Business Money Books

MV=PQ (and other variations)

Monetary History of the United States is one of the greatest and most historic economics book written. Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize in economics for this masterwork. It revolutionized economics. The only other book that is better is The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. I highly recommend both books.

At the time Monetary History was published, monetary economics had fallen out of favor because of the Great Depression. Economists had thought that monetary forces were ineffective as stimulating the economy in a severe downturn. The phrase "pushing up on a string" became famous. That led to the belief that government intervention of fiscal policy was always needed to keep the economy stable.

Friedman and Schwartz proved beyond a doubt that monetary forces contributed greatly to the Great Depression, contributed to the strong recovery under Franklin Roosevelt from 1933-1937, and caused the recession of 1937-38.

Monetary forces matter. Monetary History has never been effectively refuted, although Peter Temin did show that monetary forces were not the only cause of the Great Depression in his book Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? The weakly regulated financial system collapsing so easily was partly to blame, as was the gold standard. The New Deal made the financial system stronger so it would not collapse again, and FDR removed America from the gold standard.

I highly recommend Monetary History. I also highly recommend Essays on the Great Depression by Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Great Depression is the ultimate riddle and they understand it.

I hated this book because it's hard to read. I don't like wading through sentences as long as paragraphs full of obscure words that require a dictionary nearby.

I just wanted to get a general understanding of money and the Federal Reserve from a source I trust and admire - Milton Friedman. I don't mind facts and figures but I resent writing that forces me into hard labor to decipher the meaning. I think good writing is communicating in the simplest way possible, not in trying to impress the reader with the author's vocabulary and ability to construct impenetrable, wannabe-sophisticated, long, compound sentences.

Don't get me wrong, I'm an engineer and I've got a decent vocabulary and fairly decent language skills.

I've found the books by Murray N. Rothbard to be much easier to read than this book though not as easy to read as I would like. I'm still looking for the perfect monetary history/economics book. I hope there's one out there somewhere.

Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz' A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 is an analysis and explanation of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its conclusion, first published in the early 1960s, differs from the two main explanations that existed at the time.

Austrian Business Cycle Theory had argued that the Great Depression was caused by excessively loose monetary policy that fed an unsustainable economic boom during the 1920s, which eventually collapsed into depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that instead it was excessively tight monetary policy following the boom of the 1920s that turned a run-of-the-mill recession into a depression. (For the Austrian explanation of the Great Depression, see Sir Lionel Robbins' The Great Depression or Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression.)

Keynesianism argued that the Great Depression had been caused by insufficient consumer product demand and lack of investor confidence, and that government should compensate for this by increasing its spending and financing it with government debt. Friedman and Schwartz argued instead that the problem and solution were not so much a matter of fiscal policy as they were a matter of monetary policy. Government, particularly the monetary authorities, was the cause of the depression, not the solution. Stimulative fiscal policy as prescribed by Keynes would in the long run not lead to an increase in economic growth and employment, but only to an increase in inflation. (For the Keynesian explanation of the Great Depression, see John M. Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money or John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crash, 1929.)

At the time of its publication, A Monetary History was not immediately accepted by the economics profession, which then was still dominated by Keynesian thinking. But when Keynesian theory could not explain the stagflation (recession combined with high inflation) of the 1970s, monetarism came to rule the day, and Friedman would go on to win the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics.

Friedman and Schwartz's analysis has by now become the standard explanation for the Great Depression. In the very least, the book helped reestablish the importance of monetary over fiscal policy in the stabilization of the business cycle. Money matters, even if it is not the only thing that matters. In addition, the importance of the book was methodological, in that it emphasized the importance of the empirical testing of one's economic propositions. What makes the book so persuasive is the great lengths to which the authors go to sort out the causation behind the correlation-the causation, they found, ran from money to output and prices rather than vice versa or via a fourth variable.

