The Wake by Linden MacIntyre

This book’s full title is The Wake: The deadly Legacy of a Newfoundland Tsunami. I have read a lot of history, but I must admit I have read little about Newfoundland. This book was an eye opener into some of the history of the Island. This is a vivid and heartbreaking story from this island. It was well written and interesting to read. Of course, like a lot of other people, I saw the play, Come from Away.

This book is about ghastly stores from Newfoundland of a tsunami, rescue at sea, and cancer from mining, with awful and uncaring government that was falling apart and an American false savior by the name of Walter Seibert. I had heard about the rescue at sea of American sailors in 1942. However, all the other stories were new to me.

There is a great review on Words Pages Books by the website’s owner Monika. There is a brief review on TLS by Nathan Greenfield. There is another review on The Girly Book Club by Michaela Keegan. There is a short written interview of Linden MacIntyre on Zoomer.

On Bookshelf there is a short interview with Linden MacIntyre about this book. There is also a short video about the 1929 Tsunami at Burin Peninsula. Linden MacIntyre gives a Key Note speech at St. Francis Xavier. Linden MacIntyre talks on Fifth Estate . Linden MacIntyre talks on CBC.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

The Great Rupture by Viktor Shvets

This book’s full title is The Great Rupture: Three Empires, Four Turning Points, and the Future of Humanity. Do we need to be Free? He has a web site here that you can explore. You can explore the major themes of the book. If you find this interesting, you might want to get the book to read.

The site Book Authority list this book as one of the 16 Best New Economic Development Books To Read In 2021. The site The Capital Spectator features this book and other economic books.

This book is rather depressing in the end as he thinks that we do not need to be free. The West will end up like China. 1984 here we come. We here in Canada, the US and EU all seem to be going left and socialist. However, Margaret Thatcher was right. Socialism only last as long as there is other people’s money to spend. Politian’s are all talking about taxing the rich to pay for all our desires. This will end badly.

Only the Nordic counties have a form of socialism that works. But everyone pays a large part of their earnings. The Nordics are also quite capitalistic. They have little in the way of corruption. On the other hand, Canada, US, and EU are filled with extractive elites. We also have huge tech companies that are sucking every last bit of data they can from us to monetize.

He thinks that AI will make it possible to control markets better than a free market system or capitalism. I worked with computers my whole adult life and any AI so far is just algorithms. Any AI will take process to a logical conclusion. AI will never think that just because they can do something should they? AI with Algorithms will never question their answers as to whether they make any sense. They could come up with stupid answers and never know that. Stupid answers are something a human can easily recognize. At least we are good at that. However, under communism people would not dare say anything the party thought up was stupid, so we may have that problem with AI. Sounds like this is what is happening in China currently.

Of course, the future is going to be different than the past. It has always been that way. I understand where he is going because of the changes our current technology is making in our lives. However, he paints a very bleak picture of our future and I do not believe that. However, we should be thinking about the future and how we will handle and adapt to a future of technology that is coming. Trying to deny new technology has not worked in the past and will not work now.

He paints a good picture of the past history and how we ended up where we are. Why certain countries are ahead. This will give you a great economic view of why the west is currently ahead. This book is well worth reading for this coverage of the past. The future is harder to know. We are going ahead to a very different future. He wonders if non-western cultures are better suited to our coming future. It is an interesting question. Whatever happens, we are certainly in for turmoil and disruptions with the new technology coming in the future.

There is a good review of this book on African Eye Report. There is a post on this book by John Aidan Byrne on GRIPT. This includes a review of the book and a podcast interview with Viktor Shvets. Alan Kohler at Eureka Report interviews Viktor Shvets. This is a podcast, plus also they show the full podcast in print. On the John Tread Gold website there is an review of this book and a interview podcast with Viktor Shvets.

There is an interview with Viktor Shvets by Gareth Vaughan on Interest. This is a good interview and Viktor Shvets views of the future is not so bleak. Viktor Shvets is interviewed on BNN. This is from August 2019. Viktor Shvets is part of the Macquarie Group, a Sydney-based investment bank. He is Managing Director at Macquarie Securities in Hong Kong. On Hamilton Wealth Partners Viktor Shvets speaks about his book through the Though Leaders Series.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Seeking Virtue in Finance by JC de Swaan

This book’s full title is Seeking Virtue in Finance: Contributing to Society in a Conflicted Industry. He is talking about how finance professionals can be ambitious but still do good for our society. At the Princeton Ed site, you can get a list of articles by JC de Swaan. The link is here. However, you cannot read a lot unless you have a subscription to the particular journal that he wrote in.

JC de Swaan talks about his four pillars of ethics in finance. They are that you should serve customers faithfully, do not extract value from others (or the rest of society), treat colleagues with dignity and as much as possible apply your skills and resources to the collective interest. He said he looked for people to talk about who we could relate to that were self-interested and successful but individuals who were able to balance their self-interest and the collective interest.

Part of the book is on outstanding people in finance. It is interesting to read about people who are outstanding in finance and can motivate others to follow their lead. He comments that none are perfect, but you are also dealing with people and people are never perfect. He talks a lot about Jack Bogle who start Vanguard. Vanguard is a mutual company which deals in passive investments. Their products are ETFs. Clients believe that they are being treat well and they are.

Another person he talks about is Jack Welch the CEO of General Electric who said that shareholder value is the result not a strategy. He said your constituencies are your employees, your customers, and your product. I make my living by investment and I do believe that for long term success, a company needs to treat both customers and employees well and also produce something that people want.

One thing I look at when investigating companies, is the diversity of the Board of Directors. I look at how many females there are and how many minorities there are on the board. I figure that if having more females on boards improve the company’s performance, so should having minorities. Perhaps I should also look at top management also. JC de Swaan quotes McKinsey that looked at diversity of top management in UK, US, Canada, and Latin America. What they found was that companies in the top quartile of gender diversity were 21% more likely to outperform and that companies in the top quartile of ethnic and cultural diversity were 33% more likely to outperform.

