Business and Economy Books

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.

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!

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.

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....

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.

This is a detailed book. Almost too detailed. As a Professor of International Business in Tokyo's Sophia University the author is in a prime position to detail the woes of the Japanese financial system. And maybe that's where the problem with this book lies. He is a professor and not a writer. His insistence on using the expression "Big Bang" started to become a little annoying.

His main emphasis is to point the finger at the Ministry of Finance, the government department which is supposed monitor the economy, regulate the banks and other duties as well. But the Bank of Japan, Tokyo University, private banks, gangsters, construction companies and everyone else are included where necessary.

But the main problem with the book is that it is fairly technical and dry. As I am not an economics student, I had trouble understanding a lot of the financial terms and expressions used through out the book. There is little in the way of explanations or a glossary or index for the average reader to use.

For the parts that I could follow, it paints a dire picture of the continuing Japanese economic malaise. Even though the book is a few years old now, the indications presented in the book and the remedies are still valid today because reform in Japan is a slow moving beast.

Prof. Hayes is a well-known Tokyo-based commentator and financial expert. He is especially well-known for his straight talkimg, without being beholden to ideology, vested interests or other unseen affiliations that so often cloud the analysis and the work of others in business, finance and economics. He is very effective in dismissing the cultural argument as a reason for Japan's economic misery. That indeed is a fundamental point: financial disasters (though perhaps of smaller proportions) have happened before in other countries, and the causes were not cultural then... The book should be titled slightly differently, as those that expect detailed coverage of the big Bang reforms may be disappointed - but then again, those reforms can be listed up pretty quickly by anyone doing a 15 minute search on the internet. Hayes' value added is in the incisive analysis. That the book is highly readable and indeed very entertaining goes without saying for this author.

When I saw that the Yomiuri had rubbished this book I knew it had to be good. I have previously used their feelance reviewer Scott Gordon as a counter barometer and he has yet to fail me. Gordon accuses Hayes of being a Japan basher (the old refrain on anyone who doesn't use Bridgestone's faulty tyres of Mitsubishi's faulty cars). The fact is that Japan's bust was the biggest in financial history, Japan's financial institutions are primitive and there is nothing magical in anything of that. Pathetic hacks like Gordon who hide behind the cultural argument - Japan's culture is different and therefore we should not use normal international metrics to judge her - have had their day. Japan tries to compete internationally. Hayes shows the myriad of handicaps she labors under - and he did this before the lateest scandals cropped up. Given what he has said in his book, the Mitsubishi and Bridgestone sagas are entirely predictable - as are the tirades of Gordon and other sad souls. A good, inforamtive and well written book.

I agree with the positive reviews of the previous posters. This book is incisive, penatrating, well written and Prof. Hayes has a solid grasp on his topic and has made it accessible to non-bankers and non-finance experts. But it should be pointed out that this book is NOT about the Big Bang. All you'll get about that in this book are phrases like "The Big bang will..." or "The Big Bang should..." or "The Big Bang ought to..." and mostly just in passing . Despite the fact that this book was published in 2000 its information seems to be current as of the third quarter of 1998. What this book does do and does very well is explain just how the Japanese economy got into the mess it is in and he answers the question of just how the world's largest banks and insurance companies managed to lose $700 billion by investing in real estate. And he lays the blame clearly at the feet of the Ministry of Finance's largely incompetant mandarins and the directors of Japan's banks who thought they could dominate global finance using the same tactics Toyota and Sony used to dominate the automobile and consumer electronics industries.

I have to rate it highly. It was a good, well written book looking at the aftermath of the Bubble and the proposed Big Bang reforms. Unlike earlier books written when Japan was outperforming all its competitors, it did not stand in shock, awe and wonder at Japan Inc but instead painted its strengths and many weaknesses. Although controversial, none of the many facts it outlines can be seriously queried.
Because the Japanese game, as Gillian Tett's book, PM Koizumi's reform plans and Carlos Ghosn's epxerience, has, in many ways moved on, this book is probably now most useful as a historical summary of what drove Japan into its current round of reforms.

In a nutshell, this book provided ideas, strategies, and mechanisms to take the next big step beyond what others are doing. This book differentiates KM software applications to categorize information from the very human activities needed to create the innovative enterprise. When everyone has implemented KM..how do we create an ability to outperform competition? Some key thoughts and ideas are presented in this book. Always worth going back to for some inspiration.

I am truly mystyfied how this book could get 5 stars from almost all readers. There is no method to it. It is just a collection of random statements praising the importance of knowledge management (frequently also author's company). While most of the opinions cited in this book are undoubtedly true, almost nothing of practical significance follows.

An extraordinary book, with a comprehensive knowledge management review and fresh topics. Ideal for advanced readers in KM topics and the Innovation Process. Don't lose this reading.

Subsequent to the massive investments in such consulting fads, tools and initiatives as 'right sizing', 'process re-engineering', IT infrastructure, 'so called' knowledge-management, etc., etc... many enterprises around the globe are reeling from the unrealized gains and often harmuful effects stemming from these activities... and as being painfully exposed by the so called 'New Economy'. In this regard, many of these same people and entities responsible for such 'Tayloristic', fragmented and myopic activities are scrambling to find the most recently espoused solutions, tools and gimmicks to prop-up lackluster results, and in many cases, just to survive. In response, a plethora of authors, consultants and media-sellers are happy to fill the market with products and services that are, once again, proclaimed to be the "real truth".