A Monetary History is a classic work in the canon of economic literature. It is on occasion still reviewed in the literature (e.g. Journal of Monetary Economics, August 1994; Cato Journal, Winter 2004). It clearly is an academic work written for trained economists, making it perhaps less accessible to a general audience. But several highly readable summary versions of the book exist, such as chapter 3 of Milton and Rose Friedman's Free to Choose, and even a one-paragraph summary conclusion in Capitalism and Freedom (on p. 45 of the paperback edition), which was published around the same time as A Monetary History. Alternatively, ch. 13 ("A Summing Up", pp. 676-700) is reprinted in The Essence of Friedman.

I read the reviews and found them helpful, but the unnamed reviewer that attributed the Great Depression to causes totally other than this book cites, and bashed Friedman as "not having a leg to stand on" concerned me because it seems the reviewer missed the very point of the book. Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman and his co-author undertook the monumental work of tracing money supply for each year for nearly a century. In doing so, they did the staggering amount of work required to show all of us something very powerful. To say they don't have a leg to stand on is disconcerting because it seems to indicate a review without a reading, or at least understanding. Obviously the Great Depression was the result of of complex interactions within the economy. What Friedman tries to do is show us the EMPIRICAL evidence for interaction between a contracting money supply and a worsening economic situation, and a steady money supply and a bettering economic situation. The Great Depression may have come about because of arrogant decisions and cascading failures, and those who decided to contract the money supply evidently were a very important trigger. I can say "evidently" because Friedman's research gives us the chance to observe the evidence for ourselves. To have advanced our knowledge of economics in a practical way, to have given useful facts for fending off depressions, is a gift. That's why this book will remain a watershed work in the history of economics.

Friedman and Schwartz(1963)did a great deal of worthwhile data compilation.The problem(an identical problem occurs in the 1956 work of Philip Cagan) occurs when they attempt to fit the data to the standard quantity of exchange equation MV=PO,where M is the supply of money(Friedman always selects MI to be equal to M),V is the velocity,P is the price level,O is real GNP(GDP),and PO is nominal GNP(GDP).The correct specification of the equation of exchange is M(Vw)=PO,where w is defined on the unit interval between 0 and 1.w is Keynes's measure of the weight of the evidence or Ellsberg's (rho)measure of the confidence a decision maker has in the information set he will use to calculate the probabilities of different outcomes.Friedman is a lifelong adherent and advocate of the Ramsey-De Finetti-Savage subjective approach to probability which argues that ,while the existence of vagueness(J M Keynes's weight of the A Treatise on Probability(uncertainty of the General Theory) or Ellsberg's ambiguity)is undeniable,it can't be modeled in a decision theoretic context.Only risk,represented by a normal probability distribution and its mean+ or- 3 standard deviations,can be operationalized.Friedman's section 4 of chapter 12,titled "Expectations about Stability ",discusses exactly what Savage called vagueness,Keynes called uncertainty,liquidity preference being a function of uncertainty AND NOT RISK,AND ELLSBERG CALLED AMBIGUITY.Friedman has no variable in his model to deal with it.He admits this on the second paragraph of p.675.Friedman's analysis abstracts from the role that expectations,confidence,uncertainty,and the flexibility of money(Keynes's liquidity preference)play in the demand for money .All of the Friedman-Schwartz analysis needs to be redone using the correct specification of the equation of exchange.Friedman's existing specification only holds in the special case where w=1.0,i.e.,that there is no uncertainty,ambiguity,or vagueness. MV=PO is a correct specification of the equation of exchange only if risk,measured by the normal probability distribution's standard deviation(or the standard deviation divided by the mean),is the only decision theoretic variable.All current forms of the equation of exchange ignore ambiguity and/or uncertainty and conflate risk with uncertainty.The equation of exchange has been misspecified from Hume to Friedman and Lucas.Only Keynes correctly derived a generalized equation of exchange.Keynes's analysis is contained on p.209 and chapter 21 of the GT.Lucas has already admitted that his framework of analysis breaks down completely if Keynesian uncertainty or Ellsbergian ambiguity prevents him from using his normal probability distribution.The massive 50 plus years of statistical analysis by Benoit Mandelbrot of data from all financial markets(stock,money,commodities,futures,currencies,bond) provides overwhelming empirical support for not using the normal distribution.Keynes,of course,would agree that, if the only decision theoretic variable of consequence is risk(Mandelbrot's mild risk),velocity would be stable or predictable.The fact that velocity is not constant or predictable means that Friedman's monetarism is only a very special case of Keynes's general theory,which,in terms of Mandelbrot's definitions,deals with mild and wild risk.Friedman can only deal with mild risk.

