A concise, coherent overview of financial basics.
A practical guide to building wealth and managing finances, aimed at beginning investors.
In this debut personal-finance guide, Lamb addresses a range of issues, from paying down credit-card debt to participating in the stock market. However, what sets this financial management book apart from others is the author’s own working-class history. He shares stories from his days as a truck driver and warehouse laborer and connects those experiences to his gradual financial education. He acknowledges the flaws of the current financial system, addressing such subjects as capital-gains taxes and the rise of income inequality. However, he drives home a message that even a person without economic advantages can create a financially secure future, through a combination of self-discipline, financial literacy and hard work. Much of the material here, such as a comparison of renting versus buying a house, will be familiar to many readers, but it’s primarily aimed at people who have scarcely begun to think about saving for retirement. As a result, the advice is tempered with a strong dose of practicality; for instance, the author explains that paying off credit card debt is the equivalent of earning guaranteed double-digit returns, but he also urges readers not to pay off debt at the expense of saving for retirement. He coherently explains the concept of emergency funds and the rationales for maintaining them (“So what if it takes a long time to reach your goal? As long as you are making forward progress…there is no set dollar figure you need to achieve in order to feel that you have ‘won’ the game”), as well as how to maximize employer contributions to a 401(k) and obtain necessary insurance. His story of how he learned about renter’s insurance will make many readers groan in sympathy and perhaps remember their own youthful mistakes. His advice on investing in stocks, bonds and mutual funds is clearly meant for readers who already have some financial security, and it seems out of place next to sections about tracking spending and creating a basic budget. That said, it does offer a reasonable analysis of the market’s relationship to the small investor.
A concise, coherent overview of financial basics.Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4953-9265-8
Page Count: 152
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
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 readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.
A well-constructed critique of an economic system that, by the author’s account, is a driver of the world’s destruction.
Harvard Business School professor Henderson vigorously questions the bromide that “management’s only duty is to maximize shareholder value,” a notion advanced by Milton Friedman and accepted uncritically in business schools ever since. By that logic, writes the author, there is no reason why corporations should not fish out the oceans, raise drug prices, militate against public education (since it costs tax money), and otherwise behave ruinously and anti-socially. Many do, even though an alternative theory of business organization argues that corporations and society should enjoy a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, which includes corporate investment in what economists call public goods. Given that the history of humankind is “the story of our increasing ability to cooperate at larger and larger scales,” one would hope that in the face of environmental degradation and other threats, we might adopt the symbiotic model rather than the winner-take-all one. Problems abound, of course, including that of the “free rider,” the corporation that takes the benefits from collaborative agreements but does none of the work. Henderson examines case studies such as a large food company that emphasized environmentally responsible production and in turn built “purpose-led, sustainable living brands” and otherwise led the way in increasing shareholder value by reducing risk while building demand. The author argues that the “short-termism” that dominates corporate thinking needs to be adjusted to a longer view even though the larger problem might be better characterized as “failure of information.” Henderson closes with a set of prescriptions for bringing a more equitable economics to the personal level, one that, among other things, asks us to step outside routine—eat less meat, drive less—and become active in forcing corporations (and politicians) to be better citizens.
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5417-3015-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
