asset to the trickle-down theory
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Offers more output than laptop speakers---not bad for $10. Obvious drawbacks to this product: USB connection didn't reliably reconnect; volume buttons are limited; limited on bass range. On a personal note: I left these speakers in a donation box, along with clothing items, in the laundry room.
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The conceptual dog race running through this book is between traditional 'sound' money, exemplified by the gold standard, and 'flexible' money, or money worth what society says it is worth (the kind we have today).  The author favors the second kind of money, but more so, as he sees it as being amenable to manipulation for social justice ends.

The argument is, in a nutshell, that sound money inexorably leads to inequality (therefore bad) while flexible money allows for creation of new 'wealth' to give to the poor (therefore good).  Leaving aside the truth value of this set up, the reader may be pulled along with Mr. Martin's argument for a while, as flexibility would seem a nice option at our current, difficult historical moment.  Such thinking, while seductive in its promise of something-for-nothing, is blind to the very trust in money which was and is a precondition for creating and maintaining wealth.

As difficult as it might be to believe, the asymptotic rise in Western wealth that began during the Industrial Revolution was largely the result of gold-backed money, creditor-friendly laws, and the pooling of capital these social arrangements encouraged.  If money had been 'flexible' and debts discharged painlessly via social transfers, the entire foundation of modern capitalism could never have arisen.

Long-term investment capital forms in proportion to how well a society provides 1) a stable currency, and 2) a trusted framework backing up the enforceability of contracts.  These unnatural states of affairs need constant guard if they are to endure, because human nature, here well-embodied by Mr. Martin, will always want to borrow as much as possible if there is a reasonable shot of not having to repay one's debts.  A 'flexible' currency, always a weak one, lowers the real value of debt and therefore achieves much the same end as an explicit abrogation of a loan contract.

Mr. Martin's 'cure' for our economic trouble, therefore, is currency debasement and wealth redistribution.  I thought we were doing a lot of both already . . .  Centuries of trust in sound money and laws, mostly confined to memory at this point, would be irretrievably lost if the future favored by the author comes to pass.  And political trends suggests such a future is likely.  Latin America, that beacon on the hill of social justice, here we come!
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The premise of this book is a return to what's essentially and historically true about wealth building and wealth retention.  William Bonner develops a very powerful historical analysis of booms, bubbles, and busts in the context of human behavior in the market place.  He characterizes how an individual, a nation, and a civilization participate in prevailing markets that produce and destroy wealth.  It's a powerfully insightful study of the pros and cons of the uses of paper currency systems, in markets since the first major such boom and bust in circa 1720 France.  The reader will find many familiar elements in each of Bonner's historical examples.
The book opens with a review of the most well known corporate failures of the early 21st century.  It's an effective survey, explicating details in a cohesive historical manner, which makes those events and times sensible and understandable.
In another chapter, Bonner writes a terrific history and philosophical treatment of Alan Greenspan.  This enigmatic character has been something of a mystery to me, and I finally now know whence Greenspan came.
Bonner effectively chastises modern economists who rely exclusively upon quantitative methods without factoring in without understanding the qualitative nature of the markets-for example, the mass psychology of the mob.  He identifies the larger quantitative issues that apply to the market-issues that determine how the markets must respond in kind.  For example, his chapter on demographics is so compelling that it is almost frightening in places.
He locates two powerful modern demographic surges.  One is the aging of the baby boomers, in both Japan and in the rest of the western industrialized world.  Craig Karpel developed this factor is very well too, in his book, "The Retirement Myth."  Bonner shows how the aging baby boomers will depress the stock market in the long run, and create a very serious crisis in health care costs-especially where large numbers of the aged and longevity are concerned.
The other demographic time-bomb is the radical boom of young males in primarily Islamic countries.  This factor is also very well explored some fifteen years earlier, in James Dale Davidson's work, in "The Great Reckoning."  In this case, Bonner shows that whenever similar demographic surges occurred in history, socio-political and economic systems were challenged, in crisis, and ultimately transformed into something completely new.
In a major sense, the book appears pessimistic about the future of the American economy.  In "The Great Reckoning," Davidson writes, that in what seems to be prosperous modern America, we're actually spending down the capital wealth accrued over two hundred years.  Although I intuitively knew he was correct in that assertion, I never fully understood how.  With "Financial Reckoning Day," I now have that full understanding at last.  It makes so much sense.  Yet, under girding Bonner's treatment, is a refreshing grounding of the fundamental principles of true wealth building.
I come away from this book with confirmation that the basics of how to create real wealth (in lieu of deriving it,) saving money (in lieu of spending it,) and storing value in precious assets are fundamental and sound.  So much of the market behavior in the past two decades has been counter-intuitive-and often I've been somewhat bewildered, thinking that something was wrong with me.  Yet, I have never followed the masses in my investment choices.  In his new book, William Bonner has validated the common sense basics that I have believed in, and followed, which will yield prosperity even in the emerging economy.
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Joseph Stiglitz provides a wealth of evidence to demonstrate that the current gross financial inequalities pervading American (and other)society are seriously harmful to the well-being of that society and the individuals who compose it.  The book is generally written in language designed to be understandable to readers not deeply in economic theory.  There is a superabundance of notes at the back, but these can be skimmed or even disregarded for those anxious to economize on time.
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I decided to read Freefall (by Joseph Stiglitz) after seeing a talk by the author. In the book Stiglitz promises to peel back the layers of causes responsible for the recent financial market collapse. When asked why the collapse happened most people will respond by saying banks were giving out mortgages to people who could not pay back. But Why? Because the incentives of the mortgage originators and bankers were flawed. But then the question is why did the market not respond to those flawed incentives and encourage firms that had the right incentive structure. Stiglitz frames the economic collapse in context of larger debate between Keynesian's and Monetarist's. His central claim is that since late 1970's Monetarist thought has been gaining the upper hand and the current crisis is the result.