If you are adamant in your belief that the ability to create a successful life, career, enterprise, or even nation, is contingent upon one's ability to manage and control those persons, entities and resources within their 'shpere of influence' in the spirit of head-to-head competition... please do not bother to purchase this book for yourself. Simply forward a copy to a dear friend, loved one or colleague who is in search of true enlightenment and is worthy of the timeless truths and wisdom inherent in this great work.

To her merit, Ms. Amidon has effectively researched, synthesized and articulated both the 'hows' and 'whys' anyone truly desiring a prosperous and sustainable future for themselves, their families and enterprises, and yes, even their country and the world at large, can accomplish such worthy endeavors. To this end, Ms. Amidon's work does not serve up a conjured 'solution', but simply sheds light on the simulatneously complex and yet simple truth.... that to successfully and conscientiously seek sustainable success in a dynamic and choatic environment.... one must nurture, lead and inspire others to collaboratively and holistically allign themselves to seek the continuous identification/measurement, synthesis and application/diffusion of all their combined tangible and intangible assets e.g., intellectual, social and financial capital. In a curt phrase with no intended disrespect... "It's innovation stupid."

When I first read Innovation Strategy for the Knowledge Economy in 1998, I was amassing a large library of KM books. I had accomplished a similar effort in the mid-80's on the subject of innovation. Because of the relatedness of these two efforts, I grasped rather quickly the importance Debra Amidon was placing on innovation--my ken was clear. I believed she was and is, more than figuratively speaking, on the money.

From the beginnings of the focus on KM, there has consistently been the challenging people/technology dichotomy. Amidon's perspective on innovation provides an extremely insightful focus on a third dimension in the core KM picture--process. Debra Amidon obviously had enough grounding in both the people and technology domains of knowledge activities that she intuitively values the innovation issue.

The American culture and economy has always been fueled by high capacity for innovation. While we have kept the pace, other nations are increasing their innovation quotient. Now, in a new knowledge era, Debra Amidon is offering advanced ways to leverage innovation. Much of what she presents seems familiar, nevertheless, the way she weaves it all together and the new elements she presents takes innovation to a new level in the enterprise. For me, this book becomes more valuable each year, particularly as we find that the nature of innovation in our enterprises becomes more complex with higher stakes than ever.

"Ripples from the Zambezi" is a beautiful, simple, common sense book with profound implications for catalyzing successful small business creation and growth. It was recently recommended to me by an economic development agency official working in an affluent, conservative U.S. Midwestern county. He felt some of the approaches might work for his area; and in reading the book, I concur with his conclusions.

In efforts to inform work on strategic innovation and marketing, I have plowed through far too many derivative, nonsensical business titles over the years. Before I picked this up, I was a little concerned that it might be a cult book; however, given the importance of rural renewal, I was willing to give any earnest voice the benefit of the doubt.

It was wrong to have prejudged "Ripples from the Zambezi." If this has risen to the status of a cult book, then Mr. Sirolli would be the first to suggest that you never mindlessly apply any approach he might propose. In our left-brain weighted society, it is easy to mistake an enthusiastic voice for a naïve one--but there is a basis for this enthusiasm that is powerful, and which Mr. Sirolli explores fully.

The ideas here are different. Mr. Sirolli speaks to the potential and the results of connecting with each entrepreneur holistically to engage heartfelt intention and remove obstacles to successful growth. The message--that individuals can realize hope for themselves, for their families, and for their communities borne of connecting passion with skill and action is a big message--and the Renaissance man who delivers it is capable to the challenge.

Every paragraph of Ernesto Sirolli's book is loaded with mature, interdisciplinary insight. It is a book whose "time has come" and whose wisdom is carefully woven through the subtext: it's personal, easy to read, and gut-wrenchingly smart.

Don't read this book. DO WHAT IT SAYS! I seldom applaud things. This I do.

I loved the book. Not only it gives great insights on enterpreneurship, it also teaches us that facilitation can be applied in all aspects of life, from work to family with fantastic results.

I highly recommend the book.

I work with small businesses and developing entrepreneurs and this book helped me see another view and perspective in the work i go. I recommend it for anyone who works in the small business (and micro business) community and who would like some new direction on how to build local economies.

"I can't myself raise the winds that might blow us, or this ship, into a better world. But, I can at least put up a sail so that, when the wind comes, I can catch it."

E. F. Schumacher

This was a fun and insightful book to read. Amidst all the discussion about radical, disruptive and breakthrough innovation, this book is a refreshing reminder that small things can make a big difference. It's a reality check for big budget innovation programs and economic development programs that usually end up stealing a company from one community in order to develop the economy of your community (a zero sum game by the way). This book is about dedicated, skilled innovators with a passion for their innovations and facilitators who provided the missing ingredients preventing these passionate innovators from making their ideas a reality. Sometimes, those missing ingredients were connections to the right people. Sometimes they were small sums of money (ridiculously small amounts of money that yielded great returns). And, sometimes it was adding small supportive or enabling innovations that turned an idea into a viable business model. And, always it's about the pattern of product, process and procedure innovation that worked.