There is a review of this book on Bokus. The review is in English, but most of the site is not. If you into podcasts, there is one on New Books Network stie. The interview of JC de Swaan by Daniel Peris starts just after 1 minute.

Tiger Gao and Roopa Venkatraman interview Jean-Christopher de Swaan on Policy Punchline about this book. JC de Swaan does a video lecture for Center for Public Policy & Financer. Knut Rostad interviews JC de Swaan for the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard. JC Swaan said at the end of the interview that the next thing for the industry might be checklists.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Heart, Breath, Mind by Leah Lagos

This book’s full title is Heart, Breath, Mind: Train Your Heart to Conquer Stress and Achieve Success. I got this book to review and I will do that. The book is designed to take 10 weeks to finish, but I obviously can review it in a shorter time frame, but probably also get some benefit from reading the book. It reminds me of a book I read in the past of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Robert M. Sapolsky .

I did not do the 10 weeks breathing exercises that is at the heart of this book. It seems like an intriguing way to help people manage stress. I do not have much stress at the moment even with the lockdown. I am fortunate in some ways that my son lives with me. At least I had company in the first part of the lockdown and now we can, in Ontario, go out somewhat with friends.

I did start on diaphragmatic breathing or belly breathing. This seems like a good thing to do. I had heard about this before and it is not new, but I had not practiced it. She talks on how training your body to handle stress can help people with problems sleeping to athlete’s performance levels. She tells a lot of stories about how she has helped people with in terms of lowing stress so they can perform or live better.

If you are suffering because of stress, it would be worth the while to get this book and engage in her 10 week course. It is a detailed plan. She also suggests some different apps you can get to help you, but you do not need these as you could follow her plan and use the worksheets she provides. Her way could be a powerful tool to improve your life.

There are few reviews of this book. You will find a couple at Good Reads. You will also find some on Amazon when you scroll to the bottom of the page. The books publisher is Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Leah Lagos teams with Jaspal Ricky Singh to do a short at TED-Ed Talk. In this book, Leah Lagos recommends watching Kelly McGonigal on TED Talk. The title of this TED Talk is “How to Make Stress Your Friend”. There is also a short video on this book on YouTube. There is also a good description of what Dr. Lagos does at Goop.

If you like podcasts there is some choice. Listen to Dr Lagos on MixCloud There is another podcase on the subject of HRV at Elite HRV.

Jeff Halevy interviews Leah Lagos on YouTube at Workout from Within. Nunzio Presta interviews Leah Lagos via YouTube. This is a longer interview of some 17 minutes, but is well worth listening to. NBC did a news video about Leah Lagos helping an Olympic Rower on YouTube.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

The Mosquito by Timothy Winegard

This book’s full title is The Mosquito, A Human History of our Deadliest Predator. This is an interesting read of history though diseases we got from the mosquito. I had known about malaria and other diseases hitting North America, especially the 13 colonies. I had no idea that the early explorers bought malaria from Africa. I also did not know that Europe had malaria in the past.

The author is from Canada and is living in the US. Like a lot of history done in North America and generally in Europe, this book only looks at some European, but mainly American history. When I say American, I mean North and South America. But also, a great deal of the book deals with the US history. Nothing is said about Asia and mosquitos and very little about Arica and the mosquitos.

There is a review of this book on the CBC site. There is a podcast interview of Timothy Winegard on this site. Katie Wudel at Los Angeles Times reviews this book. She ends with the quote. “It is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent. … It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Lulu Garcia-Navarro on NPR interviews Timothy Winegard and the transcript is given on their site. Ghost Reader on YouTube give a review of this book.

Timothy Winegard is interviewed on The Agenda. Timothy Winegard speaks at Colorado Mesa University. The Q & A portion starts at 40 minutes. There is an interview on Your Morning of Timothy Winegard. This is short at just over 5 minutes. And for Canadians, Timothy Winegard wrote a book called For King and Kanata: Canadian Indians and the First World War. He talks about this in a video at Books. Our treatment of our Indians has been astonishingly bad. I had no idea they were not considered citizens in the past.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

The Storm Before the Calm by George Friedman

This book’s full title is The Storm Before the Calm: America’s Discord, The Coming Crisis of the 2020’s and the Triumph Beyond. George Friedman believes in cycles. A lot of historians do as do some people in finance. I think that they have good reasons to do so. It is not that are cycles are the same. Sometimes there are similarities and sometimes not.

George Friedman talks about America reinvesting itself. It has done so in the past and will do so in the future. I believe this also. When you think of the conflict with China, this is the one thing that stands out. America can reinvest itself. China has cycles too, but they all involve having an emperor. Mao was an emperor as is the current president of China Xi Jinping. China has a deep long history. China has often fallen apart and put itself back together again. However, it always has an emperor.

I find George Friedman an original thinker and I enjoyed reading his book. I believe in historical cycles but it can be debated if Friedman has gotten it right by his cycles. The US is certainly polarized at the present and I believe that the US will reinvent itself. I have no idea how this will happen. In any event, George Friedman is always an interesting read. So read this if you want an interesting take on what is happening in the US.

I am not surprised that there are a lot of critical reviews of this book. At the present time it seems that American cannot agree on anything. I live in Canada and we also have a lot of the same problems in agreeing, especially politically. It is not just discord. People just seem to hate and feel people who think differently, especially politically are on the evil side. It is too bad this has occurred. The problem with this is that people are shut up. This is why the voting for Trump was not noted. You can shut people up, but the vote is secret.

Glenn Altschuler on Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a rather critical view of this book. There is another critical review by David Wineberg at San Francisco. There is a less critical, but interesting review at Kirkus Reviews. A blogger on Deviant Art give a full review of this book. Some of it is critical and some not. Andrew Sheng at The Edge Markets also does an interesting and full review of this book..