The book starts off very crisply. Stiglitz invites you to listen to the story of the crisis and keeps you engaged even while going over parts of the story that you have already heard. He gives a comprehensive account of the crisis and I learned many things even though I considered my self well aware of the events. He castigates the political administrations starting from Regan's for dismantling the regulatory system which was ultimately responsible for the crisis.

While he is extremely critical of the bankers, regulators and politicians he seems to give the homeowners who took mortgages they could not afford a free pass. He never quite gets around to explaining how the american family who took the zero percent down, non recourse mortgage was the victim when they could just walk away from the home that they had no business owning in the first place. He seems to see no difference between the hardworking Americans who save for a down-payment and only buy homes they can afford and those who get the biggest house they can with nary a thought to finances.

He also latches on to ARM's as unequivocally bad and predatory which is not really true. He mentions them multiple times and faults Greenspan for encouraging them in a lecture. In an otherwise crisp and insightful narrative I felt a dissonance reading the simple minded rhetoric on ARM's. In an ARM the borrower takes on the interest rate risk and in return gets a lower cost for the loan. These mortgages are pretty common in many countries (like Canada) and they work as well as the fixed rate mortgages used to in America.

The above faults aside Stiglitz is spot on in his criticisms on how the stimulus has played out. Banks and their shareholders got too sweet a deal. He explains how all the reasons given on why banks and their shareholders are entitled the the tax payer largess are flawed. The Obama administration policies have failed to stop a crisis like this from recurring. The banks are still too big to fail, and thus enjoy the implicit government guarantees.

The only problem with the book is its length. After about half way through, I started feeling that the arguments and examples got repetitive. It felt like someone who has been ignored for years has finally been vindicated and now cannot stop saying "I told you so".

Overall, I would highly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in the financial crisis. It pairs really well with The Big Shot
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There is little doubt that the recession of 2008 will cast a long shadow into the future, and curtail much of the "wealth effect" discretionary spending that many consumers may have carelessly engaged in since the millennial turn. However, people will still continue to need and want various goods and services despite economic realities. More and more consumers are seeking for value - in its many forms, which include propositions such as sentimental effect, whimsy, feature-rich or rarity. In the book titled Treasure Hunt the authors postulate a significant move toward a seeking-type trend in consumerism that is reshaping the retail landscape. The authors write that middle-class women are driving this change but state that these consumers are bucking traditional buying patterns by flirting with purchases both above and below their means. While this may create headaches for those along the retail supply chain who like to categorize purchasers into cubby-holes, Treasure Hunt provides a refreshing look at the growing power of consumers which is one of the reasons Soundview recommends this book. Companies that are able to adapt to this shift should thrive during any economic cycle, while those that can't may not survive this current economic downturn.
2781956
An absolute eye-opener for anyone claiming that being wealthy is purely a function of  being rewarded for merit. The debate that it has started will hopefully, ultimately lead to what some term as a Utopian solution.