Sirolli's journey began as a member of an Italian economic aid organization in Zambia. They noticed that the land along the Zambezi River was incredibly fertile. They thought that if they brought modern farming knowledge and applied it to the land, they would demonstrate to the natives just how much they could benefit. Of course, what did the Italians decide to grow? Tomatoes. The soil and weather were perfect. And, the tomatoes grew - the biggest most beautiful tomatoes the Italians had ever seen. The Italians watched with pride as their crop matured. The natives silently watched and laughed among themselves. One morning, just when the crop was about ready to be harvested, Sirolli reports that they came to the fields to find them totally destroyed. The hippos of the Zambezi had eaten all the tomatoes and laid the fields to waste, and the only tell tale signs were the ripples in the water.

Sirolli quotes Pliny the Elder, "There is always something new out of Africa." Sirolli writes, "Those who have worked in an African country will tell you, if they are honest, that they always learn from the expereince much more than they had bargained for...I am no exception." Later he states, "I became conscious of the fact that we were not doing the right thing - and consciousness is an extraordinary thing."

"Right now, in your community, at this very moment, there is someone who is dreaming about doing something to improve his/her lot. If we could learn how to help that person to transform the dream into meaningful work, we would be halfway to changing the economic fortunes of the entire community," the author comments. This is Sirrolli's credo. It is clear upon reading the book that the author has had a good classical education (formal or informal). His thinking about innovation is colored by Schumacher, Maslow and Rogers.

His advice, based on Schumacher is, "If people don't ask for help, leave them alone. And, there is no good or bad technology to carry out a task - only an appropriate or inappropriate one. Something big, modern and expensive is not necessarily best; it all depends on the circumstances."

"Because of Maslow and Schumacher," he writes, "I came to understand that successful development has to do with the quality, not quantity of life." Human beings are striving creatures. When one level of need is met, people move on to higher levels in an endless cascade. Is it any wonder that this country grew as it did because the founders understood this about people and claimed equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

With this framework, the author was able to explain his experiences in Africa. "They were secure and did love and had self esteem in the same proportions Western people had, maybe even more. Some of them were beautiful, wise, self-actualizing people reaching for the apex of full humanness," Sirolli writes.

The level of what is enough at each stage of development is set by cultural and psychological factors. Some people get stuck in the pursuit of material goods and others have lower levels of satisfaction and move on to the next higher state of development. The natives had enough food, safety and security for them, and they could move on to higher levels of human development.

From Carl Rogers he found that "that it was possible to help people heal themselves by simply being there, listening, facilitating and responding to the client's needs for communication and finding values to live by." "The aim is not to solve one particular problem but to help the individual to grow so that he can cope with the present problem and with later problems in a better, more integrated fashion."

Later, he continues, "Reading about the champions of the human race, I couldn't avoid creating, in my mind, a demonology - that is, a list of the demons oppressing us. Contrary to Dante's Inferno, however, my hell wasn't populated by naked gluttons, greedy merchants, and assorted petty sinners. The torturers had no tails; rather they were well-dressed authoritarian figures who, in the name of an idea, would torture and beat the psychological life out of the people in their power. From unyielding bureaucrats to religious fanatics, from political extremists to avid do-gooders, my demonology started to contain anybody who dreamt up a code of conduct and tried to manipulate or coerce others to follow it."

Sirolli's encourages his facilitators to support clients who have a marriage of both passion and skill. "But becoming what we are is invariably difficult," he writes. "We have to commit ourselves to a course that may prove to be unpopular with our peers, unfashionable among our friends, and unbecoming in the eyes of our parents. Striving for individuality is always a lonely business. Passion is what propels us during our solitary journey." Commenting on skill he writes, "Our generation is a generation without masters. We are still under the impression, and like to think, that The Beatles didn't have to learn how to play music; that Jimi Hendrix picked up a guitar one morning, put a big joint in his mouth, and started to play like a god. Does the next, younger generation, understand that there cannot possibly be art without skill?"

"Facilitation," he writes, "is based on the belief that it is human to dream and desire. Faith in human nature is what makes it work." "The skill of the facilitator is to become available to those who have the dream and to help them acquire the skills to transform it into meaningful and rewarding work. The skill of facilitation is therefore a communication skill with a twist. It isn't so much that facilitators have to communicate to their client; rather they have to be the kind of person one likes to talk to." Their role is to simple remove the obstacles that stifle a client's growth.

He identifies the characteristics of facilitators:

 Facilitators are passive
 Facilitators are visible
 Facilitators provide just-in-time help
 Facilitators work in confidence
 Facilitators act like swans
 Facilitators love action
 Facilitators are a loaded spring
 Facilitators assess the person and the motivation behind the idea.
 Facilitators understand that ideas are cheap, passionate individuals are rare
 Facilitators establish true communications and build trust
 facilitators don't play power games
 Facilitators are non-threatening, unassuming friendly listeners who make people want to talk to them.


