An intriguing, well-crafted discussion highlighting a major contribution to political and economic well-being, with an...
Soll’s (History/Univ. of Southern California; The Information Master: Jean-Baptiste Colbert's Secret State Intelligence System, 2009, etc.) double-entry bookkeeping in relation to the political and cultural significance of accounting and the rise and fall of nations and businesses.
In his historical analysis, the author examines why modern societies consistently find themselves mired in crises involving not only financial issues, but political accountability as well. Different than entries in a checking account register, double-entry bookkeeping tracks credits and debits in separate columns, thus permitting real-time accounting of the costs and profits associated with particular and aggregated transactions. The author argues that it allows effective management through accountability and auditing. He contends that successful nations have not only been rich in accounting and commercial culture, but have also learned how to build cultural frameworks that have countered the all-too-human tendency to ignore, deceive or falsify. Soll substantiates his thesis by tracing the history of the method from its beginnings, showing how it was used successfully, and then disregarded disastrously, by Florence's de Medici family and, later, France's Louis XVI. The author credits Luca Pacioli's 1494 Treatise as the enduring source that permitted the technique to be adapted for public policy, beginning with the Dutch republic. Some of the founders of the United States, including Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton, also used the method. Soll stresses the cultural benefits of incorporating accounting into educational curricula during the 19th century, and he explores how standards have been lowered over time, starting with railroad barons' failures to adequately pay to replace aging equipment and ending with the current concept of mark-to-market, in which financial assets are worth what others will pay for them.
An intriguing, well-crafted discussion highlighting a major contribution to political and economic well-being, with an obvious moral for today.Pub Date: April 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-465-03152-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.
Two distinguished technology executives share the methodology behind what made Google a global business leader.
Former Google CEO Schmidt (co-author: The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, 2013) and former senior vice president of products Rosenberg share accumulated wisdom and business acumen from their early careers in technology, then later as management at the Internet search giant. Though little is particularly revelatory or unexpected, the companywide processes that have made Google a household name remain timely and relevant within today’s digitized culture. After several months at Google, the authors found it necessary to retool their management strategies by emphasizing employee culture, codifying company values, and rethinking the way staff is internally positioned in order to best compliment their efforts and potential. Their text places “Googlers” front and center as they adopted the business systems first implemented by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who stressed the importance of company-wide open communication. Schmidt and Rosenberg discuss the value of technological insights, Google’s effective “growth mindset” hiring practices, staff meeting maximization, email tips, and the company’s effective solutions to branding competition and product development complications. They also offer a condensed, two-page strategy checklist that serves as an apt blueprint for managers. At times, statements leak into self-congratulatory territory, as when Schmidt and Rosenberg insinuate that a majority of business plans are flawed and that the Google model is superior. Analogies focused on corporate retention and methods of maximizing Google’s historically impressive culture of “smart creatives” reflect the firm’s legacy of spinning intellect and creativity into Internet gold. The authors also demarcate legendary application missteps like “Wave” and “Buzz” while applauding the independent thinkers responsible for catapulting the company into the upper echelons of technological innovation.
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1455582341
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Business Plus/Grand Central
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
A declaration worth hearing out in a time of growing inequality—and indignity.
Noted number cruncher Sperling delivers an economist’s rejoinder to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Former director of the National Economic Council in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the author has long taken a view of the dismal science that takes economic justice fully into account. Alongside all the metrics and estimates and reckonings of GDP, inflation, and the supply curve, he holds the great goal of economic policy to be the advancement of human dignity, a concept intangible enough to chase the econometricians away. Growth, the sacred mantra of most economic policy, “should never be considered an appropriate ultimate end goal” for it, he counsels. Though 4% is the magic number for annual growth to be considered healthy, it is healthy only if everyone is getting the benefits and not just the ultrawealthy who are making away with the spoils today. Defining dignity, admits Sperling, can be a kind of “I know it when I see it” problem, but it does not exist where people are a paycheck away from homelessness; the fact, however, that people widely share a view of indignity suggests the “intuitive universality” of its opposite. That said, the author identifies three qualifications, one of them the “ability to meaningfully participate in the economy with respect, not domination and humiliation.” Though these latter terms are also essentially unquantifiable, Sperling holds that this respect—lack of abuse, in another phrasing—can be obtained through a tight labor market and monetary and fiscal policy that pushes for full employment. In other words, where management needs to come looking for workers, workers are likely to be better treated than when the opposite holds. In still other words, writes the author, dignity is in part a function of “ ‘take this job and shove it’ power,” which is a power worth fighting for.
A declaration worth hearing out in a time of growing inequality—and indignity.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7987-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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