Review of The Wisdom Of Ginsu: Carve Yourself A Piece Of The American Dream [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

As elusive a question as "Who invented Post-Its?" is "Who was behind the Ginsu Knife?"The unexpected answer to that question is two guys from Rhode Island.(Random, huh?)

I hate reading and usually avoid it at all costs, but read every word of this book and was entertained the entire time.You can pick it up, open it to any page, and understand what Ed & Barry are trying to tell you.

Their Ginsuisms are insightful, and their stories are fantastic and often funny.Why learn the hard way?They've made the mistakes for you, and they openly talk about these mistakes.They've also had successes, and the guidelines that result are great tools for any endeavor - business or not.

Screw Ron Popeil!The Ginsu Guys are the real thing!!!

Product Description
This is not a book about marketing, but a roadmap to realizing your dreams.

Barry Becher and Ed Valenti set the stage for today's infomercials with their now-famous television techniques. Their zany commercials-advertising such products as the Miracle Painter, Armourcote cookware, and, most famously, the Ginsu® knife-captured both the imagination and pocketbook of the American public.

And they became millionaires in the process.

But Wait, There's More!

You'll learn how to get a better price on anything you buy, how to get better service anywhere, even how to get easily get bumped from coach to first class on an airline.

How much would you pay for all the secrets of the universe? Don't wait! Order The Wisdom of Ginsu® before midnight tonight. Operators are standing by. Satisfaction Guaranteed!

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Wisdom Of Ginsu: Carve Yourself A Piece Of The American Dream [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

Review of The Wisdom Of Ginsu: Carve Yourself A Piece Of The American Dream [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

As elusive a question as "Who invented Post-Its?" is "Who was behind the Ginsu Knife?"The unexpected answer to that question is two guys from Rhode Island.(Random, huh?)

I hate reading and usually avoid it at all costs, but read every word of this book and was entertained the entire time.You can pick it up, open it to any page, and understand what Ed & Barry are trying to tell you.

Their Ginsuisms are insightful, and their stories are fantastic and often funny.Why learn the hard way?They've made the mistakes for you, and they openly talk about these mistakes.They've also had successes, and the guidelines that result are great tools for any endeavor - business or not.

Screw Ron Popeil!The Ginsu Guys are the real thing!!!

Product Description
This is not a book about marketing, but a roadmap to realizing your dreams.

Barry Becher and Ed Valenti set the stage for today's infomercials with their now-famous television techniques. Their zany commercials-advertising such products as the Miracle Painter, Armourcote cookware, and, most famously, the Ginsu® knife-captured both the imagination and pocketbook of the American public.

And they became millionaires in the process.

But Wait, There's More!

You'll learn how to get a better price on anything you buy, how to get better service anywhere, even how to get easily get bumped from coach to first class on an airline.

How much would you pay for all the secrets of the universe? Don't wait! Order The Wisdom of Ginsu® before midnight tonight. Operators are standing by. Satisfaction Guaranteed!

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Wisdom Of Ginsu: Carve Yourself A Piece Of The American Dream [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

Review of Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street (Hardcover)

This is an excellent book about the discovery of the Kelly formula that is unknown outside gambling.This story has three protagonists.Two of them were scientists working at Bell Labs: Claude Shannon, a genius polymath who developed information theory; and John Kelly, a maverick genius, who is directly responsible for the development of Kelly's formula.The third one is a brilliant MIT mathematician, Ed Thorp.

Ed Thorp tested the Kelly formula in both gambling and investing.Also, he came up with an options formula before Fischer Black and Myron Scholes.His formula missed a risk-free rate component due to the structure of the market at the time.As a result, Ed Thorp remained in obscurity while Black and Scholes became famous.

Ed Thorp succeeded in deriving superior returns in both gambling and investing.But, it was not so much because of Kelly's formula.He developed other tools to achieve superior returns.In gambling, Ed Thorp succeeded at Black Jack by developing the card counting method.He just used intuitively Kelly's formula to increase his bets whenever the odds were in his favor.Later, he ran a hedge fund for 20 years until the late 80s and earned a rate of return of 14% handily beating the market's 8% during the period.Also, his hedge fund hardly lost any value on black Monday in October 1987, when the market crashed by 22%.The volatility of his returns was far lower than the market.He did this by exploiting market inefficiencies using warrants, options, and convertible bonds.The Kelly formula was for him a risk management discipline and not a direct source of excess return.