The last video in this list is the most interesting with an interview by Jim Falk even though it is the longest one. George Friedman gives a short speech at Sweeney Agency. The shorten free interview podcast on Financial Sense give a good sense of what this book is about. Chief Economist Bart van Ark of the Conference Board’ interviews George Friedman. This last video is where George Friedman is interviewed by Jim Falk for World Affairs Council of Dallas, Fort Worth.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Feeding the People by Rebecca Earle

This book’s full title is Feeding the People, The politics of the Potato. This is an interesting look at history through the lens of the potato. There are stories that it was the elite that introduced the potato in different parts of the world. They can make great stories. However, Rebecca Earle disputes this and talks about how it was the ordinary people that adopted the potatoes in different parts of the world.

I have been reading a lot of history through a number of lenses and different angles recently. Others I have recently reviewed is history through the lens of music and the mosquito. This is another view of history. This is story telling through food, especially the potato. So, this is potato and history.

Potatoes rank fourth in value with regards to foods. It is behind wheat, maize, and rice in volume. It is the fifth most valuable crop. Rebecca Earle talks about how lots of ordinary people accepted and adapted to the potato long before they drew the attention of the elite.

It is interesting that the governments at one time got very interested in what their people were eating. This started in Britain at the time of Boer War (1899) because the government found 40% to 60% of the people too malnourished for recruitment for the war. Britain also found the same problem going into WWI (1914). With the Enlightenment, people thought there was a relationship between the health and vigor of the population and the wealth and power of the state.

Rebecca Earle talks about the potato through different periods of time after it becoming available to Europe in the 16th Century. Mostly it was regarded as a good nutritious food, but not always. Elites sometimes thought of the potato as a source of excellent nutrition for the poor and at other times thought of potato eaters as lazy.

Some reviewers have criticized what they call her formulistic writing, but personally, I found the book interesting and the history of the potato fascinating. Unfortunately, I cannot give links to reviews because the papers where they are, are locking anyone out who is not a subscriber. Potatoes were unknow outside the Andes before the 16th century. Now they are everywhere.

I like to hear authors speak about their books. However, I could not find any video by Rebecca Earle. I did find some essays by her and some reviews of her essays and book. See the links below. If you like her essays, you can go on and get the book. It is an easy and interesting read.

How the Humble Potato Fuelled The Rise of Liberal Capitalism by Rebecca Earle is an essay that she wrote. It is an interesting essay and well worth the read. A review of this essay by Carissa Chew is on the Retrospect Journal. You can read another essay of Rebecca Earle at The Conversation. It is entitled Beyond porridge: pigeon in a kettle and other prison-cell cuisine.

Oliver Wiseman reviews this book and one on coffee at The Critic. Diego Arguedas Ortiz at BBC gives a history of the potatoes and mentions Rebecca Earle. There is a review of this book also at Potato Grower. The reviewer says the book is potato centric with recipes woven throughout.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

I am now caught up with all my book reviews of the books I have read recently. A while ago I had a huge stack of books that I had read and wanted to review. I try not to do this, that is having a stack of books to review, but it is so easy to go on to the next book and put off reviewing the one I just finished.

This book’s full title is Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t’ Know. Some people like Malcolm Gladwell and others do not. Personally, I always find him interesting and that is why I bought his new book called Talking to Strangers. The other thing about his books is that they are an easy read. Basically, he says we are better off as a society when we believe what strangers say rather than being suspicious of everything they might say.

Andrew Anthony on The Guardian does a nice review of this book. Brian Naylor does a review on NPR. Andrew Ferguson on The Atlantic spends a lot of words saying how superficial Malcolm Gladwell and his books are.

I like the interviews better than Malcolm Gladwell’s speech. I especially liked the interview by Susan Swain. Malcolm Gladwell speaks for Penguin Books UK. Malcolm Gladwell is interviewed on The Economist by Anne McElvoy. There is a very short video with Malcolm Gladwell promoting his book for Penguin in Australia. Malcolm Gladwell is interviewed on C-Span. The host on C-Span is Susan Swain.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter

Rise and Fall by Paul Strathern

This book’s full title is Rise and Fall, A History of the World in Ten Empires. The most interesting comment I found was that empires based solely on power and domination, while allowing their subjects to do as they will, can last for centuries. Those that try to control the everyday lives of their people are much harder to sustain.

This book was a very easy read and does not bring up much in the way of new information for me, but then I have read a lot of history books. Why he includes the USA, I cannot say. Perhaps because a lot of people say it is decline, but only the future can really tell you this. I know that China desperately wants to replace US as the world power. But things do not always work out how you want. And, there is also that thing of being careful what you wish for.

Like it is said that the Holy Roman Empire was not Holy or Roman or an Empire, he said that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not a union, not socialist, not ruled by soviets (worker’s committees) and was not a republic. It the Russian Empire in a different disguise and it was under autocratic rule just as it was under the Czars. Actually, you can say the same thing about Russian today with Putin in charge. He is the new Czar.

When he talks about American, he talks about the period of the Robber Barons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, and Henry Ford. We seem to be in the same situation today and the Robber Barons are the owners of FAANGs.

It is interesting that there are only reviews on Amazon and Good Reads. I can find no reviews in any magazine or newspaper, although there are podcast reviews. Reviews on Amazon is here. The Good Reads reviews are here. A podcast is on Mixcloud.

There are no videos about this book or Paul Strathern that I can find.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

The Reality Bubble by Ziya Tong

This book’s full title is The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths, and the Dangerous Illusions that Shape Our World. She talks about all the things we do not see, from the very small like microbes and neutrinos and other things we are blind to, like how much animals in our food chain suffer.