The book is full of examples and case histories, and is divided into 14 chapters:
1. Out of Africa
2. The Technology Fix
3. Homo Cupeins - The Desiring Man
4. Out of the Mountain Cave Back to School
5. The Art of Shoemaking
6. The Esperance Expereince
7. The Esperance Model Applied
8. On Facilitation
9. Training Facilitators
10. A Word of Caution
11. Facilitation and Economic Development
12. A Quiet Revolution
13. The Politics of Personal Growth
14. Epilogue - Civic Society, Social Capital, and the Creation of Wealth

As you can see from the outline, the discussion covers a good deal of territory and Sirolli has meaningingful insights in all the topics. For example, "The shift by governments away from resource driven economies to valued-added ones cannot take place without recognizing that our greatest assets are not the ones that lie underground. Our greatest assets must be our energy, imagination, and skill - our commitment to good work and to the pursuit of excellence and the courage to fulfill our ambitions. Every single person is important in the creation of a better, wealthier, smarter society. Whether employed are not, engaged in export service industries, in the arts, sports or tourism, the quality, both of personal and professional, of every single person is what will make a country prosperous."

And, "Thus the freedom to become is the key to unlocking civic society and long term economic prosperity. Wealth can be generated in the short term in exploiting natural resources, but 1,000 years of prosperity can only be created intelligently by working together, exchanging ideas, sharing technology and resources, and helping each other do well in the understanding that a myriad of wealthy self-employed people produce an economic system immensely more resilient than any alternative."

And, "The beauty of Maslow's theory is that it explains that helping each other is not done out of charity, but out of our need to be appreciated, loved and respected."

Michelangelo, who believed his role as a sculptor was to release the images that were already in the stone, wrote:

"The best of artists hath no thought to show
which the rough stone in its superfluous shell
doth not include; to break the marble spell
is all the hand that serves the brain can do. "

To make his point, he carved a series of "unfinished" works depicting humans emerging from the rock (The Prisoners).

Metaphorically, the facilitator's role is the same.

And, if the facilitator is blessed with double insightful vision and can not only see the beauty inside the innovator, but can see the community that could emerge as a result, then a community transformation can occur.

You just have to read this book. And, when you do, write something about it. Better yet, use it.

Ellie Kay does a masterful job helping families manage finances. In fact, the book should be titled, Family Guide to Finances, because she has the whole family involved! Having been raised by immigrant parents whose values helped me to become a responsible spender, saver, donator, Ellie's book still offers reasons to keep reading--from the eight money-saving/spending personalities (including, Love Ya Louie and Balanced Betty), resources for saving money online, keeping track of what we spend, to the Money Pyramid (starting with 10% FUN money). Most of all, her stories and digressions make this a real page-turner filled with valuable nuggets.

Written with light humor, this book on a serious subject is a delight to read. Ellie writes as if she is sitting across a cafe table, drinking coffee with you. What makes the book fun to read - and interesting so you keep turning those pages - is that Ellie uses experiences from her own life and turns them into lessons for readers.

The advice Ellie gives in her book is rock solid and makes perfect sense, and she doesn't just tell you what to do, she gives the reader steps on how to do it.

This book is not a "How to Get Rich" book. It does not delve into the dark mysterious sometimes boring world of the inner workings of stocks, bonds, banks or international finances. "A Woman's Guide to Family Finances" is a book that tells, step by step, what a woman can do to get herself out of debt and into the black in the most painless, easy to understand methods possible.

Chapters begin with interesting information, usually a personal experience Ellie has had. She then tells the lesson she learned from her experience. Then she lists the steps taken to correct the problem or make the success discussed.

I would recommend this book to any woman, no matter what stage of your life you are in. Young and just beginning to "I'm too old to change" (which I don't believe is ever true).

Only an absolute madman would give his wife the keys to the family finances!

Unfortunately, I had to learn this lesson the hard way. Growing up in a liberal democrat household, my parents told me all this nonsense about how men and women should co-pilot the marriage. When I did eventually get married, I carried out my parent's instructions. I told my wife she didn't have to change her last name, went to all her feminist happenings, and last but not least, I bestowed upon her the family wallet.

I was a complete rube!

Even though, being a man, I made almost twice as much as she did, she spent all the money! Whenever I would come home from a hard day's work, there would be bags from Bloomingdales, Macy's, Bath and Body Works, and every other store women frequent, all over the house! My wife spent me into the poor house.

If that wasn't bad enough, when she found out my money was gone she split! There I was alone and in debt thanks to my parents silly liberal ideals. I went to them and asked them how their marriage worked with such flawed thinking. Then they sprung it on me. "We never were married, son. We liberals have evolved past that archaic pastime." My father stated sternly.

"Then you never gave her control over the finances?" I asked naively, eyes wide with innocence.

"Me? Give your mother control over the money? You gotta be putting me on. That feminism stuff is fine on paper, but I wouldn't recommend actually trying it out." He walked away with a sadistic chuckle.

This book gives practical advice to any woman interested in getting control of family finances, whether she is married, single with kids or on her own.
It also includes help for financial recovery for the deeply in debt and for the suddenly unemployed.
Divided into two sections, Ellie Kay jumps into the hard truth with "Where Did All The Dough Go?"

Ms Kay's description of the America's normal family:
1. Married with two children
2. Modest home with a 30 year mortgage
3. $40,000 annual income
4. Savings account with less than $500 in it
5. $8,000 in credit card debt
6. Two car payments
7. No household budget
8. No long-term retirement account
9. They want their children to go to college


Where they hope to be One Fine Day
1, Paid off mortgage
2. Paid off credit cards
3. Nice savings account
4. IRAs
5. Kids sent to college
6. Retirement

And where they will actually be if they continue their financial habits shows a vast divide that hits all too close to home for many of us.