Though Piketty touches upon the higher return that the wealthy earn relative to small savers, he would have done us a favour if he had gone deeper into this aspect and demonstrated that the distribution within R is inequitably skewed in favour of what I would term as the "Predatory Borrower"

I f I had a vote, I would vote for the Nobel Prize for Piketty
241600
"Consume less, share better" - I actually like that statement in the beginning of the book.

Mr Kempf begins with a basic `lesson' on global warming. We have seen this all before. How much the temperature will increase, in theory, by the end of the century. He then moves on to a revisit of the theory of peak oil. Again, we have seen this before in different format.

It is at this point where he moves on to speak about the "globalization of poverty" , the increasing rich/poor gap and the idea that redistribution - to some degree - of wealth - to help improve global poverty and, by extension the problems of global warming.

The main thrust of the book seems to be a rail against the rich of the world and how by decreasing and or redistributing wealth will improve the world. I don't disagree with many of his points, the problem I have is that I don't agree whole-heartedly with his assertions that the rich/poor gap and fixing it will help alleviate the global environmental crisis we are facing.

Overall, I like many points of this work, however, I have problems with the way he goes about making them. Is it worth the read, sure it is.
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I like brevity but this book may be too brief at about 85 pages, so it is basically a set of conclusions.  Nevertheless, it provides a lot of interesting information about what most people suspect: that the whole political-economic system is rigged and heading for a collapse.

Smith explains that today's economic problems are due to self-serving elites who chase worldwide profits through Globalization regardless of the consequences for the areas they leave or enter.  The mechanism is the worldwide mobility of capital to seek lower costs and higher profits.  The political-economic theory supporting this is neoliberalism, supported by both the Bush and Clinton Dynasties.

There is of course nothing new about elites serving themselves at the expense of everyone else.  It has been going on for thousands of years.  What is new is that today's elites have modern global technology, which accelerates the process.  People increasingly recognize this but they are not that familiar with how capital moves behind the scenes.

What people are most familiar with is the institutions that promote this status quo to the public.  These institutions include the news media, academia, and Hollywood.  The journalists, professors, and entertainers inhabiting these institutions get upper middle class pay, or higher in some instances, to support the neoliberal status quo and thus they take the front lines in defending it.  Politicians and government bureaucrats doing the same thing are a bit less vocal.

This book was written just before Trump was elected but the elite response to his victory shows how it operates.  The 2016 election was supposed to be between the Bush and Clinton Dynasties.  When the outsider Donald Trump entered the race, the three main propaganda elements (media, academia, Hollywood) went into a state of hysteria which has continued to this day.  He attacked the two main elements of the neoliberal status quo: open borders for more profits and welfare for the victims.

The teleological imperative (as Smith would say) for the neoliberal state in America is a small elite which owns most of the capital and thus most of the profits from this system.  After the well-paid propaganda elements get their take, the next level would the technicians (preferably from cheap foreign labor) who would manage the increasingly computer-automated economy.  There would still be a small lowly paid service sector to do those things computers cannot do.  But the fate of most of the population would be some form of welfare.

It used be that the Republican Party stood more for Wall Street but now both parties are equally indebted there.  The main difference seems to be that the Democrat Party has adopted the welfare state as its main constituency while the GOP sees it as a necessary evil to be limited whenever possible.  Meanwhile Hollywood and television try to keep the masses entertained with endless rubbish while the news media does the same with sensational news which is rapidly emulating the National Enquirer.

Above all, elections have become a form of entertainment meant to make voters feel they control things.  The country is already mostly run by nonelected officials such as government bureaucrats, federal judges, and Federal Reserve bureaucrats who control much of the economy.  But this is not enough, the elites cannot even stomach the pretense of any outsider controlling the diminished power of the White House, which is why the elite attacks on President Trump are non-stop.
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Victor Claar and Robin Klay do a nice job explaining economics and the virtues necessary for a free economy. They show the compatibility of capitalism and Christian teachings allowing that the values taught by all major religions are compatible with capitalism.