Google is much more than another search engine - it's created numerous marketing tools for business, from AdSense and AdWords to the Google APIs, and this handbook to all these tools gives small business owners the power and technique for fine-tuning Google for profitable results. From advertising to marketing, all the basics are here.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Are you looking to expand your business opportunities via Internet sales? Or, alternatively, are you interesting in marketing a particular product or service through search engines? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then Bruce Brown's latest book, The Complete Guide To Google Advertising Including Tips, Tricks, & Strategies to Create a Winning Advertising Plan, is a must-have for your reference library.

Brown's book is extremely informative, logically devised, and most important, easily understood. It is very "user-friendly" and anyone, from novice to marketing expert, will find a myriad of new marketing ideas easily adapted for a particular product or service. Another bonus for both business owners and consumers is the list of Search Engines and Web Directories listed on pages 277, 278, & 279. This section provides the name of multiple search engines used when searching for information, goods, and services.

The Complete Guide To Google Advertising Including Tips, Tricks, & Strategies to Create a Winning Advertising Plan takes readers through a logical thought process that describes the who, what, when, where, and why of Internet advertising. In addition to text definitions and easily understood concepts, it also utilizes copies of screen shots to help readers grasp a particular idea or principle under discussion. Brown does a great job of taking Internet terminology and explaining it in language anyone can understand, and provides links to additional web sites for associated references.

Even if you are a consumer looking for a particular product or service on the Internet, this book is a must-read. It gives consumers and business owners alike a better understanding of how Internet marketing works, and the glossary at the end provides easily understood definitions of Internet terminology users frequently encounter but do not often understand.

If you surf the Internet, you need to buy this book!

This publication unravels the workings of the most popular search engine on the internet, Google. Through creativity, organization and strategically placed keywords, Google will place the website for your business in the top search results and you will have more visits to your site. It only makes sense that more visits, or hits, the more sales you will make.



In The Complete Guide to Google Advertising, Bruce C. Brown explains how to utilize the various marketing methods Google offers. The techniques explained include Pay-Per-Click advertising, AdWords and Adsense. He also provides a history of Google and online marketing that is extremely informative. Various case studies are cited to provide back-up proof that these techniques work.

The section that I found the most interesting was about developing a marketing plan. Mr. Brown not only identified the steps to achieve that, but he also explained each one in detail. Beginning with a market analysis and moving on through establishing a business objective until you finally end up with a marketing strategy. Through this it is much easier to decide which aspect of Google's marketing choices will fit your business the best.

This is a book that can be referred back to repeatedly as the focus of your business changes and markets fluctuate. This book is a great resource for Internet marketing.

I have a burgeoning pet toy company and website, so I was eager to find the best way for me to ensure my website and my company is easily found by people doing web searches.
Reading a bit of the history of web advertising was very interesting to me, how it has evolved and continues to evolve is very useful to understand how it works.

This book really helped me understand exactly what effort was required on my part to make sure that I was able to achieve the results I wanted. It not only helped me figure out the kind of marketing plan I needed, but also helped me simplify it so that I didn't let the planning side of the marketing overwhelm me.
Additionally, the book covered a lot of useful tips for the actual content we could add to our website. Things like a "privacy policy" or "about us" can be useful to helping us keep customers!

So many words are thrown at us on the internet when it comes to looking for information about advertising your website, this book truly helped me understand what things like "PPC" "Keywords" "Adwords" or "SEO" are!
Thoroughly understanding how a PPC account really works is very useful to someone who would want to set up their own account.

This book really has so much valuable information, it can be a lot of almost overwhelming information for a small non-computer savvy small business owner, but I really think that its an invaluable tool for business owners of all levels.

