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Archive for the ‘Economics’ Category

In the next 20 years, you may get bored seeing more and more books analyzing the effects of the current economic crisis and what brought it on.

But, at the very beginning of this financial crisis, I’ve found the first book to advocate a new financial platform and address the biggest problem: adding more jobs and restoring worldwide financial stability.

The book didn’t just suddenly appear as an analysis of the world’s economic crisis. It has been stored in the brain vault of Leonard S. Johnson for more than 5 years. He has been tossing around ideas, coming up with new approaches and creating new kinds of thought for that entire time. And this was long before this financial crisis put the world on its collective knees. It was now time to come to the aid of a crumbling financial world.

That’s when Johnson decided it was time to give the world a needed answer to deal with these effects of the economic crisis with his innovative book “The Bank for International Ideas.” Johnson has based his book entirely on taking intellectual capital to intellectual property. He shows how to use the book’s premise to create a new financial order based on worldwide innovative ideas that become businesses, scientific projects or organizations.

“The Bank for International Ideas” isn’t a book of how to merely get banks to support and fund new ideas. The fact is banks are not doing that to the degree we have known in the past. BII is a complete financial platform which allows anyone in the world to submit ideas to the bank.

The process starts with the review committee. The committee, a noteworthy group of peers, decides if the idea is worthy and valid. If so, the bank actually issues credits which are then redeemed in currency in three parts: 33%, 33% and 34% totally 100%.

This means BII allows the innovator to make money on the idea while searching for investors, investment money, funding and mentor involvement. There’s nothing to pay back unlike a usual bank transaction. The individual is actually paid for the idea. That’s new in the world of finance. And good news for the idea-maker.

Johnson believes the world is no longer going to be run by the current skilled jobs. He believes true financial stability will be led by innovators who create areas of new job categories, not simply the skilled ones that we have known.

What is next for the economy? The economy defines the boundaries within which all businesses must operate.

Like the lines on the edges of the road, cross at your own risk. All businesses – and therefore all jobs in the private sector – must operate within (“length” and “width”) of these boundaries. Business failures occur when companies fall behind the times and are too far ahead of consumer demand. Likewise, most business sectors have a relatively narrow range of successful operations. It’s hard to survive if you are either the most expensive or cheapest in your market.

The 2010 book from David Wiedemer, PhD, Robert Wiedemer, and Cindy Spitzer entitled “Aftershock” examines the events that created the financial meltdown. In this book and the previous book, “America’s Bubble Economy” the authors make the case that the U.S. economy was an illusion, only the interaction of “bubbles”.

A bubble is created when an asset temporarily booms. The former (pre-2008) U.S. economy was comprised of bubbles in real estate, personal loans, credit card debt, the stock market, and consumer spending. On their own, each bubble can rise independently. But in combination, the bubbles accelerate and reach unnatural levels!

The financial meltdown felt around the world is the consequence of these bubbles popping, or as the authors describe it, a “Bubblequake”. The first stage of the financial meltdown included the fall of the real estate bubble, private debt bubble, stock market bubble, and discretionary spending bubble. On their own, each would have been significant. Combined, these popping bubbles lead to “The Great Recession”.

Amidst the economic turmoil, the U.S. government tried to intervene. Bailouts of automakers and investment banks were designed to compensate for “toxic assets”. Then the government pumped billions into the economy as “stimulus” to try to offset the funds lost to “money heaven” as bubbles popped and wealth simply evaporated.

Looking back, we now know that such efforts were ineffective. The results were a dramatically inflated money supply and a devalued dollar. The aftereffect was that the government soon reached the “National Debt Limit” as a result of spending nearly twice as much as incoming revenue.

The authors label this current stage as the “Aftershock”, defined as the popping of the dollar bubble and the government debt bubble. Their conclusion is that current economic conditions do not simply represent a down market cycle or a typical recession. The difference is the multi-bubble economy, with these inter-linked bubbles ALL on the descent.

Kochie’s guide to keeping it real – (My cradle to the grave approach to family and finance)
Pier 9 Publishing (Published 2006)
Written By David Koch
Australia
Review 4 Stars – Excellent Review

How the blurb describes the book:
David Koch, charismatic co-host of the Seven Network’s Sunrise, started out in finance journalism over 20 years ago. He is one of the most recognised people on Australian television – a recent survey by Reader’s Digest found he is one of the 25 most trusted Australians.

His list of achievements illustrates the breadth of his expertise, from being a small business owner; finance editor; silver Logie nominee 2004, 2005 and 2006; and commentator on over 50 radio stations. He is the author of Your Money and Your Life and co-author of I’m Not Made of Money and The Teenagers’ Guide to Part Time Jobs and Leaving Home. Renowned for his love of a joke, Kochie’s humour and charm are also at home on the Seven Network’s Where Are They Now, which he co-hosts with his much-loved television partner, Melissa Doyle.

Kochie has been married to Libby for almost 30 years and they have four children – Samantha, (married to Toby), Brianna, Alexander, and Georgina.

Kochie’s guide to keeping it real is a manual for life: an accessible, relevant, and entertaining guide to financial planning, relationships, and raising a family. Not afraid to express his opinion, Kochie draws on over twenty years’ experience as a respected finance journalist, as well as his role as co-host on Channel Seven’s Sunrise, to offer down-to-earth practical advice for Australian families.

Kochie’s guide to keeping it real takes a commonsense approach to planning and managing finances, relationships and raising a family. Kochie draws on his own life experience, his financial acumen, and feedback from his Sunrise audience in this cradle to grave guide for modern families.

Enjoy Kochie’s useful and often witty observations on just about everything – from saving for a house deposit, devising a pre-baby budget and bringing up kids, to building wealth, running your own business, planning for retirement and dealing with tax, divorce and even death!

Mr Home Budget’s Review:
This is just one of a few books David Koch has written. But I came into this book only really knowing about him from the Sunrise TV show. This book smacks of Sunrise, it’s almost as if he could just be rewriting a script word for word from the show. It’s light, funny, and fresh. But if you like Sunrise the show, you will love this book.

Rich Dad Poor Dad is written by Robert Kiyosaki, a well-known and best-selling author of many a books regarding personal finance. I happened to pick up a copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad over the weekend thanks to its catchy tagline or maybe I though it could help my ever dwindling bank balance! This book has been on the New York Times best-selling list for many years and it has numerous other credits to its name.

Rich Dad Poor Dad deals with many a theme such as the fact that it is wise to practice financial literacy by avoiding debt and starting business and real estate. Robert’s book tells us to gain more and more knowledge about financial markets and finance related terms because most of the people lose money not because they are foolish, rather they tend to lose because of lack of knowledge.

According to the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, financial literacy should be treated like learning another language and one must be apt at it. As one learns more and more about basic financial terms and practices to become more financially literate, one begins to pay more attention to details such as financial statements, assets, liabilities, credit and debt and other components of the financial world. These terms would either have been ignored earlier or one just simply did not know anything about them.

In the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert refers to his real dad as “poor dad” as a symbol to all those people who are always running the Rat Race, helplessly trapped in a vicious cycle of needing more but never able to satisfy their dreams all because of one glaring lack: financial literacy. On the other hand, the man referred to as “Rich Dad” is his neighborhood friend’s father who has never finished eighth grade yet owns warehouses, a company and a chain of three restaurants.

His “Rich Dad” represents those independent and wealthy people of the world who consciously and deliberately take advantage of their personal knowledge of tax and accounting and manipulate it to their advantage to enjoy huge success in this world.