A highly readable book likely to help consumers—as long as they approach the author’s primary debt-busting tool with eyes...
This engaging, practical consumer credit guide emphasizes a zero-interest technique that may make some readers (and banks) a bit apprehensive.
Berman, a consumer credit expert and credit counselor, positions his book differently than the typical riffs on consumer credit. He focuses on a self-developed formula for “how to legally pay 0% interest on the money you owe & eliminate your debt in a fraction of the time”; hence the book’s title, a somewhat arcane reference to the controversial 1954 erotic novel, The Story of O. For some consumers, Berman’s method may be too good to be true: It involves applying specifically for credit cards that offer zero-interest balance transfers for a period of time, then transferring high-interest debt to those credit card accounts for the duration of the zero-interest offer. Reporting that his father’s reaction was that the scheme “amounted to ‘gaming the system’ and was therefore unethical,” Berman devotes several paragraphs to justifying zero-interest balance transfers. Part of the author’s rationale is that financial institutions have been gaming the consumer for years—now it’s the consumers’ turn. The crafty consumer who doesn’t disallow this concept on ethical grounds may indeed find that it works; yet it’s sure to create discomfort among others and, no doubt, many bank executives. Too bad, since zero-interest balance transfer, despite being the book’s hook, is really just a small part of what Berman covers. The rest of the book is, in fact, exceedingly useful. Berman offers an informed overview of the credit system in layman’s language; savvy advice on how to obtain credit scores, repair bad credit and build good credit; and a sensible perspective on credit cards. “[C]redit,” Berman writes, “is nothing more than a tool for achieving financial objectives. It can be handled correctly or incorrectly, just as the same hammer that can be used to build can be used to destroy.” His tips for making and saving money are inventive, and his observations about bankruptcy and foreclosure are helpful and wise.
A highly readable book likely to help consumers—as long as they approach the author’s primary debt-busting tool with eyes wide open.Pub Date: June 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477609330
Page Count: 274
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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