This book is primarily a compilation of material available elsewhere either in other books of the same author, in the Google online documentation or in various blogs of web professionals. Attention to details is not the author or the editor's forte: there are numerous typos and don't blame your eyes if you see the same sentence twice (at the end of a page and at the beginning of the next). The layout is not particularly appealing either and a large portion of the book is a self-promotion exercise for the author, the publisher and various web professionals.
If you are a complete beginner and not put off by what I just said, it may be worth reading: there is still a fair amount of useful content in the book. Repetitive at times but if you're a beginner it might be sensible to go over the same concepts more than once.

So I just set up my first website and didn't have a clue how to get "Optimized" until I read the The Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Optimization. The Additional Resources section in the back with URL's to many SEO tools is incredible. I just saved over $1500 by doing it myself rather than paying for a website analysis from a SEO company. Thanks Jon Rognerud! With the tips and tools provided in this book, getting my site recognized is fun!

The Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Optimization provided solid tips and actionable information for both new and experienced marketers and entrepreneurs. Having a keen understanding of the techniques of SEM is valuable for the do-it-yourselfer or the corporation that hires a firm. I find myself turning to the pages over and over again as a reference guide. It sits next to my frequently used dictionary and thesaurus in my office and has become a key resource. I was especially pleased at the inclusive nature of the book. Jon Rognerud is one of the few search marketers who opened the door to the secret club for me. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an online presence.

Jon Rognerud has compiled a comprehensive resource in Entrepenuer Magazine's entry into the SEO how-to. It is also open-ended, in that readers can sign up on his website for more information and updates. This is a Web 2.0 book, in the truest sense. I would usually get a book like this from the library, but I purchased it so I could refer back to it over the coming years.

I think this is a very good resource for people who want to go beyond superficial actions and really understand how to optimize web sites and get good results. It has my recommendation

This is my second review of this book. Somehow my first review was not posted. As an adwords professional, this SEO book was a great insight into dominating the search engines using proven tips, tricks and strategies in todays online marketing. I am pasted on the screen waiting to see what Jon Rognerud has coming next.

Although being Politically Correct can mean that reality is ignored for the greater good, this book would not be deemed PC. However, it is cringingly full of generalities and embarrassingly full of platitudes about Africans. While trying to show that societal organization in Africa is so very different from that of the West, it actually just shows that poor people and rich people act the same there as they do here. And the book shows it over and over again.

As a missionary in Africa, I have found this book to be one of the most detailed, insightful and practical books on interactions between Westerners and Africans on many levels- not just financial ones. It gives very specific examples on a variety of areas of tension between the cultures, from both a Western and African perspective.

Informative, but very redundant. Author repeats himself over and over. Everything in the book could have been written in two chapters.

Essential reading for any Westerner going to live in Africa. Might also be useful to Africans living in the West, or with Western friends and colleagues.

David Maranz describes a variety of experiences which finally ends up being a tapestry of African culture. Reading this book helps explain why so much African aid is misdirected, misspent and misappropriated.

Anyone wanting to gain a deeper understanding of Africa's problems must read this book. At times there is some redundancy in the anecdotes related. But overall it is a valuable book.

This is the best book I have read on investing, I have read many books on investing from Graham to Swensen. After reading this book an individual will have working knowledge of the highly sophisticated investment strategies that academic research has proven sucessful.

I enjoyed the book tremendously but before I convert or convert others around me who value my opinion, I wish someone could convince me of the following: when I look at specific well run low cost mutual funds in each of the different sectors ( Large cap, Mid Cap value , growth, international etc.) and if I choose a low priced Mutual Fund Manager with a long track record - and allowing for the fact that past performance is no guarantee of future results - it would appear these managers year after year beat the benchmark - which would be the indexed fund. When I look at the comparisons on morning star and can see them beating the benchmark year after year I understand these graphs are showing me NET - after all the costs, and trading fees and research by the grad students, etc - it still shows NET returns vs. the index year in and year out.

For example, take any well run mutual fund say... Columbia Marsico 21st Century Ticker: NMYAX fund. Look at the graph and how it beats its benchmark - its passively managed counterpart - year in and year out. Therefore there IS a good chance they will continue in this fashion. Even if they lose to the benchmark the odd year or so, it still looks like a better return every 3-5 years.