Ed Thorp's career as a hedge fund manager was temporarily cut short.This was due to his fund being involved in a tax-avoiding securities scheme with Drexel Burnham.Thorp was not guilty; but, the fund had to be liquidated.The author stated many of Milken wrongdoings.One included getting large equity positions attached to the junk bonds he issued.The companies thought they were issuing convertible bonds.However, the equity component went straight into Milken's pocket as he sold the bonds to investors as high yield debt with no equity attached.

Ed Thorp rebounded from this mishap and started a second hedge fund in 1994.Thorp continued reaping above market return.As the author states, Ed Thorp's genius consists in "...his continuous ability to discover new market inefficiencies ... as old ones played out."Ed Thorp closed this second fund in 2002.He is now independently exploring inefficiencies in gambling.

Claude Shannon amassed large wealth by recording one of the best investment records.His performance had little to do with Kelly's formula.Between 1966 and 1986, his record beat even Warren Buffet (28% to 27% respectively).Shannon strategy was similar to Buffet.Both their stock portfolios were concentrated, and held for the long term.Shannon achieved his record by holding mainly three stocks (Teledyne, Motorola, and HP).The difference between the two was that Shannon invested in technology because he understood it well, while Buffet did not.

John Kelly was a chain smoking, gun collecting brilliant physicist.He died young at 41 of an aneurysm.He worked closely with Shannon at Bell Labs.Besides being a charismatic character the author does not write much about his life compared to the other two (Shannon and Thorp).

The Kelly formula is Edge/Odds (as explained on page 72).In investment circles, this formula is not always useful because it is hard to quantify your Edge (value of proprietary information).However, Kelly's formula has intuitive practical implications.It entails you should focus on an investment internal rate of return (IRR) instead of its average yearly return.The IRR is always less.Another implication is that higher risk is not always compensated by higher return.There is an optimal risk level beyond which risk taking becomes destructive.The author mentions the Long Term Capital Management as a case in point.

I recommend other excellent similar books: "Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance" by Perry Mehrling, and "When Genius Failed.The Rise and Fall of Long Term Capital Management" by Roger Lowenstein.Both these books describe luminaries infinance and investment fields who were often in contact with Ed Thorp and Claude Shannon.Another excellent book is Sylvia Nasar's "A Beautiful Mind" about John Nash, the Game Theorist.




Click Here to see more reviews about: Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street (Hardcover)

Review of The Barefoot Investor: Five Steps to Financial Freedom in Your 20s and 30s (Paperback)

If you've read any investment books, this one fits in with all of them and doesn't really offer anything new.Not a bad book if you are new to the idea of investing and building wealth long-term.It also has sections on other life issues, such as renting vs. owning.Be warned that the author hails from Australia, so a lot of the content is useful but different from how things are in the US.

I give it four stars because it's a decent book and the author writes in a very comfortable style, even though much of the material is pretty basic.

Product Description
The Barefoot Investor is about creating the financial freedom to live your dreams, whatever your age. It shows how getting your financial act together can be downright sexy, allowing you to achieve the things that mean the most to you - regardless of your income.

Scott Pape, the Jamie Oliver of finance, writes for the young and hip who want to enjoy life now - not to wait on dead men's shoes. He shows you how to manage your money to do the things you want: whether it's to quit the job you hate to make a career of what you love; buy a cool flat; go backpacking; or build a wealth portfolio for the future. It is packed full of simple tips, tricks, checklists and quizzes that will help you to transform your personal wealth with minimum effort.

By following the Barefoot plan you can make your money work for you. There are five simple steps here showing you how to save it, invest it and let it do the hard work for you so you can tread your own path. At last, you can live your dreams and pay for them too.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Barefoot Investor: Five Steps to Financial Freedom in Your 20s and 30s (Paperback)

Review of Chick Living: Frugal And Fabulous (Paperback)

A disappointment. I picked up "Chick Living" from the library because it's about the various things you'll need to know when you're learning to live as an independent adult. It's also about living in a way that doesn't expend tons of money. Anything it can say will be handy, right? Well... its crippling flaw is that it's trying to cover such a wide array of topics that it can't really go into them far enough to be useful. You get a tiny little paragraph for each thing, basically, and most of it is stuff that you'd know even before you tried to live on your own. (And that's weird, because there's all kinds of stuff that you don't learn until you stumble into it when you're living by yourself.) Each subject is a lot of common knowledge, and is so brief that it's scarcely of use. For example, it tells you that if the toilet is running, you jiggle the handle; if that doesn't work, you call a plumber. If the toilet is blocked, you put the plunger in it and move it up and down, and if that doesn't work, you call a plumber. Seriously, that's all it says. The book is aimed at a female audience, which is peculiar, since the subject matter itself is unisex; the book's presentation is what makes it female-directed, with its pink and green ink (a decorative addition that makes the book pungent of chemicals, which turned me off of reading it for a week after I first opened it) and its writing style, which is identical to that used in teen girl fashion magazines such as "Jump" and "YM," including catchphrases such as "get glam." (I've never met anyone who really talks like a teen girl fashion magazine, so this stuck out to me.) The chapter on finances is where the main juicy I-didn't-know-that stuff is, but it mostly tells you to get some other book, which happens to be one I'd checked out at the same time, so I said "okay" and dropped Chick Living back into the library return slot.