The problem is not climate change per se, but that we are destroying our world. We are destroying our world that we need to live in. We are destroying our oceans, our forest and other life. Things that we need to live and breathe. But I must admit I am an optimist. I believe we will fix things. There are lots of people trying to do just that. See this video from the Economist on cleaning up plastic from oceans. I do not believe you have to destroy all than man has built to save the world.

And, we will not fix our problems by destroying our economy. It is rich societies that want to fix their environment. If you make people poor, all they are looking for is where their next meal comes from. They do not care about their environment when they are hungry.

For book reviews, see the one by Nesrine Malik at the Guardian. This CBC site has some interesting items from a review of the book to why Ziya Tong wrote the book to talks by Ziya Tong to some podcasts by Ziya Tong. There is an interesting review of this book on a blog called I’ve Read This. And, another good review by Charles R. Larson on Counter Punch.

There is a short book review by Ziya Tong on You Tube. The Agenda with Steve Paikin has an interview of Ziya Tong. Ziya Tong is interviewed on Breakfast Television. This is a short video also. Ziya Tong is on Ted Talks.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Dangerous Melodies by Jonathan Rosenberg

This book’s full title is Dangerous Melodies: Classical Music in America from the Great War through the Cold War. I personally love reading history. This is quite a different approach to history as it is through the lens of music. I had not thought about or before considered the effect of classical music, which is all from Europe, on people in the US during the first and second world wars and the cold war.

Classical music comes from Europe. I had not realized about the anti-German feelings in the US during the first world war. You hardly hear about this. I know that Germans were the second largest immigrant group to the US and the third largest in Canada (after the French and English) prior to the second world war.

I have German relatives in Canada who immigrated in the mid to late 1800’s and were in Canada during the first and second world war. I know that my great-grandfather, who died in 1905 was basically a German speaker, but my grandfather was bilingual, and my father, who was born in 1914 spoke only English and grew up in a home that spoke English. I know people in the community felt that they had to keep their heads down and not cause any trouble, but they also signed up for service in both world wars.

There is a short review of this book on Kirkus Reviews. On NPR News they show highlights of a review with the author by Scott Simons. Tim Page at the Washington Post has great an easy read on this book.

Jonathan Rosenberg speaks at Politics and Prose on his book Dangerous Melodies. The Q&A starts at around 33 minutes into the video. This is a rather long video speech by Jonathan Rosenberg on C-Span.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Great Leaders Live Like Drug Addicts by Michael Brody-Waite

A cautionary tale. I supposedly was to receive a free book to read and a review. I did my part. However, when this book was sent to me in June of 2020, Jonathan Merkh of Tennessee he put a value on the book of $100 US$ when it should have been $10 US$. Because of this I ended up with a Bill of $47 CDN$. This book is selling in Canada for about $32 CDN$. This transaction was done through Krupp Kommunications.

This book’s full title is Great Leaders Live Like Drug Addicts: How to Lead Like Your Life Depends on It. Michael Brody-Waite has his own web site at here. You can join for free to get an assessment, but you currently need to pay $19 a month to get access to meetings and sponsorship.

I think that people who find a group of friends to socialize with, no matter the format are lucky. I feel lucky in that way as I do have a group of friends. I have known these people for 40 to 50 years depending on the person. We do have a group and we still get together. However, the problem with getting old, is that you lose friends. I think as you age it gets harder to make friends.

His anomalous group sounds very similar. They share experiences and times, good and bad, with their group. We are very much social animals and I think we all need a group of friends. We need friendship and support. I think this is often missing in our society. Michael Brody-Waite is lucky to have his own support group. I would image with a group like his there are always people leaving and others joining. He may not have the same problem with aging as other people with a group of friends.

He quotes from Helen Keller that “Alone with can do so little; together we can do so much”. He changes this to Alone we can’t do anything, but together we can do anything. If you do not like his idea of a mask-free group, then perhaps meetup.com would suit to find the right group for you. It sounds like it is his group at his AA meetings and his sponsor and his role as a sponsor that ultimately makes all the good things happen.

A few days ago, there was a twitter feed about a person losing their job and thinking that his coworkers were friends, but had only one person from his old work talk to him. I think a lot of people make the mistake that the people they work with are their friends. This is not true. If you do not do something besides working with people, they will not be friends. You have to do something, especially something one on one, with people for them to become friends. I have one good friend from work and we are friends as we often went out to lunch together.

Retirees have this problem also. They think that the people they worked with are friends, and with no further contact with co-workers, they are lonely. They miss work because they miss the social part of work. This is a big problem for a lot of people. Often retirees get another job or a part-time job so that they can again enjoy the social aspects of work. Michael Brody-Waite says that he worked with good people, but the depth of connection was just not there. I think he is perfectly correct on this.

I did not do the action plan of his. I am retired. However, he is very right talking about the fact that you cannot control anyone else, you only can control how you act and react. Also, the idea of doing something everyday matters. This is important in getting anything done. It counts what you do each day. These two things can be applied to any situation you have to deal with or project you have to do. In any situation you have to deal with, you have to know what you can and what you cannot control. You need also to learn what works and what does not work, so that you can handle future situations better.

Jerry Doby does a review of this book on The Hype Magazine. Tori Utley on Fobes reviews Michael Brody-Waite’s Ted Talk. D. A. Romo on Discovery Grey talks does a review of the Ted Talk.

Go here to hear his Ted Talk. This is on Michael Brody-Waite’s own site. I love Ted talks. They are short, but informative. The script of the Ted Talk is on Singju Post. Michael Brody-Waite also has his own Facebook pages here and here. In a short video, Michael Brody-Waite talks about the principles of this book.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier

This book’s full title is Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties. I found a new interesting acronym of WEIRD – western, educated, industrial, rich, and developed. He talks about the huge divides in our society between the well-educated and less educated and between the metro areas and the hinterland outside the metro areas. I always love reading books by Paul Collier because he always brings up quite a different point of view.