Ellie Kay asks, "What are you willing to do today in order to make your family's financial dreams cone true in the future?"

She goes on to show the different personalities and emotions that drive financial decisions. Chances are you will find yourself in one or more of these personalities as I did.
But, take heart, she gives practical ways to break free from the destructive spending cycles that accompany each of these personalities.

After facing the hard truth of who we are and how we spend, we get to take action in Section 2 "Money Management For Everyone"
In this section there are action steps such as Ten Tips to Save Ten Bucks in Ten Minutes (or less) and establishing a household budget, based on The Fifty Thousand Dollar Pyramid
This section is packed with useful information about everything from choosing a mortgage to garage sales and Ebay.

The last chapter brings home the spiritual reason for being financially secure. - So that we can give generously, in very practical ways, to those in need.
I enjoyed Ms Kay's entertaining sense of humor, which got me through even the painful areas of `self-recognition' and 'plastic (credit card) surgery'.

Do you dream of the day when . . .

. . . Your credit cards are paid off?

. . . You have a savings account and an IRA?

. . . You can take a once-in-a-lifetime family vacation?

Then A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO FAMILY FINANCES is the book for you. Written in an entertaining, easy-to-read style, Ellie Kay will teach the reader how she took her family from over forty-thousand dollars in credit card debt, to being completely debt-free in two and a half years.

Ms. Kay shows in easy to understand chapters how to budget, how to save on essentials, how to go on a debt diet, and how to weather financial set-backs, including losing your job and looking for a new place of employment.

I don't usually like to read how-to books, but this book reads like a good novel. I had to keep reading. I learned some really valuable tips and relearned others that I'd forgotten and am looking forward to putting my new budget into operation.

A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO FAMILY FINANCES is a book to read through once, but then come back to time and again as you are ready to make more financial changes. She advices you start small and build your way up so you don't go into shock and stop trying to save money. Whether you are a born spender or saver, A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO FAMILY FINANCES is a book for a keeper shelf to be read and studied over and over. I'd recommend having your teenagers read it too, especially if they are soon to be on their own.

=== reviewed by Laura V. Hilton for Christian Bookshelf

A classic is a work that rewards repeated re-reading. I am planning to repeat the graduate seminar I gave around this book not only because it is a revelation to students who have been schooled in standard economics but also because I myself realize I have more to gain from another run through it.

Another thing that keeps it fresh nearly 50 years after publication is the almost complete lack of topical material that could go stale. A peculiarity of the original edition is that the projected third volume had to be shortened into a single chapter because its total condemnation of government was too controversial for the publisher. That third volume was later published as "Power and Market: Government and the Economy." It is bound in with the original Man Economy & State in the Scholar's Edition, which somewhat confusingly still includes the original summary chapter.

This book assumes no background in economics, and takes the reader straight through from the most basic aspects of human action through the whole of economics without the artificial break between micro and macro that corrodes present-day economic thinking. Rothbard spins out long chains of reasoning, which although they are clearly presented, do require sustained attention. If you are willing to give it that attention, the book will repay you handsomely. Rothbard leads us to the standard laws of supply and demand, but grounds them in a way that standard textbooks miss. His treatment of monopoly is unique, arguing that very concept of a monopoly price is illegitimate because one the "competitive price" with which it is to be contrasted cannot be identified, and therefore one cannot distinguish a movement along a demand curve from a sub-competitive price toward the alleged competitive price from a movement upward from that price.

There is much more that is unique to Rothbard (and much that is consonant with standard economics), but I will just mention one more thing, a favorite of mine. That is his classification of violent behavior into (1) autistic intervention, e.g. forcing someone to salute a flag, (2) binary intervention, e.g. robbery or taxation, and (3) triangular intervention where the aggressor forces or prohibits exchanges between others, e.g. through price controls.

In the course of 1,000 pages or so Rothbard does slip occasionally. And he runs into the ditch in his attempt to discredit the concept of velocity and the equation of exchange. Nonetheless this is a masterful, enjoyable, and highly rewarding book.

This is Murray Rothbard's Magnum Opus, or maybe it isn't. He has had so many books that were great, it is really hard to tell which one is his best. Anyways, this is a treastise on economics and a very good one at that. Once you get past the initial setting up of the economy, Rothbard guides you onto several other important issues related to the economy and economics. This book, however, is not going to be taken up by diehard Marxians or socialists. This book is written by an Austrian economist, he isn't Austrian just from that school of thought, which canonically oppose most state intervention. In the case of Rothbard, you will see this grow into fruition, as Rothbard is somewhat of an anarchist. Anyways, this book guides you through many areas of economics that deal with a wide variety of problems such as public policy stances, unemployment, and the like. It is truly a great read, if you have the time.

This is simply the best treatise on economics that has been written upto date in the human history. Ludwig Von Mises 'Human Action' comes close but it is too dense for a layman.

This book: Man, Economy and State, written by Murray N. Rothbard can make an economist out of layman if he puts time and efforts into reading this book and understanding all its concepts. Murray Rothbard starts with the basic axiom that: Humans Act. He further states that Humans Act to relieve some sort of unease and approach a better state of satisfaction. Based on these two axioms he builds up the entire edifice of Economics using impeccable logic and superb reasoning.

