Beneath the conservative-versus-liberal parrot-speak is a coherent, timely conversation about the power and relevancy of...
An entrepreneur’s account of building a nationwide cleaning business and undergoing an attempt by Service Employees International Union to unionize his workers.
If readers skip the prologue—which compares union organizing tactics with Nazi Germany—they can start with the many issues that merit discussion. Bego (Devil at My Doorstep, 2009) launched a commercial cleaning services company, Executive Management Services, in 1989. Based in Indianapolis, the company grew to more than 5,000 employees in locations throughout the country. Its increasing visibility attracted the attention of Service Employees International Union, and thus began a five-year battle for the hearts and minds of Executive Management Services’ workers. Labor unions’ historical efforts to protect workers from unsafe working conditions as well as ensuring fair wages and job security account for positive changes in many American industries, and that’s not disputed here. The core questions Bego raises, however, are: What should the unions’ role be in this era of global economy; what are American workers’ rights regarding unionization; and what are the rights of entrepreneurs pursuing the American dream of business ownership? Bego posits that modern unions aim to increase their dues-paying memberships in order to sustain their own viability and influence legislation, regardless of workers’ genuine needs. The author also emphasizes a push to pass the Employee Free Choice Act—legislation that eliminates secret ballot elections used by workers to choose union representation—in light of the tactics used by SEIU to unionize employees who had not necessarily even invited SEIU to represent them. He asks excellent and valid questions, which elsewhere can often be obscured by partisan labeling. Bego notes in a statement to Congress, “Americans need to demand more nonpartisan openness, research, dialogue, and civility from their elected officials on both sides of the aisle.” Why wait to be elected?
Beneath the conservative-versus-liberal parrot-speak is a coherent, timely conversation about the power and relevancy of today’s labor unions.Pub Date: April 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-1439285220
Page Count: 332
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
A vigorous and highly readable plan for building the finances of a new business.
A program of cash-management techniques for aspiring entrepreneurs, aimed at a minority readership.
At the beginning of this business book, Mariga reflects on the birth of her daughter, Florence, and on the depressing prospect of returning to her corporate job and missing some of her baby’s early moments. She realized that she “wanted to show Florence…that I could, that she could, that anyone could be anything they wanted to be in this world.” To that end, she wanted to start her own business, and she “wanted to help entrepreneurs build successful businesses that provide opportunities for others.” In a sentiment reflected by others she’s interviewed, she says that she wanted to strengthen her family legacy, so she founded her own accounting firm. She paints a vivid picture of the hardscrabble early days of other minority business owners like herself, the child of an African American mother and a Chinese father who also had a family accounting business. She and others were “all hustling to acquire clients and build our businesses…and most of us had absolutely nothing to show for it.” She was inspired by Mike Michalowicz’s Profit First money management system, and the bulk of her book is devoted to an explanation of how to make this system work for minority business enterprises. (Michalowicz provides a foreword to the book.) One of the primary goals of Profit First is to build “a self-sustaining, debt-free company,” so a large part of Mariga’s work deals with the details of managing finances, building and abiding by budgets, and handling the swings of emotion that occur every step of the way. As sharply focused as these insights are, the author’s recollections of her own experiences are more rewarding, as when she tells readers of her brief time as a cut-rate accountant and learning that it was a mistake to try to compete on price. These stories, as well as financing specifics and clear encouragements (“Small changes and adjustments accumulate. Over time, they will lead you to your goal”), will make this book invaluable to entrepreneurs of all kinds.
A vigorous and highly readable plan for building the finances of a new business.Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7357759-0-6
Page Count: 230
Publisher: The Avant-Garde Project, LLC
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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