Yes it's an A share but I can place that into a wrap account at NAV and only pay a 1% management fee on it each year ( thus skipping the front end load ) and it is still well over the benchmark+1% each year.

Yes I know what the passive managers will say:

"History has nothing to do w/ future results" but hey - when we interview people for a job we ask them what they did in their past.

There is also in Larry's book data on incubators and killing the young investments that don't perform but unless someone can give me a reason why the chart in this graph is wrong when it is net and if I have a fund like this in all the sectors (thus a diversified, asset allocation fund that I can re-balance), I am not sure if I am ready to convert to a full 100% passive management strategy as Larry, or other passive proponents suggests.

The title is bold, almost arrogant. But after scrutinizing and using this work, if I were to throw all my other investing books away, my strategy would indeed not suffer.

It is now common to say, but Swedroe does a stellar job of distilling complex investing concepts into accessible prose that suggests a sound tactical plan. As always, his arguments are based on evidence--peer-reviewed studies--rather than the unsupported opinions vomited forth by many other so-called "authorities". His explications are also entertaining, making the bottom-line points memorable and the journey enjoyable. Re-reading provides delightful reinforcement of the main points. Whether an investor chooses to use a fiduciary advisor (like his own firm) or go it alone, the underlying essentials are identical.

If ordinary investors apply the concepts made here, they will likely be more competent than the majority of institutional managers, whose ironically inferior "active" tactics dominate the investing landscape--to the impoverishment of those who trust them to act in their interest. The cumulative weight of Swedroe's explications, examples, quotes, and references, makes this book essential not just for investors seeking to manage their own affairs, but also for "expert" managers who will hopefully get on the wagon. Just read it.

Every investor wants to be smart,pick that promising stock nobody knows about, beat the markets, cash in all these profits and talk about the success at the next dinner party. Well, there are thousands of those individuals out there, stock brokers, mutual fund managers, wealth advisors - you name it - all hunting for the same, day by day, long hours a day, all year long....One or two even maybe smarter than you. No way to beat that. The desire to beat the market by actively managing portfolios is called "the loser's game". Now, what's the solution ?

Larry Swedroe has done sincere research on the topic and is coming to the conclusion that investing in index funds, passively managed funds and similar vehicles is the smartest way to participate in the big picture,the markets.On the long run the most profitable and cost saving too.This is called the "winner's game".These investments usually are available on a cost basis less than 1% opposed to actively managed funds with annual cost of up to several % p.a. These annual cost are you paying regerdless whether or not the markets are going up or down.
No banker, broker or wealth advisor ever has mentioned this strategy to me. For good reason: they almost don't make money with those.
The book among other topics is talking about one's ability to take risks, about the diversication of risk, even gives some examples for portfolios based on different risk levels. An much much more.

The reading is easy, enjoyable and very convincing. The only negative I have to say about this book is:I deeply regret not having had the opportunity to read something like that some years earlier.Thank you Larry!

This book gives the investor the strategy to invest well without needing to try to be an expert. In fact he shows why you don't want to even try to beat the pros.

I saw Dave Ramsey on TV and instantly thought this man can really help a person I Know who is facing bankruptcy. I bought it and gave it to them and they have made life changing moves. Can't give Dave Ramsey enough praise. He is logical, funny and to the point. The Dr. Laura of finance.

This has really been an asset to me. I've enjoyed listening to it over and over again. I learn something new each time or am reminded of something I need to be doing.

Excellent, helpful, informative, and humorous. Loved it. Played it for many of my friends and children. Everyone that has heard it said they wished they had listened to this earlier. An inexpensive, excellent buy. A must for everyone.

A very entertaining and educational recording about conquering debt. Dave Ramsey offers an often funny approach to steps one can take to manage debt. I thought it did go a little long into some of his illustrations (a little too much about cars for my interest) but the actual guidance and steps given were helpful and practical. As a result of hearing this recording I am curious to research more of Dave Ramsey's material.

This book made me recognize that I was an under earner and living in financial chaos. I am so glad that I read it because it helped me to make some positive changes in my life. I would recommend it for everyone.