I had read Carl Menger's 'Principles of Economics' before this and thus had a basic understanding of economics. But EVEN if you do not have that, do not worry. This book starts with very basic terms and explains the concepts of Supply and Demand, Interest Rates, Profit/Loss, Production Structure etc. in a clear and thorough manner.

Murray Rothbard furthermore refutes the Socialist, Keynesian(gradual socialist) and neo-classical schools of economics. His elucidation of fallacies of Interventionist economics is so logical that one cannot help but laugh out loud on the stupidity of fools like John Keynes, Karl Marx and their disciples.

Also you will not see much mathematics in this book. Subjective valuations of goods/services by humans cannot be quantified. This seems pretty logical to most of us but many who call themselves "economists" simply miss this insight.

Read this book and you will have a far better understanding of how the world works. You will also understand economics better than most economics college professors and government-employed economists.

Because I made a lot of research in reviews, in order to take the right decision of buying this book or not, you will perhaps find it intersting to know that there are two editions of this text.

The one presented here 987 pages $35.00 as of writing
Another with additional text 1544 pages $31.50 as of writing

( Yes, the bigger is CHEAPER, and is also hardcover by the way )

To find the bigger version on this site, do a search in books for :
Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market Scholar's Edition
(or click on the autor's name at the top of the main page for this book, to find it somewhere in the obtained list)

This makes me wonder if there is not a pricing mistake here?

Well, anyway I suggest that you go for the cheaper 1544 pages for now.

(Amazon, feel free to remove this review in case of a price adjustment, please)

(I rate this book 5 stars, but I haven't read it yet. 5 stars seems to be the average for it anyway)

This is easily one of the three best defenses of the Free Market ever written. (The other two being Mises' "Human Action" and Reisman's "Capitalism" . "Power and Market" doesn't count because it must be read with MES.)

Rothbard's opus will teach you about the ethics of a free, nonviolent society, and how this society will prosper. It also does a good job of demolishing the concept interpersonal utility comparisons, which will be a great thorn in the side of those who advocate "welfare" spending. It also shows that, unlike most followers of Marx unquestioningly accept, the capitalist is productive.

Finally a book that helps me to understand what a global company is supposed to look like!

As President of the International Division for H20 Plus, Inc., I have had the opportunity to thoroughly read John Caslione's book. I found the book to be extraordinarily practical and easy to read in all respects. It was very informative with useful information, in particular, relating to various sources of information, including websites that can be used as references for particular research. For anyone involved in international business, I highly recommend this book. Since I have read 'Global Manifest Destiny', I have gone back on several occasions to make reference to certain sections in it that are particularly relevant to our international business operations.

Global Manifest Destiny is one of those rare reads. It's practical, logical, and cuts to the heart of any business's concerns about competing in the global marketplace. It offers an almost self-diagnosis for small to medium-sized enterprizes who understand that global economic integration is inevitable - and not just for the big players any more. Each chapter provides expert guidance in developing a checklist of key business functions that must be addressed in order to succeed globally, and the succinct delivery is a pleasure to read. Highly recommended!!

As a follow up to the first volume, Growing Your Business in Emerging Markets, this new book, Global Manifest Destiny, takes the reader to an even deeper understanding of the significance of globality and its inevitability for an healthy business environment.
The large and hands-on experience of the authors comes through every page and it makes for an unusually enjoyable read for its gender as well as a very profitable one.
We wish this book had been available few years ago. It would have helped us to avoid some pitfalls and a number of headaches.
If the world is your business theater, or you would like make it so, this book is for you!

What set this book apart for me was that it is written at a fast pace...quite unlike most business books I read. That means I picked it up one afternoon and read it cover to cover like a gripping novel. Usually, I dip in and out of business books or just read certain chapters. 'Global Manifest Destiny' is full of business-relevant facts, which in part support the main proposition that there is an inevitable coming together of the economies of the world - but which also stand alone as interesting and important statistics.

I have promised myself to re-read this book in one month's time just to make doubly sure I retain the key learning. This is essential in my role for JTI. Mine is a global role for a global player. This book helps.

Wow, what a fantastic book! In my quest to understand the financial workings of American society, I came across this book. What an education. As a British expat now living in the US, I have been shocked by just how insecure I feel in my financial life here. Attempting to build an element of security into my family's new life, I am faced with insurance companies that no longer keep their promises, pensions that no longer exist and a host of eager sharks fighting to get me to invest my meagre savings with them. College costs are exorbitant and the economy so fragile that even a masters degree is now more of an albatross around the neck (debt) than a guarantee of a stable income.
Peter Gosselins book confirmed what I was beginning to realise myself. I'm caught in a game that I have no chance of winning. It is a call to arms; a warning shot across the bow of the presidential campaigns to ensure that the real issues facing this country are included in the ballot. These are the issues that affect Americans every day, so 'Excuse me, Mr. President. In your run for the White House, could you please remember the electorate.'

I read this at work. Mr. Gosselin's descriptions of the displaced "c class" executives shows an expanded view of how so many of us may be going to the dogs. I am just wealthy enough to be able to cruise through the rest of my life, if nothing bad happens. By the way, the book arrived quickly and in excellent condition.
jb

What an interesting book! High Wire goes a long way in explaining why our society seems so fragile in relation not only to our economic lives, but also in our relationships with our communities as a whole. This book also confirms the notion of how shifting so much risk away from employers, insurance companies and the government onto individuals creates an environment of "it's every man for himself" rather than "we're all in this together". Maybe this might explain some of the disconnectedness we experience in our day-to-day interactions. High Wire is very easy to read and very informative as well.

