Two professional financial planners address the needs of people nearing and entering retirement.
In this debut personal finance book, DiSalvo and Madarasz discuss common financial planning concerns, from portfolio rebalancing to asset distribution, while maintaining a focus on readers’ needs for retirement. The book is aimed at imminent retirees, as opposed to those with decades of saving and investing ahead of them, and it targets its advice accordingly. The authors explain principles of long-term investing and Social Security payments in clear language that’s easy to understand, while also making a compelling case for relying on expert financial assistance. The book does an excellent job of explaining its key concepts, such as the distinction between risk and volatility, and it also ably addresses the psychological challenges of responsible investing; for instance, DiSalvo and Madarasz note that readers must prepare for “the first time in their lives that their investments and their income are tightly intertwined.” They skillfully delineate the difference between targeting a retirement date and planning for the duration of one’s retirement, as well. The book distinguishes itself from others of its type in how it teaches readers how to meet immediate and future financial needs without chiding them for missing out on decades of potential gains. Those who have a solid knowledge of financial planning will find little new information here, but for novices, the book will provide an informative and readable introduction to the fundamentals, as well as supportive guidance on making basic value judgments that underlie the process. The book also includes several worksheets and links to further resources on the authors’ website.
An informative, well-reasoned guide to making smart retirement decisions.Pub Date: April 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5445-0317-2
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: BUSINESS | SELF-HELP | PERSONAL FINANCE
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“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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SEEN & HEARD
Everyone’s favorite avuncular socialist sends up a rousing call to remake the American way of doing business.
“In the twenty-first century we can end the vicious dog-eat-dog economy in which the vast majority struggle to survive,” writes Sanders, “while a handful of billionaires have more wealth than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes.” With that statement, the author updates an argument as old as Marx and Proudhon. In a nice play on words, he condemns “the uber-capitalist system under which we live,” showing how it benefits only the slimmest slice of the few while imposing undue burdens on everyone else. Along the way, Sanders notes that resentment over this inequality was powerful fuel for the disastrous Trump administration, since the Democratic Party thoughtlessly largely abandoned underprivileged voters in favor of “wealthy campaign contributors and the ‘beautiful people.’ ” The author looks squarely at Jeff Bezos, whose company “paid nothing in federal income taxes in 2017 and 2018.” Indeed, writes Sanders, “Bezos is the embodiment of the extreme corporate greed that shapes our times.” Aside from a few passages putting a face to avarice, Sanders lays forth a well-reasoned platform of programs to retool the American economy for greater equity, including investment in education and taking seriously a progressive (in all senses) corporate and personal taxation system to make the rich pay their fair share. In the end, he urges, “We must stop being afraid to call out capitalism and demand fundamental change to a corrupt and rigged system.” One wonders if this firebrand of a manifesto is the opening gambit in still another Sanders run for the presidency. If it is, well, the plutocrats might want to take cover for the duration.
Even if they're pie-in-the-sky exercises, Sanders’ pitched arguments bear consideration by nonbillionaires.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593238714
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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