I had a cottage north of Napanee in the 1980’s and 1990’s. They had a very different world view than me. I always thought it interesting that they thought of Toronto as a big scary city and said that they would never like to live there. Personally, I love Toronto and have always loved to live in this city. It has so much to offer in opportunity and in the variety of activities available and its wonderful parks.

Paul Collier seems to be able to identify a lot of the problems of our current world. However, I do not think that he has the solutions or solutions that people will run with. We need plans to move forward, not go backwards. I agree that who benefits most from firms is the top management. They talk about only making profit for the shareholders. However, they are the ones who benefits the most. Most investors I have talked with do not think of themselves as shareholders of the companies they invest in. I think that is a big mistake.

We boomers started out as flower children, but it seems we did not build a better and fairer society. Of course, there was also drugs, sex and rock and roll. Does history repeat? We seem today to be back to robber barons (FAANG) and revolt (people protesting inequality). We would all be happier and more prosperous if everyone could contribute to and benefit from our society.

I think that the answer lies in better education (in poor areas) and less red tape. The government should get out of the way of people trying to better themselves. We also need to stop the bobber barons from taking over everything in sight.

Martin Wolf on Financial Times did a great review of this book and its message. Bill Gates writes an interesting review of this book on his site of Gates Notes. Steven Pearlstein writes an interesting review in the Washington Post. There is also a wonderful review by Branko Milanovic at Global Policy Journal. With the second part of Branko Milanovic’s review at Brave New Europe.

Daniela Arregui Coka interviews Paul Collier on Global Economics Dynamics Project. There is a panel discussion of this book, with Paul Collier at Policy Exchange. Paul Collier is the second speaker on this panel. Paul Collier gives a lecture on how capitalism has derailed in the past the and present in Oslo. He speaks for almost 40 minutes and this is worthwhile to listen to as he talks about problems and solutions to the current form of capitalism. This last video is the best, so if you only watch one, watch this one.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

A Brief History of Doom by Richard Vague

This book’s full title is A Brief History of Doom: Two Hundred Years of Financial Crises. This is an interesting book talking about passed financial crisis being mainly caused by private. Richard Vague tells a good story.

One of the things that is pointed out is that investors sometimes bought bonds because they thought they were safer than buying a company’s stock. After all, bond holders have to be paid before stockholders get any money. However, if a company goes bankrupt, bondholders lose also. The lesson should be that you should not buy bonds from a company for which you would not buy the stock.

The thing that Richard Vague is pointing out in this book is that recessions are caused by private debt increasing dramatically against the GDP. Private debt is both of individuals and companies. Usually overbuilding comes into play (railways, real estate). Recessions are worsened then when people then stop spending. A lot of the economy, especially in the US, is dependent on individuals spending.

One of the things he points out is that the recovery from 2008 would have been much better if individual households who were under water because of mortgages were helped out. Only the banks and financial institutions were help. A lot of people in the US are still angry about that.

I live in Toronto and this book comes at a handy time because I have been worried about all the condo building going on. There has been an incredible number of condos built. Real estate prices just go higher and higher. You have to wonder who is buying all these condos. At night the ones that are built and bought seem to have few lights on at night. So, we seem to be overbuilding and anything I have read is that Canadians have a very high level of debt.

There are few reviews on Good Reads. On Good Reads, a lot of people have rated this book and usually with 4 and 5 stars. Joseph N. DiStefano does a review of this book for Philadelphia Inquirer. Some of the best reviews on in newspapers. Another good place is blogs. There is a good review also on the Dollar and Sense blog.

Richard Vague speaks on YouTube about his book. He speaks until around 14:41 and then the interview begins. He said that the US does not have a problem with private debt currently, however, Asia does. He thinks our next crisis will come from Asia. He thinks that ordinary people should have gotten debt relief in the 2008 crisis just as the banks got help. Rob Johnson interviews Richard Vague at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Richard Vague talks at Oxford Union on why he has little hope for the next decade. Richard Vague talks about debt on New Economic Thinking.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Three Stones Make a Wall by Eric Cline

This book’s full title is Three Stones Make a Wall, The Story of Archaeology. The full Archaeological axiom is: One stone is a stone. Two stones is a feature. Three stones is a wall. Four Stones is a building. Five Stones is a palace. (Six Stones is a palace built by Aliens).

This is not the first book I have read by Eric Cline. I love archaeology and Eric Cline makes archaeology come alive. If you have not read anything on the subject this is a great book to read. This is not a new book, but it is also not that old. It was first published in 2017 and I got the paperback version published in 2018. You can tell from the reading that Eric Cline loves what he does.

Peter Lewis write a great review in StarTribune. I found another great review by Simon Caterson at The Sydney Morning Herald. Brian Fagan on Project Muse has a review and you can see an abstract on this site.

Eric Cline is on Junk Science and Archaeology. He speaks on his book called From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible, In another video with Eric Cline on YouTube he gives an short talk on how archaeologists decide where to dig. Meet the author in an interview of Dr. Eric Cline by Nick Barksdale.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Inheritors of the Earth by Chris Thomas

This book’s full title is Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction. I loved this book for its optimism. I must admit that I think that humans will survive the damage we have done to our beloved earth. Something will come along. I also think that calling the present age the Anthropocene is rather arrogant, but I guess time will tell.

He talks about how nature is coping with humans on earth and doing so surprisingly well. He talks about how we have not stopped other live from diversifying or how we have help diversification along (but perhaps rather unknowingly). Life has always adapted and there is no reason to think this will stop because of us. Conservationists seem to arbitrarily chose what past to return to. He argues that we are producing a new Pangea.

To gain further understanding of a subject, I like to read other peoples reviews. Also, the other thing to do, and probably my favourite is to hear an author talk at several venues. I gained a lot from this book and also from listening to Chris Thomas speak.