This is a GREAT book and I would encourage every citizen of America to read it, young or old. It's actually a hair-raising book. Well researched and each chapter has a personal, true life story of a family or individual that has been challenged with the topic being discussed.

Since the other reviews to date go over the book, I want to share what I took from it. First, I got out all my insurance policies after reading the chapters on how the insurance industry has slowly & slyly sandbagged us consumers. I read them with a fine tooth comb and voila! wouldn't you know it - just like the author said they were doing, well that is what they are doing. Sneaky company (and this is one of the Big Three property/casualty companies in California and the rest of the country) well guess what, they did exactly what the author said they were doing - changing the terms of the policy in such a way that the ordinary consumer, you & me, who (unfortunately) trust our agents so well ... are/were clueless that this got by us. Yep they changed me from the Guaranteed Replacement coverage on my home to the Limited Replacement + some percentage of cost overrun. And it got by me and I'm pretty smart (at least I thought I was). Just as it has probably gotten by most of you too. I called my agent last month and he told me it was the best policy money could by, Limited but with a 150% total replacement ratio, and furthermore the company I was considering replacing them with, well they had a reputation of quoting low and then next year WHAM they would sock it to me. I don't think so because that company is the one used exclusively by AARP and I just don't think AARP would stand for that kind of treatment. But back to my agent .. funny, but my policy said ... 125%. My agent disagreed with me and spoke to me in such a way that I would never want to go look further. But I did look further and HE WAS WRONG. I called the Home Office and got clarification and it is 125%. MY AGENT DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HE SOLD ME and my agent has been my agent since 1988 - or my agent wants that commission. He's a nice guy, I really don't know. But I'm not asking him. I got very angry when I realized that I had been sandbagged and g-d forbid if my house did burn to the ground, I would end up paying out of pocket over $200,000 to rebuild it just as it is.

Just as many of the Oakland/San Diego and other parts of California that have faced total losses have had to do.

The case studies in the book are all the same - about how the families of Oakland and San Diego fires really took it on the chin. The losses above the policy limits were/are staggering. Guess what, with rare exception, I'll bet you a zillion bucks that if you are reading this review or the book, chances are you are grossly underinsured.

I changed that. I changed companies and policies in the last 2 weeks. And surprisingly, between my car, home and umbrella policy, I went DOWN $600/year in premium along with going up from $1M to $2M in my umbrella. That was worth the book right there.

Then on to the ERISA chapters. What a shocker. I really was stunned at what I read. Imagine this law, passed to protect US the workers, in reality does not protect anyone except the insurance companies. Coincidentally there was a story in the LA Times last week about a woman whose 30-yr old husband died and was covered with $400,000 in his group life policy through his job. Guess what, the company and the insurance company refused to pay the death benefit even though the deceased employee paid the premiums for over the 3 years he worked there. The widow sued in state court, the insurance company knows its rights and got it into federal court (because this is ERISA) and the grieving widow was ordered by court to get the premiums paid returned to her and no payment for the policy. And it is not appealable. Who in the world ever knew that? Did you? I didn't. Does this mean that all life insurance policies through your job won't get paid? I guess I was lucky when my dad died 21 years ago because his group life policy did pay me. But then again my dad owned the company so suspect they didn't want to futz with that claim. However the gall of the company to deny the claim and then the courts, under ERISA precedent rulings, denying the payment. I almost fell off my chair. This is just as the author described is happening in the book.

So if ERISA is undermining employee's benefits (and this includes health coverage too, not just pensions, IRA's & other employer provided plans, employer offered disability and the rest of the benefits of the job) and if ERISA is stripping all our rights of we workers, what is left?

The chapters and stories on employeer provided disability coverage almost left me in tears. I usually shed tears only when reading fiction. This was just a scandalous nightmare to read. But I believe it. And the reason I believe it is that my former husband went blind in his last job due to a detached retina-like condition and his privately held disability company policy (coincidentally the same one talked about in the book) denied him his benefits for close to 4 years. Good thing my ex is an attorney and could take them on. 4 YEARS. While my ex is an attorney what he wasn't able to do was to pull money for living expenses out of a hat along with a few rabbits. He ended up on the brink of bankruptcy with this stunt the company pulled. How an attorney that goes blind can continue to be a litigator and read his briefs is beyond me - and the disability company plays the 'let's see who can hold out the longest' game.

This really is sick stuff.

I realize this is a long review. But I decided to list real life stories to support exactly what this book is all about. I have to say, anybody reading this review that is thinking about buying the book, STOP NOW and buy this book. I came upon it at Borders by accident, it was shelved under Economics and not my favorite category which is Investments - and I don't really like economics, but this is an easy & engrossing book to read. And the time has now come at this passage of time in our history that the public, ALL OF US, need to get our heads out of the sand and meet these challenges head on, informed, and not stupidly ignorant. Ignorance costs and at this point of our historical times, NOBODY can afford to be ignorant anymore.

Please read the book. And thank you for reading this review.