Examples in their book resonate because they are drawn from first hand experiences with economic conditions, organizations, and values in their home town.  Claar and Klay show specifically how US protectionism led Lifesavers to close their US plant and move production to Canada and how incentives made a positive difference in the run down neighborhoods adjacent to the college where they teach.

Their comments about how lower, more competitive tax rates sometimes result in more revenue are timely given the debate in states and nationally about how to close the budget gaps. I found myself thinking about Fed actions in light of their good comments about the proper goal of supplying money at a steady rate. Their ideas about wage rates and the irony of minimum wage laws are enlightening and spot on. The chapter emphasizing the indispensable need for virtue in free society is particularly good.
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This book is a timely commentary on how the United States is giving away its engine of wealth.  Ideas of value form America's premium industry - historically a principal generator of societal wealth.  Yet, to a an ever increasing extent, this country has been giving ideas away for others to generate the asosciated wealth. The idea industry has brought prosperity to America in the past, but today ideas are being given away - supported by the American Congress and the American Courts that are methodically destroying all reasonable and foreseeable incentives to risk innovating.
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Tyler Cowen is in general well written and thoughtful. This is a fairly short treatise on why we (OCED countries) might be seeing a decades long slow down in growth. Despite the title it doesn't predict a dismal future. It just assumes that the slow down is a result of the natural progression of idea discovery and that we might expect to see the rate of growth slow down to less than the phenomenal rate we saw in the 20th century.

Certainly the most advanced countries have seen a slow down in growth for the last 20 years. It's starting to look as if the slow down isn't a periodic slowdown, but instead a change to a slower rate of progress. If that is truly the case then this book offers one possible hypothesis as to why that's the case.
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McQuaig and Brooks explain in detail just how unequal the distribution of both income and wealth have become in America in the last three decades, why this came about, and why it is so damaging to the country. All this they explain in a way that is clear, cogent, and understandable by any intelligent reader. Specialists say there is nothing new here, and perhaps they are right. But to have all of this delineated so well in one short book of slightly more than 200 pages is a great benefit.

The authors maintain that the excessive accumulation of riches, so threatening to both equality of opportunity and to democracy itself, can be remedied only by a much more progressive taxation system such as existed in the U. S. in the decades immediately following the second world war. Billionaires have either inherited much of their wealth or built it with the contributions of the community. The tax system and the provision of social services should reflect that reality. This book makes very convincing arguments as to why that is the case.