Gaia Vince does a great review in The Guardian. Arne Mooers reviews this book at Science Mag. Christoph Kueffer does a very thorough review of this book at Research Gate. To be able to read this, you should download it as a PDF. Christoph Keuffer talks about this book, the problems, and limitations with the book as he sees it.

Chris Thomas speaks on De Balie. He starts speaking at around 3.50 minutes in to 40 minutes. Then Hans de Kroon, professor Plant Ecology at the Radboud University speaks. Half way down this page is a short video (3.50 minutes) with Chris Thomas on CBC about how to help species with Climate change. Chris Thomas talks on Brain Bar.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

America by Robert Goodwin

This book’s full title is America; The Epic Story of Spanish North America, 1493 to 1898. This is a book that I got from Ben McNally’s Book Shop on Bay. I always find intriguing books when I visit this shop. And this book was certainly that.

I knew a bit about the Spanish in North America, because I do read history, but I did not know the full story. I knew that Spain was in the southern states (Texas to California). I knew that Mexico won their independence from Spain (around 8121). I knew the early history of Texas and also that the US took land from Mexico in the Mexico-American war (around 1846). I did not really know how Spain settled into this land. This gives a very good and full story of this adventure into North America by the Spanish. It is quite a story and it is told well.

There is a good overview of the book on Kirkus. J.H. Elliott on New York Review of Books magazine lets you read the first part of a good review. David Steinberg on the Albuquerque Journal writes about this book and another popular book on Spanish North America called El Norte by Carrie Gibson. This was not the only book on Spain by Goodwin, he also wrote Spain: The Centre of the World, 1519–1682 and this has a review on the Spectator. There are some reviews also on Amazon (the USA site). It is interesting that for Amazon, you have to have purchased the book through them to be able to write a review.

There is little I can find online about the author. There is a bit of a biography on him at Macmillan Publishers. The basic same information is at Bloomsbury. At Thrift Books they list books by Robert Goodwin. Also, Robert Goodwin wrote an article on Five Books about the best books on Rewriting America. Robert Goodwin talks about himself on The Viney Agency.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Origins of a Journey by Daniel Grogan

This book’s full title is Origins of a Journey: History’s Greatest Adventures Marked by Ambition, Necessity and Madness. This is great little book as it mentioned all sorts of travelers, ones you have heard of ones you have not. All the entries and quite short, so if you like to read more you can go the Works Cited section to see what more you can read on your adventurer. And, of course, there is a lot more information online. Below are some of the interesting people I met in this book.

I had never heard of Fanny Bullock Workman before and she sounded quite interesting. She has a Wikipedia page here. The entry is much longer than the entry in this book. An article in the Harvard Magazine is here. Googling her name brings up all sorts of entries for this remarkable woman.

Another interesting person was Bessie Coleman. She wanted to be an aviator despite both gender and racial discrimination at that time against about her being an aviator. She was lucky to get help but she was also a strong and determined women. Here is a biography of her. She is also has a Wikipedia page. Also, see a video on Bessie Coleman. She is another great role model.

Osa and Martin Johnson were adventurers and photographers. See their Wikipedia Page. There are photographs of their adventures online. After Martin’s death, Osa went on to be a famous photographer. There is an entry on her in Women Film Pioneers Project. Osa Johnson wrote a couple of books, including I Married Adventure with reviews on Good Reads. There is a 1929 film on them. There is also an old film on Osa Johnson.

One adventurer I had always been fascinated by is Herodotus. You cannot read history without coming across his name. He is also in Wikipedia. He is talked about in the Ancient History Encyclopedia. He is called the The Father of History. There is a cute video online. He wrote books and books were written about him.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Crashed by Adam Tooze

This book’s full title is Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World. Adam Tooze has his own web site here.

In reading this book I learned a how lot of acronyms. Like CDO - Collagenized Debt Obligations; CDS -Credit Default Swaps, ABCP-Asset Back Commercial Paper, SIV – Structured Investment Vehicles and etc. The list just goes on and on. The big surprise for me was about the Fed lending dollars to other central banks.

Oliver Bullough on The Guardian does a good review of this book. He points out that Adam Tooze talks about what happened, but not how to fix things. This next review by Roch Dunin-Wasowicz on London School of Economics (LSE) is worth the read. You almost do not have to read the book after reading this review as it seems to cover everything. The Financial Times gives a neat and very short synopsis of this book..

The review by Roch Dunin-Wasowicz talked about podcast by Adam Tooze. I did not listen to this as I do not like podcase, but I realize some people do. There is a short interview with Adam Tooze on YourTube by Bond Vigilantes of M&G Securities Limited. The National History Center has at a seminar, Adam Tooze as a speaker at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

1177 BC by Eric Cline

This book’s full title is 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. This was a great book to read. If you have any interest in ancient civilizations you will enjoy this well written book. Personally, I love history and especially when I can read good book on our past. Eric Cline brings the past to life and also updates us on the most recent thinking about the fall of the bronze age. It even has its own Wikipedia page here that gives a short synopsis of what the book covers.

It is far more fun to read the book, but reviews can give you an idea on whether or not you would enjoy the book. Scott McLemee on The Key give a good and long review of this book. Guy D. Middleton on American Journal of Archaeology starts off his review by telling us why this book has been a popular best seller even though it is talking about ancient history of the eastern Mediterranean. This last review is by Steven Karacic of Bryn Mawr College. This book is part of a series by Barry Strauss and some information on this is here

There is a great short video that previews this book on YouTube by Princeton University Press. Here is a lecture given by Eric Cline in Maryland. To better understand the history covered in this book, you can read the book and listen to the lecture. Eric Cline also speaks at The Oriental Institute.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Bush Runner by Mark Bourrie

This book’s full title is Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson by Mark Bourrie. I loved this book. This is a book I got at a Ben McNally Brunch at the King Eddie. These are great events as you get a good breakfast at the King Eddie and hear four authors speak about their books. I have bought a number of books at these events as the most of the speakers are great. The link is here. It is hard to say if there will be more events at this point.