I don't think this book will get much notice or have much impact. Sure, it will encourage those who agree with its points, but I can't imagine that it will reach the general population in a big way. The idea of the book is that Americans, all but the very richest, are being sacrificed on the alter of private ownership that only benefits that thin upper crust of wealthy people. The rest are losing their ability to retire, to have health care, to securely own their homes, provide college educations for their children (or get them for themselves), or even have a job with a good company.

The author does point out the very interesting idea of the "unjob" where many of us work because the traditional career is closed to us for a variety of reasons, yet we can't start our own profitable company (or are working towards that goal), and we scrape by making a living and providing our own benefits with consulting, contracting, or other short term work. Usually we have multiple gigs running at the same time.

My own view is that our system does put too much of the burden of dislocation and disruption on the workers and too little on the companies and executives who either create or decide to use these dislocations as part of their business strategy (even if that is bankruptcy). However, many of the examples Gosselin cites in his book, while unfortunate, are also fairly well to do people who chose to live a life of consumption rather than with prudence and thrift and now want someone to bail them out of their difficulties. Sure, some of them got some very bad breaks in health or dishonest companies. And others did not read their insurance policies closely enough. Still, there is no doubt that some insurance companies push those with expensive claims into court hoping that either the claimant will die before they can collect or that the legal approach will simply be more costly than they can bear.

I thoroughly disagree with Gosselin's notion that somehow we need to turn back the clock and go back a few decades to large corporations that employed people for life and provided pensions. We can't go back because the world has changed, people live too long after 65 to have that be the retirement age. Do you realize that when Social Security was first created only about 3% of the population lived to collect it? We would have to push the retirement age up past 72 or more to achieve similarly "secure" retirements that would not bankrupt companies or society.

While I appreciate Gosselin's good heart and like some of his observations, his prescriptions are faulty and too nostalgic to be taken as a serious prescription for what ails us.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

I just read Dr Butler's book and the title is accurate. It is a 2 hour read that doesn't even seem like you're reading an economics text. It has well distilled insights into how markets work and why they are a good thing, and these are couched in colourful examples from Butler's real life experience. I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to appreciate the market in a way that much more laborious treatments fail to do.

I haven't finished this book yet, but for me it actually IS "the best book on the market." I am no economist, but I have read Sowell's "Basic Economics, and Hazlitt, as well as large helpings of Ludwig von Mises and Hayek. All of these people wrote excellent books, but this particular minor classic rises to the status of a classic because of the author's very dry sense of humor, and also because of his excellent use of comparisons.

These things are not what comes "easily," or "naturally." My favorite comparison (so far) is with the old-fashioned cars which actually had a temperature gauge rising from the engine so you could tell when the engine was overheating. A dissatisfied customer complained that his gauge always read "hot." The author's father "fixed" the problem by soldering some gears in the gauge together, so that it would always read "normal."

Bad fix -- worse than a kluge. What happens when the engine actually boils over?

This "bad fix" is compared to ALL government attempts to regulate prices. They ALWAYS fail and they are ALWAYS a bad idea. It's just like soldering the gears together.

As one of a billion examples, during the recent tsunami in Thailand, the then Prime Minister came out with a bold speech promising to punish those who were "profiteering" from the catastrophe, and fixing all prices in the area of the tsunami. Could anybody think of a surer way to ensure starvation in that area? Of course, this being Thailand, it is highly probable that everyone overlooked the Big Speech.

I also particularly enjoyed the author's selection of Princess Diana's death as an illustration of the efficiency of the price system. The price of flowers in London went through the roof, and this information instantly reached flower wholesalers on the Continent, and shortly reached Kenya -- which instantly began to send more flowers to satisfy the overwhelming demand. As the author points out, in a centrally-planned economy, it would have taken at least a week for the current report on the "Flower Situation" to hit the desk of the appropriate minister, and at least a month for the Ministry of Flowers to do anything about it.

A classic book! (And I don't say that lightly.)

Witty and gripping. Butler's penetrating gaze includes fair trade, black markets, and equity. He believes that when markets are allowed to work without government interference but within the framework of just laws they can create "a richer, freer and more peaceful world".

Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute, has a wonderful ability to express the fundamentals of economics and exchange in ways that lay readers can understand and enjoy - and empathise. This ability combines with an essential technique - to start at the beginning! The path from a single deal between two consenting people (possibly in different countries) to large-scale free enterprise, is a simple continuum. Requiring only the freedom to associate, at every point participants are free to exchange - or not - and the choice may or may not be made with regard to ancillary matters such as specialist advice and contracts. Thus Dr Butler starts with a visit to a street market in Lanzhou, China, and ends (or nearly ends) in discussing multi-national companies. On the way, he covers most of the important consequences of this freedom; for example specialisation and exchange, (to the point where exchange is the fundamental social relation) money, the informative role of prices, and capital accumulation.


Dr Butler is (among other things) a proper economist. By this I mean he has no time for the Keynesian macro-economics churned out by most universities; markets, and life itself, are never in equilibrium, so why build up a "science" on the assumption that they are? There is no Utopia; it's just that markets and freedom from governments are much nearer to it, adjusting constantly in their quests to do better. As he says, "the free-exchange system [markets] has an uncanny power to steer the right resources to the right place at the right time". "Unorganised order", he calls it. In contrast government is working in a vacuum; its operations are based on whims not price signals, and it torpedoes markets whenever it can (starting with money, where "governments manage to make