Many of the richest Americans collectively spend billions to convince us and our elected representatives that they deserve every penny. McQuaig and Brooks make a convincing case against such nonesense
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Let me be the next in a long line of readers who are praising this ground-breaking book.  Said Dawlabani has synthesized the cultural developmental theory of Spiral Dynamics, first articulated by Robert Graves, and applied it to the thorniest of economic failures of recent years, the great recession of 2008, suggesting further that it was a reflection of where we are in history.  By tracing the global history of money and the long career of one of our most distinguished, yet flawed, Fed Chairmen, Alan Greenspan, he has traced our missteps as a nation while contrasting the healthy and un-healthy practices of our predominant values.  The current US free market economy, including the stock market, while having achieved Spiral Dynamics orange level representing innovation, creativity and individual achievement, took a wrong turn when the profits to be made from such innovation outstripped the original primary goal to create and innovate. Eventually the innovation Vmeme was reduced to the only money matters meme.  In general Dawlabani explains that along the road of cultural evolution a failure to appreciate and incorporate the achievements of earlier Vmemes can set the stage for the emergence of unhealthy expressions of it that eventually lead to decay.  In the case of the 2008 recession, the preceding blue values of patriotic prosperity, authority, and rules, were discounted and dismissed, resulting in destabilizing measures such as de-regulation, particularly of banking practices, and the dis-empowering of labor unions in the 1980s.  Given the cultural values context Dawlabani presents, it finally becomes possible to understand how the 2008 crash could have occurred, indeed was inevitable.
Perhaps more importantly with regard to Memenomics as a next-generation economic system is how Dawlabani frames possibilities for the future. He effectively depicts at least two higher levels of cultural attainment where the cultural perspective and values, expand to include the concerns of the entire planet, not only of all cultures at all conceivable levels but also of the earth itself and with it, the future of humankind.  This perspective, he projects, transcends the orange blinders about scarcity, even the green sense of entitlement poisoning their democratic egalitarianism.  The so-called yellow perspective, for the first time, sees and incorporates the true value of all known Vmemes and directs their endeavors to include people, profit and planet.
Finally, I must mention the most promising idea regarding how we can unite people at so many different levels and inspire them to work together.  Dawlabani describes the overriding goal that can only be derived from the highest of levels (yellow or turquoise) which can respect and articulate the hopes and aspirations of people at all levels.  He closes his argument with examples of political and business leaders who by knowing their constituencies were able to set goals that were meaningful to all the people in their charge.  Complex and ambitious tasks require a range of abilities and contributions in order to succeed and our future depends upon those who can broaden their perspective in just this way.  This book will convince you not only of the value of understanding that developmental differences exist across and within nations, groups, families, etc., but that knowing  and respecting  each of those value structures can advance progress, health, and prosperity throughout humankind and our habitat.  It gives us hope for our future.
92533
The authors take a sharp needle to the over-inflated myth that the resource extraction industries (e.g., timber, mining, ranching) are the only ticket out of a downward trend in hourly pay in the region.  Post-Cowboy Economics does the hard, analytical work that is required to get to the real root cause of why wages are generally lower in the Mountain West.  To make its point, the authors focus on labor and demographic data over the years from 1978 to 1998.
What you learn from their research:
1. The contracting resource extraction industries in the Mountain West appear to have been driven by a pervasive national pattern in which jobs shifted from good production to services.
2. The decline in average pay was due to downward pressure on pay in almost all industries (i.e., the loss of "good" paying jobs).
3. The declines in pay during the 1980's were largely due to back-to-back national recessions.  Although national in extent, the recessions hit the Mountain West hard.
4. During the 80's and 90's technological advances and globalization of the American economy emerged as forces that caused the demand for labor to move from workers with little education and few skills toward workers with greater education and skills.  These forces were felt the most in rural communities.
The most interesting revelation for me came about when the authors compared wages to the population of the community.  The data clearly shows the largest cities provide the best wages, and as you go down in population, the wages follow.  This means that in comparing average pay in the Mountain West and the rest of the country, its important to consider where people live and work.  Residents who live in the Mountain West typically live in smaller communities than other Americans.  And this accounts for the gap in pay.
The authors devote some time on how to form public policy in light of this post-cowboy economy.  And thankfully its not one that looks backward to the good old days of job creation based on resource exploitation.
327653
This book is a cut above most 'how to get rich' books, because it is empirical, research-driven analysis of the habits of American millionaires, done over the period from 1973 to just before publication.  The authors  look at the petit millionaires, not the super-rich, so as to examine the  habits of those whose wealth level is achievable in a lifetime.  The habits  of the group, consisting of those with between $1 and $10 million in  assets, reveals that the 'magic' formula is to work hard, not stay in  college forever, go into business for yourself, if possible, and live below  your means.  I'm not at all sure that this wouldn't be the advice of  someone who had survived the Great Depression in good shape, but the  authors back it up with hard statistical data.  Living on less than you  earn, staying away from status items, and building wealth over time are  three of the keys identified by the authors.  Reading this book reminded me  again that America is truly the land of opportunity, and that an individual  can become wealthy without going to a prestige university, earning a high  income, having connections, etc; in other words, the American Dream lives,  and those who fail to achieve it frequently have no one but themselves to  blame, especially now that this roadmap is available. Lloyd A. Conway
1296371
Krugman explains the motives of the American crisis and he hopes that it's possible to find a real solution.
But he doesn't be a guru of finance; neither Stiglitz is a guru, but he has found a decisive method in mathematics for changing the paradigma next the failure of the Black-Scholes theory.
Krugman talks longer about the reasons those go against the model to the perfect information and produce a certain interest for the asymmetric information and the Bayes method.
But next this fact he proposes with a strong coherence the faith in the liberal values, hoping the end of unemployment and the borning of new institutions saving from the poverty.
He remains in the context the traditional value and he sees with few interest the role of social network.