I had heard, of course, about Pierre Radisson in Canadian history, but always in the context of Radisson and Groseilliers. In any Canadian history I took, they never just talked about the adventures of Radisson and that is too bad. In any event, history taught in schools is whitewashed. This book does not whitewash anything. This is history as it should be told and it is fascinating. If history was told as in this book Then maybe students could learn to love history as I do. My love of history goes back to one great history teacher I had in high school.

The stories told about him in this book shows him double-crossing everyone, especially the French, English, and Mohawks. He probably felt he had no choice and he probably didn’t. He is an interesting character who was in North America, Caribbean, France, Holland, and Britain. It is surprising how many times he went from the New World to the Old World and how much he travelled around the New World considering how long these journeys took and how fraught with danger they were.

Most reviews just talk about the travels mentioned in the book. However, you have to read the book to get the full favour of his adventures. Just reading a review of where he went is not that interesting. Mark Bourrie writes an exciting tale about his adventures, so it is well worth reading. Michael Taube gives a review of this book in the Washington Times. This is a more interesting review by Dave Waddell in the Windsor Star as the reviewer talks to Mark Bourrie. James M. Fisher at Miramichi Reader gives an ok review, but it still better to read the book.

The is a podcast interviewing Mark Bourrie on CBC if you do not mind podcasts. Not a bad interview, but podcasts are not my favourite media. Mark Bourrie is interviewed on the Morning Show on Global News.

This is a great Canadian History story and history as it should be told. It is well worth the read.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Boom and Bust by Quinn and Turner

This book’s full title is Boom and Bust: A global History of Financial Bubbles by William Quinn and John D. Turner. Since there are no reviews that I can find, I will proceed differently on this review than on others that I have made. I was given an advance copy of this book in PDF form to read.

You can find information on William Quinn here. Information on John D. Turner is here. Neither seems to have any presence online in the form of videos. Both are on Twitter. William Quinn is found here and John Turner is on found here.

Reading about the problems that Britain had in 1825, you have to wonder if governments and their agencies have learned anything from past crisis. It would appear not. Britain’s handling of the banking crisis and the damage to Latin America was awful in the instability it caused for a long time. Yes, the crisis changed some things, but similar things are still happening.

This book has been written at a good time. The basic cause of the severe 1930 Depression was that people stopped spending. You got to wonder if this will happen once Covid 19 restrictions are lifted. A lot of people have suffered with job losses and lack of money. Who knows what this flu will do in the future and what he government reaction will be? We might have a severe depression if people are reluctant to spend money and to go out when the restrictions are lifted.

I am interested in investing. I do it for a living now, but I have been investing for some time and love reading books on economics and history. This book about economic history is the sort that does appeal to me. That is why I accepted a copy in return for a review. I agreed to read this book and if I like it, I would put a review on my blog and on Good Reads.

One of the things they talk about is market speculation. It would seem that a number of times people have treated the stock market as a casino. I invest for the long term, but I belong to some investment clubs and some do talk about speculation and others talk about investing. Some in the investment clubs, especially the one via meetup are doing day trading. This must be the ultimate in stock market speculation.

We probably all remember the real estate bubble in the US. The real estate bubble also affected Spain and England. You can read about this bubble in this book as it will make most of it understandable to people who are not interested in economics. We can still see the aftermath of that bubble. There is a news item on YouTube that talks about abandoned houses in USA. Here is another video on abandoned houses on YouTube in USA. There is an article about abandoned places in Spain on Quartz.

Most of the bubble situations talked about in the book I had heard of before, including the UK Railway Mania. But I have always been fascinated by UK Railway Mania bubble. Whenever I have read about the building of railways, it seems that shareholder did not make any money from investing in them. I live in Canada, and when it was decided we could not afford to build one railway from coast to coast, we decided to build two. Yes, I know how this sounds, but this is Canada and Canadian history. Our main railways of today, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, are currently doing just fine for their shareholders. Some things do change.

I believe the first Railways were built in England. I know that problems can arise when you are the first to use new technology. But according to the author, a bubble is started by politics and/or technology. Also, the authors say to have a bubble you need Speculation, Marketability and Money Credit. Then you have a bubble triangle. The authors also talked about why some bubbles caused economic problems and why others did not.

There certainly was speculation going on with the Railway Mania in England. There was lot of excitement because of the building of railways. Lots of petitions to parliament to authorize the building of different railway lines. As the share prices rose, it attracted lots of money, not only from the upper classes, but from the middle and lower classes. The media also had their hand in building excitement for railway shares. Speculators hoped to flip their shares before more capital was called up by the railways.

Marketability has to do, in the case of the Railway Mania case, the granting of corporate charters and the trading of shares. Parliament became more liberal in granting corporate charters to railway companies. The MPs had an electoral incentive to promote the interest of their local constituency. During the mania 15 new stock exchanges opened. So, it was very easy for people to buy and sell shares in the companies.

The last of the bubble triangle is Money Credit. There did not seemed to be much in the way of investors borrowing to buy shares. They really did not need to as investor were issued share certificates. They put some money down and were expected to answer future calls for capital. The down payment on the shares was at first 10% and then it was lowered to 5%. So really, leverage was built into the buying of shares.

So, there you have it. The Railway Mania in England provided all the ingredients for a bubble to form. Now you can get the book and see why this particular bubble caused economic problems for Britain.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Upheaval by Jared Diamond

This book’s full title is Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared Diamond. I enjoyed the chapter on Finland the most. This is because I have read so little on Finland. I read history all the time, but have seldom come across much on Finland. All I knew about Finland was that it was suppressed by the Soviets until the upheaval of in the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s.

