A thoroughly comprehensive and invaluable manual for managing retirement.
Forensic economist Missun presents a detailed guide to money management in retirement.
The author opens his nonfiction debut about retirement planning by noting that many people wish they could be allowed “do-overs” when it comes to personal finance issues. He imagines, for example, that he would advise his 16-year-old self that “investing early and often is essential”—adding, with amusing granularity, that he’d also explain compound interest to his younger self, and “relate the historical results of investing in large US stocks, as measured by Standard and Poor’s 500.” Missun’s goal in these pages is give readers the tools that they need to remove the necessity of do-overs by becoming “better-informed consumers of financial services.” He covers a wide range of financial topics from budgeting to investing to health care and Social Security. His book brings readers through the various stages of retirement planning, starting with accumulating assets and tracking one’s net worth and ending with all the complexities of estate planning. Throughout, Missun balances his financial advice with personal insights; for instance, he writes at length about the behavioral biases that can work against investors: “People invest more often in companies they know,” he says at one point, adding that it’s “one of the several reasons many Americans who invest in stocks own little or no foreign stocks.” He also includes charts and other illustrations to clarify subjects such as health insurance marketplace costs, estimated premium tax credits, Medicare premiums, and bond allocation outcomes.
Missun conveys a lot of specific information in fewer than 250 pages, but the strongest aspect of his book, by far, is its consistently compassionate tone. He never comes across as being solely driven by numbers; rather, his tone is that of a friendly confidante who happens to be very knowledgeable about finance. For example, at one point, he sensitively writes about shifting from paying into retirement accounts to drawing money from them—the true turning point of entering retirement: “Moving from accumulation to withdrawal can be a significant psychological challenge,” he writes, “sometimes causing a loss of self-worth, boredom, and depression.” He also discusses how retirement itself can be difficult to process, at first: “Some people do not realize how much they tie their self-worth to the answer to ‘What do you do?’ during their working years.” This sense of humanity is present throughout his comprehensive work, which tackles an array of complex subjects. They include what to look for when vetting a financial advisor, how to tackle the intricacies of changing one’s state of residence upon retirement, and how to budget for escalating health care costs; the last is a key concern, as most retirees haven’t earned lifetime health benefits from former employers. Also of value is Missun’s consideration of the psychological factors that might prompt someone to retire early, and whether one is always wise to trust those gut feelings. Overall, readers will glean plenty of useful information from this book’s wide-ranging advice.
A thoroughly comprehensive and invaluable manual for managing retirement.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2024
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
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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
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