research. This book analyses the way that this and many other countries dealed with the new approach of conducting monetary policy towards inflation control, bringing a full and comprehensive description of the behaving of their economies as well as their main macroeconomic variables, before, during and after the targets have been set. It is extremely well written, making its reading very pleasant, and provides the reader a full description of the inflation targeting implementation.

5 comments about Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap -- and What Women Can Do About It.

1. The controversy surrounding this book is not only in its very existence in the gender-political climate of today but also the author's weak choice of his target market. The material is unsettling for the female reader searching for yet another sympathetic ear in the mire of self-help books, an industry with synthetic reality for sale. It's totally ok for a handful male-oriented books to exist amongst the shelves of female self-help "porn." Do universities even offer male-oriented social study ? Oh, wait, that's engineering.
   
   The author systematically discusses the reasons behind the perceived in equality in the inappropriately concocted but very real pay gap. When multiplied by years worked, the "total earnings" difference is a canyon.
   
   The author makes a great point that the workplace has largely changed to accomodate females. Diversity training is about altering male behavior rather than training women to enter the culture of the existing workplace. There is no equivalent training of women to accept men in female-dominated industries, such as teaching, retail clothing sales, medical practice/nursing, childcare, etc. On the contrary, men are increasingly demonized as potential rapists and child molesters.
   
   Men have always been pressured to earn more because they NEED to. Males compete with one another for desirable characteristics that are still in vogue. Just search the on-line dating listings to see that women prefer men that are physically larger (taller), are older (can demonstrate a track record of holding a job and accumulating assets) and , well, make more money. When these selective pressures are reduced, the pay gap may narrow. The gap won't disappear until the advantage of leveraged feminity disappears with it.



2. If I did not see in author's biography that he is the father of two girls, I would have difficult time accepting some of his statements and explanations as to why is it that men make more money than women do. Advice to women that they should be courageous and enter the male dominated fields is something I have tried many years ago myself. Being willing to travel, relocate, enter the professions traditionally held by men and dedicate life to a career is the path I have followed. While I have had good professional success so far, I still do not find it to ring true that will necesarily generate more money in salary than what people working for me (all men incidentally) do. As a matter of fact, my employees make the same, or more money in salaries and benefits than I do.
   What I have found interesting is the notion of the social order that author is trying to break. He is suggesting that women need to be accepting of having "stay at home husband" or what author is also referring to as "wife". Traditionally all women, even the successful ones according to today's standards have always been looking into ways to marry well (i.e. marry up). That made their own professional careers limited, since they always had to consider their own husbands careers too before making their own professional mark. Successful men on the other hand always had stay at home wives that followed them around country or world every time a new career opportunity for their man came along. Women need to free themselves up from the notion that they must have successful professional husbands in order to be successful themselves. I still find it difficult to buy as an idea, since I have a "wife" myself, and yet - money is not as good as it should be. There must be some other answers out there, only this book is not providing me with ones I was hoping for....



3. Farrell contends that women make less due to the fact that they pick "easier" or more pleasant jobs than men. This may be the case in some instances, but I picked up this book because I thought it was about the wage imbalance, not what an average man makes compared to the avg woman. The wage imbalance is for the SAME jobs, not different ones.
   
   Farrell says things like women make less because they choose to be day care providers instead of accountants. Again, I'm not saying this is not the case, but that does NOT address why women accountants make LESS than male accountants (with the same education, years of experience, etc). THAT is the real wage imbalance and Farrell just tells one common sense (like that a liberal arts degree gets you less money than a technology degree). I hope this "researcher" didn't get any money for his "research" on this. It's COMMON SENSE, not research!
   
   Don't waste your money on this book!!!



4. According to New York Times,
   women who have no children
   make 98% of a man's salary,
   but women all together (including
   the childless women) make
   about 76% of what men earn.
   
   This fact was cited in The Expanded Family Life Cycle,
   a book with a clearly feminist agenda, and rated here on Amazon accordingly.



5. This is the message from Warren Farrell's intelligent and objective work on the truth behind salary discrepancies. The sinister male conspiracy insinuated by feminism that keeps women's wages low is revealed to be a fantasy, as what we are looking at is simply a case of economic cause and effect. Don't study those fun and fulfilling courses like History of Art or French Lit. Everyone would love to do a 'hobby degree', especially if you have a partner to pay the bills, but you'll never get one of those jobs which require a real degree, like in Engineering, Science, Architecture or Medicine, which men don't do more often because they enjoy it, but because they know they're not going to find a woman to fund their needs if they do a hobby degree. Work as much overtime as a man. Commute as far as he does. Do a job as dirty, stressful, or dangerous. Do a job with uncomfortable working conditions, preferably working 12 hour shifts outside in winter. Be prepared to face mutilation and permanent disfigurement on a daily basis. Work 84 hour weeks. Then you'll be earning 98% of a man's salary. Now let's all try to close off those remaining 2% without getting distracted by this childish misrepresentation from feminist groups as to the true extent of this problem (76% - what a joke!).
   
   The free market always causes jobs to gravitate towards those who can be paid less. This is why in most Western countries without a minumum wage, foreign men can be found on the construction sites, with foreign women often as cleaners. Here in Germany it was traditionally Poles and other East Europeans, in the States probably Mexicans. German and American men and women had priced themselves out of the market, and thus lost out to those willing to work for lower pay. If any sensible person was starting a company in a fantasy world where female workers, equally good as the male ones, could be got for a fraction of the salary, men would struggle to find work. Companies would ONLY hire women, unless there was no alternative but to pay the higher salaries demanded by men in such a fantasy world. That is the world where feminists live. They believe that this is the one area of economic activity which breaks all known rules of the free market and economic activity. Please, any feminist who reads this and rates me low, answer me that question, or I have zero respect for your intelligence, or the ideology you promote. By lying like this, you are making people sceptical of other genuine discrimination against women.
   
   Sometime in April we can expect those dim-witted Mastodon's of dinosaur feminism to remind us all of how many extra days women have to work to get a man's wage. What a load of bilge! How anyone in their right mind can think they deserve something for nothing beats me, almost as much as the last line of the review Amazon so kindly chose for this book - they're not famous for choosing complimentary reviews of books that conflict in any way with the matriarchy, and this is another typical case:
   
   'Ostensibly a road-map to workplace equality, Farrell's portrait of pampered, ungrateful women and stoic, self-sacrificing men may strike some readers as an unhelpful caricature.'
   
   ...but only those readers accustomed to decades of books and proaganda on brave self-sacrificing women and ungrateful deadbeat dads. For the rest of us, it's wonderful to see the other side represented, although this book is a drop in the ocean. I trust 'Publisher's Weekly', who produced the above review, have criticized in a similar way all the feminist books which present men as described above. If they haven't, shame on them for their hypocrisy and prejudiced reviewing, and let us pray that some day such biased journals will go the way of the dinosaurs too.
   
   To sum up, this book is a must-get, if only to be able to argue effectively against those who still believe in feminism's wage fantasies.
   Be careful though - the truth hurts, and more than one feminist has blown up in my face on having her delusions revealed...

1 comments about The Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving your Credit Score (Complete Idiot's Guide to).

1. I purchased this book because I educate people on credit scores (mortgage broker) and as looked through this book at the checkout line, there was a lot of information that I had not come across on improving credit. I am reading it so that I can learn some new tips to help people qualify for a lower mortgage rate. It's easy to read and very helpful.
   Christine, Sr Loan Officer[...]