Anand Giridharadas on New York Times pretty much sums up what is wrong with this book. Basically, it is the thesis that the way humans deal with crisis might teach something to countries. However, I did enjoy this book. Jared Diamond’s thesis may not be true, but he is an interesting writer and you can learn from reading his books.

I do think that there are lessons to be learned by looking at the history of other countries and how they handle their crisis. Colin Kidd at the The Guardian follows this approach in his review of the book. I also liked the reviews on Good Reads. It seemed me the one from Bill Gates was prominent. He talks about the Finnish chapter. He also like it because he also knew little about Finland.

Jared Diamond speaks at a Politics and Prose event at George Washington University on 5 October 2019. There is a short video by Jared Diamond at Little, Brown and Company about this book. This is another short video with Jared Diamond talking to Bill Gates on Gates Notes. From this site you can also download a chapter to read. Jared Diamond does a Ted Talk at the Lavin Agency Site.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

The Cowkeeper's Wish by Kasaboski and Hartog

This book’s full title is The Cowkeeper's Wish: A Genealogical Journey by Tracy Kasaboski and Kristen Den Hartog. They have blog here.

I got this book from a Ben McNally Brunch . When there will be more, I do not know. I doubt at this time that there will still be one on May 24 as it is uncertain when we will come out of the Lockdown by then. There brunches are great. You have breakfast at the King Eddy and then you hear 4 authors speak. If you buy a book you can get it signed. I have bought some wonderful books at these brunches.

This book is not as interesting as I thought it would be. I felt it bogged down in places, but I did preserve. This is the first genealogical book that I have read. At a Ben McNally’s Brunches I heard Kristen den and I was impressed and this is why I bought this book. Oh well, this is the first book that I have brought at a brunch that was a bit disappointing.

I used to be into genealogy. I did trace my family. My mother’s family came from Britain. My father’s family were early immigrants to Canada as my great grandparents come from Lutzelfluh, Bern, Switzerland. After doing a fair bit of work on my family history I moved on to other things. The only thing I really do now connected to genealogy is a newsletter from Lost Cousins Newsletter by Peter Calver. Peter writes from England and about tracing your English ancestors.

There is a review by the publishers at Douglas & McIntyre. Paul Jones did a review on Canada’s History. A lot of Canadians can trace ancestors back to Britain. I found a new Canadian book site with one review at 49th Shelf. I did not know this site existed. It is just for Canadian books.

There is another review on Genealogy Blog by Leland Meitzler. I did not know of this blog either. On another genealogical blog I found a review by Bobbi King on Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter.

In this video, Kristen den Hartog reads on Pivot Reading from her novel And Me Among Them. There is short interview on YouTube with Kristen den Hartog and Tracy Kasaboski in connection with The Occupied Garden book.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

The Myth of Capitalism by Jonathan Tepper

This book’s full title is The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition. This book was recommended by John Mauldin in a Thoughts from the Front Lines email. I agree we no longer have capitalism in a lot of ways.

Some companies, especially tech companies come to mind, have grown too big and too powerful. They allow no competition. However, this applies to a lot of other industries in the US. These are also big international companies. Examples of products of companies with large concentrations are for cell phones, cereals, toothpaste, internet providers. Results of this is reduced wages for workers and inequality.

As usual, Good Reads has a lot of good reviews of this book. The bad reviews criticize the editing and even though they agree with the premise they feel the book could be written better. A review by Yves Smith on Naked Capitalism that is rather critical of Tepper. And here is part of the review of this book by John Siman. James McRitchie on Corporate Governance does a review of this book.

Denise Hearn and Jonathan Tepper speaks via Town Hall Seattle. The panel discussion is especially interesting. Jonathan Tepper answers questions on Real Vision. Denise Hearn and Jonathan Tepper speaks in this very short video about their book The Myth of Capitalism.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

The Six-Day War by Guy Laron

This book’s full title is The Six-Day War, The Breaking of the Middle East. This is about the 1967 conflict that changed the map of the Middle East. I read this book to get a better understanding of the Middle East as it pertains to Israel. The Middle East is still a mess, but the only people who can really fix it is the people in the Middle East.

There is a show review at Yale University Press. Guy Laron wrote a long and interesting article about this war in the The Nation. There is, of course, lots of good reviews on Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre.

Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted this talk by Guy Laron. He starts talking about 7 minutes in about how he came to write this book. Questions start at 42 minutes in. Guy Laron talks at Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre. The other speaker was: Dr Ahron Bregman,

The most interesting quote I got was about Europe. It was said that NATO was established to keep, the Americans in, the Soviets out and Germany down. Brezhnev wanted a European order that kept the Americans out, the Soviets in and Germany down. This was on page 222 of my paperback copy.

Also, near the end the author says there was no settlement of the 1967 war for a number of reasons. The Israel army used its prestige to press the government not to withdraw. In the US, there was an Israel friendly White House. In Syria and Egypt, the civilian leaders were fighting with the military leaders. The Soviet Union wanted to augment its presents in the Middle East. This is on page 309 in my paperback copy.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.

Elmer’s Investment Approach by Ryan Goldsman

This book is about investing in Canada and he talks about different aspects of investing as his golfers walk around the golf course. This is a good book for beginners. It should be read one chapter at a time to absorb the information presented.

He talks about using an advisor saying that you are likely to get average returns and you are unlikely to lose all your money. He then goes into some simple rules about how to pick stocks to invest in. There seems to be few investment books geared towards Canadians so this is a plus already for us Canadians. He suggests that being overly aggressive in golf as in investing might not get you to where you would like to be.

Our taxes and investment vehicles are different from the US. He goes into how Canada taxes different investment income. He also talks about the specific investment tools we Canadians can use like the TFSA and RRSP accounts. Both these subjects are important for Canadian investors to understand.

I agree with his major approach to investing. However, this maybe a great book for golfers. In one of my investment clubs, it was the golfers who were interested in reading this book.

An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.