I bought this book a few years ago and I've read it several times. Now I'm buying it for a friend who is having confidence issues at work. I want her to realize that she's worth more than what she's getting right now, and I believe this book will give her that extra confidence!

In Secrets of Six-Figure Women, Stanny takes you through a process of recognizing why so many women underearn and what we can do to earn what we are worth. From dealing with our fears about stepping out of our comfort zone and challenging longstanding beliefs to helping readers learn to develop a profit motive, this book will help you position yourself to prosper mentally, emotionally and physically.
On a personal note - as a female business owner, whenever I'm tempted to undercharge for my services or allow fear to impact my decisions, I re-read "Secrets of Six Figure Women," to help me stay on the six figure track and remind myself that I'm worth it.

Cassandra Mack, host of The No More Drama Hour of Power and author of, "The Single Mom's Little Book of Wisdom: 42 Tidbits of Wisdom To Help You Survive, Succeed and Stay Strong."

Even if you're already at $100k+, this is a great book for general career advice, and even financial planning. Liked it so much I bought two for friends. Reminds you to be assertive and have confidence and to ask for things; don't get left behind. Good insight into past decision making, too; prevent future mistakes.

The "secrets" in this book are typical of the incomplete thinking that is common to so many books on success, as explained in "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense" by J Pfeffer.

In a nutshell, the author reveals these mundane "secrets" which also ignore the millions who start their own businesses and fail but who also follow these strategies:

SECRET 1: Financial Success Is Possible in Almost Any Field, and
Lack of Education Doesn't Have to Hold You Back.
SECRET 2: Working Hard Doesn't Mean Working All the Time.
SECRET 3: Focus on Fulfilling Your Values Rather Than Financial Gain.
SECRET 4: Loving What You Do Is Much More Important
Than What You Do.
SECRET 5: Feel the Fear. Have the Doubts. Go for It Anyway.
SECRET 6: Think in Terms of Trade-offs, Not Sacrifices, to Find a Workable Equilibrium.
SECRET 7: Sometimes You Just Have to Shrug It Off and Have a Good Laugh.
SECRET 8: Appreciate Abundance.

SIX-FIGURE TRAITS
1. A profit motive. Money per se may not be their driving force, but six-figure women absolutely expect to be well compensated for their work. They want to make money. They feel good about making money. They enjoy what money gives them. Profit, to these women, has a positive ring.
2. Audacity. Every woman I interviewed came to a point where she had to step outside her comfort zone and do something she wasn't completely sure she could do. It was rarely an experience she relished, nor did she always succeed. But she worked up the moxie to make the effort.
3. Resilience. They all had the grit to get back up and keep going when they didn't succeed or when they encountered setbacks.
4. Encouragement. Six-figure women have tremendously nurturing relationships with one or more people who believe in them, support them, continually root for them, and sometimes prod them along. Some, but definitely not all, had encouraging parents. Every one has remarkable friendships. And for those in a committed relationship, a supportive husband or partner is invariably cited as essential to their success.

STRATEGIES FOR EARNING MORE

1. Declare your intention to make good money.
2. Let go of where you are (leave your job if you feel stuck)
3. Decide which game to play - "play it safe" or "gamble to win"
4. Jump in, ready or not.
5. Keep on truckin'.
6. Grab opportunities.
7. No excuses allowed.
8. Ignore naysayers.
9. Never personalize.

The book arrived much sooner than expected and in great shape. Very pleased with the service and product.

Working in Church leadership, I found Mr. Miller and team's work challenging and appealing. What seems obvious in being great is actually the antithesis of 'conistent greatness'. I would recommend this book for any organization. A+ for those of us in ministry!

Great book on leadership and promotes excellent ideas for company success. Easy read and very useful. The points presented make perfect sense and are very practical. Not a good book but a great book!

I bought the book after seeing him on PBS. I must say I am a little diappointed. I was really hoping for some deep insight and inspiration. Instead I read about a bunch of research from newspaper clippings by some research students.

Collins has some great concepts Level 5 Leaders and the "Stockdale Principle" and then some things to turn on the eclectic filter as you read.

