All-inclusive yet jargon-free and easy-to-navigate investment advice.
An encyclopedic financial reference offers tips for the common investor.
Authoritative information about stocks, bonds, and other investments is not necessarily hard to come by. But it is challenging to find in-depth details about virtually every investment vehicle in one place. This third paperback edition is exhaustive, containing current material about stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other investments, including life insurance, annuities, unit trusts, and commodities. That is merely the contents of Section I; Section II covers IRAs, 401(k)s, employee stock options, rental real estate, and more, including a review of such areas as gift and estate taxes, living trusts, and wills. There are several aspects of the book that make it valuable, not the least of which is the credentialed author. As an “Enrolled Agent,” a designation licensed directly by the Internal Revenue Service, and someone who has 40 years of experience with tax returns and audits, Chute is uniquely qualified. The 400-plus pages are intelligently organized into two sections (“Investments” and “Life Planning”) and seven parts (“Equities,” “Bonds,” “Mutual Funds,” “Other Investments,” “Financial Planning,” “Death & Taxes,” and “Other Important Financial Considerations”). Just as helpful is the organizational scheme employed for investments; for each type, the author includes a clear, nontechnical description followed by short but illuminating discussions of specific areas: Planning Tips, Taxes, Legal Compliance, Successful Strategies, and Pros and Cons. To these, he adds a section that may represent what sets this book apart from similar reference works: “Horror Stories.” These anecdotes, mostly of a buyer beware nature, are sometimes sad, sometimes amusing, and always engaging. Whether it’s about a “Reckless Internet Trader,” a fraudulent real estate deal, the hidden risks of high-yield mutual funds, or securities fraud, Chute’s tales are cautionary, enlightening, and entertaining. In addition, he provides helpful information, such as bond ratings, and financial examples along the way. The book’s material has been updated to account for the most recent tax act, which went into effect in 2018. While the appendices of stock and bond certificate photographs are only mildly intriguing, a “Glossary of Investment Terms” is quite useful.
All-inclusive yet jargon-free and easy-to-navigate investment advice. (appendices, glossary)Pub Date: June 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73288-553-0
Page Count: 508
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An effective, mission-driven approach to managing employees without bossing them.
A guide offers advice to business executives who incorporate social justice into their leadership.
In this follow-up to The Servant Leader’s Manifesto (2020), Harris details the qualities of corporate leaders who make social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion—the book’s title acronym—the keystones of their management philosophies. With occasional but not overdone Star Wars series references, the author calls for an end to the traditional “boss” role. He encourages an egalitarian form of leadership driven by humility that values the contributions of all employees and responds to their needs appropriately, leading to the creation of an equitable, anti-racist, inclusive—and profitable—corporate environment. Harris presents several mnemonic devices for “J.E.D.I.” leaders, the “6A’s” (awareness, acceptance, appreciation, alignment, activation, advocacy) and “3P’s” (people, products, processes), among them. The author delivers strategies for community engagement, sustainable business practices, and staff development. Harris has a talent for pithy phrasing that skillfully summarizes his arguments (“Necessity is the mother of invention, and this moment calls for a reinvention of expectations for business leadership”), which combines with a well-organized narrative and a visually appealing structure to make the text easy to follow. The book makes a solid case for the ethical and operational value of a management structure driven more by concern for employees and the wider world than by personal advancement and ego. This stance is strengthened by Harris’ recounting of his own experiences as a Black leader who found few allies throughout his career in upper management. The call for social justice in a corporate context (“This requires a painful period of deconstruction where every policy, guideline, and procedure is revisited and rebuilt from an antiracist foundation”) is a challenging one, though the manual offers plenty of guidance to readers interested in adopting the process. While the core argument will appeal to many, Harris is unlikely to persuade two groups: social justice skeptics who object to the anti-racist approach as a whole, and progressives who contend that the capitalist system the author supports is fundamentally inequitable. But for those who embrace socially responsible capitalism, this work is a solid application of its concepts to the practice of management.
An effective, mission-driven approach to managing employees without bossing them.Pub Date: June 18, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-50-612185-5
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This blue-chip status report makes a substantive contribution to the growing body of literature of the pivotal role played by central banks in in the Global Village's financial affairs (see Marjorie Deane and Robert Pringle's The Central Banks, 1995). Former Forbes reporter Solomon's principal accomplishment is providing accessible briefings on how America's Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, Germany's Bundesbank, and lesser lights have dealt (by default) with a weary world's financial traumas over the past two decades. Cases in point include management of recurrent less-developed-countries (LDC) debt crises; coordinating exchange- rate policy to keep the value of key currencies in line with economic realities; and responding to 1987's cataclysmic stock market crash (which the author employs as a leitmotif throughout his text). While monetary authorities (who attempt to control the stability and supplies of money in their own countries) have proved adept in working together in emergencies, Solomon observes that their success at staving off disaster raises a wealth of vital issues, not the least of which is the accountability of independent technocrats whose preoccupation is containment of inflationary pressures, not job-creating economic growth. Also of concern is dominion over a volatile new order in which stateless pools of capital could at almost any time swamp a global monetary system that has lacked anchors to windward since the 1970s collapse of the Bretton Woods accord. Covered as well are the manifold failures of fiscal policy in a variety of industrial powers (notably the US), the importance of sound money to democracy, the odds on the EU's creating a supranational central bank, and the resourceful (albeit potentially ruinous) means by which political leaders seek to buy time for their reelection campaigns or other purposes. An on-the-money introduction to the financial fraternity's ruling class.
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-684-80182-5
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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