Find or steal one of Tom Peters books on Excellence - Before you read this

This book by Jim Collins is one of the most successful books to be found in the "Business" section of your local megabookstore, and given how it purports to tell you how to take a merely good company and make it great, it's not difficult to see why that might be so. Collins and his crack team of researchers say they swam through stacks of business literature in search of info on how to pull this feat off, and came up with a list of great companies that illustrate some concepts central to the puzzle. They also present for each great company what they call a "comparison company," which is kind of that company with a goatee and a much less impressive earnings record. The balance of the book is spent expanding on pithy catch phrases that describe the great companies, like "First Who, Then What" or "Be a Hedgehog" or "Grasp the Flywheel, not the Doom Loop." No, no, I'm totally serious.

I've got several problems with this book, the biggest of which stem from fundamentally viewpoints on how to do research. Collin's brand of research is not my kind. It's not systematic, it's not replicable, it's not generalizable, it's not systematic, it's not free of bias, it's not model driven, and it's not collaborative. It's not, in short, scientific in any way. That's not to say that other methods of inquiry are without merit --the Harvard Business Review makes pretty darn good use of case studies, for example-- but way too often Collins's great truths seemed like square pegs crammed into round holes, because a round hole is what he wants. For example, there's no reported search for information that disconfirms his hypotheses. Are there other companies that don't make use of a Culture of Discipline (Chapter 6, natch) but yet are still great according to Collins's definition? Are there great companies that fail to do some of the things he says should make them great? The way that the book focuses strictly on pairs of great/comparison companies smacks of confirmatory information bias, which is a kink in the human mind that drives us to seek out and pay attention to information that confirms our pre-existing suppositions and ignore information that fails to support them.

Relatedly, a lot of the book's themes and platitudes strike me as owing their popularity to the same factors that make the horoscope or certain personality tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator so popular: they're so general and loosely defined that almost anyone can look at that and not only say that wow, that make sense, and I've always felt the same way! This guy and me? We're geniuses! The chapter about "getting the right people on the bus" that extols the virtue of hiring really super people is perhaps the most obvious example. Really, did anyone read this part and think "Oh, man. I've been hiring half retarded chimps. THAT'S my problem! I should hire GOOD people!" Probably not, and given that Collins doesn't go into any detail about HOW to do this or any of his other good to great pro tips, I'm not really sure where the value is supposed to be.

It also irked me that Good to Great seems to try and exist in a vacuum, failing to relate its findings to any other body of research except Collins's other book, Built to Last. The most egregious example of this is early on in Chapter 2 where Collins talks about his concept of "Level 5 Leadership," which characterizes those very special folks who perch atop a supposed leadership hierarchy. The author actually goes into some detail describing Level 5 leaders, but toward the end of the chapter he just shrugs his figurative shoulders and says "But we don't know how people get to be better leaders. Some people just are." Wait, what? People in fields like Industrial-Organizational Psychology and Organizational Development have been studying, scientifically, what great leaders do and how to do it for decades. We know TONS about how to become a better leader. There are entire industries built around it. You would think that somebody on the Good to Great research team may have done a cursory Google search on this.

So while Good to Great does have some interesting thoughts and a handful of amusing or even fascinating stories to tell about the companies it profiles (I liked, for example, learning about why Walgreens opens so many shops in the same area, even to the point of having stores across the street from each other in some cities), ultimately it strikes me as vague generalities and little to no practical information about how to actually DO anything to make your company great.

I recommend this book for any parents who what to show there children how to be responsible with money.

This book had some great practical ideas to teach your children how to be financially responsible.

I found the book, Debt-Proof Your KIds to be very useful. I recommend it for any size family at any age. The methods outlined in the books can be helpful for any one at any age.

This is a great book with many great points and ideas. I can't wait to start implementing the Salary Plan!

This book is both extremely readable and extremely useful as a resource for parents with kids of all ages. If you're like me, you grew up with parents who didn't realize that money values need to be taught. As a result, growing into a financially healthy adult has been a long path of many avoidable mistakes. I was so thrilled to read Mary Hunt's advice so that I can give my kids the tools to master their own finances without making my mistakes. I'm buying a copy for all of my cousins and friends with kids ...