Product Description
You're young. You've used up the handful of decorating ideas you ever had and, frankly, it's time to take down the tapestries and the pushpin-worn posters. You're livin' in the real world now, sister. And, you're broke. So what if your mom thinks you're sassy and sophisticated-it's high time you showed everyone else you truly are. In Chick Living, Kris Koederitz Melcher teaches us how to live frugally while oozing fabulousness. Melcher's got your back with real-life lessons in necessity such as securing renter's insurance, getting enough calcium in your diet, and when to take your car and yourself in for a routine checkup. We can all learn a lesson or two from Melcher who, in her first year out of college, paid every bill on time and had funds left over for starting a Grown-up Girl wardrobe and a savings account. What's a Grown-up Girl Wardrobe, you ask? What's a savings account? Never fear, oh sweet young dear. Help is on the way. It's an expensive world out there and this guide is here to tell you what to spend on and when to put your money away. Quit dishing out three bucks for your morning latte and start making your frothy favorite at home. Discover the beauty of a yard sale and have enough cash left over for a monthly dinner-out splurge. Invest in a few classics for your closet but avoid the enticing lure of fad clothing. You'll find everything here but the kitchen sink (although Melcher tells you what should be underneath your sink). Whether you're in search of a job, a roommate, a couch, or a recipe, Melcher's preparedness savvy is the ideal remedy for the just-out-of-college blues or the woes of any fund-hungry chick. You'll thank your extra pennies that she's put her hard-won wisdom and experience into a guide for the rest of us.

About the Author
Kris Koederitz Melcher is an editor who has worked in publishing and public relations for several years. She has written, pitched, and placed articles in publications like Modern Bride, New Woman, Parade Magazine and more. She strives to live a frugal and fabulous life in Leawood, Kansas, with her husband and daughter.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Chick Living: Frugal And Fabulous (Paperback)

Review of Living Well in a Down Economy For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance)) (Paperback)

First banks started to wobble, then the stock market crashed. Can it be...a coming recession? If so, what could be better timed than a book on how to live well during a down time.

The entire book is an organized plan with how to deal with a recession. First, Barr has you assess your current net worth and shows how to live on a budget. The next section deals with how to get more money: get a better raise, or find a better job, for example.

It's the middle section that deals with how to keep your personal finances in good order and learn to live frugally that most people will find handy. There are tips on insurance, health care, how to best manage your 401(k) and many more. Then come the tips on day to day living. He suggests cheap ways to travel, to save on phone bills and how to throw a party on a budget.

The last section is what to do if the worst happens and your financial ship seems headed for bankruptcy.

A very useful book.

Product Description
Get smart about spending and saving -- and ride out a recession!

Looking for practical ways to make every dollar count? This savvy guide gives you expert tips for tightening your belt and saving cash in every area of your life -- from your house and car to dining and entertaining to banking and managing debt. You get realistic solutions for making smarter choices and living well in this time of economic turmoil -- without extraordinary sacrifice!

• Bump up your take-home pay-- spiff up your resume, find a good job fast, explore telecommuting, or start a home-based business
• Get your personal finances in tip-top shape -- create a budget, pay down debt, save on insurance, and protect your retirement funds
• Develop recession-proof habits -- use coupons and rebates, extend the life of your wardrobe, utilize community resources, travel on a budget, and save on utilities and fuel expenses
• Decorate on a dime and entertain on a shoestring -- plan parties, celebrate the holidays, and give gifts without losing your shirt
• Bounce back from bad financial situations -- improve bad credit scores, and negotiate with creditors or the IRS

Open the book and find:

• 125 tips for making changes in your life that allow you to continue to live well
• Ways to stand out on paper and in an interview when looking for a job
• Tips on managing debt -- from working with credit counselors and consolidating your debts to boosting your income
• Smart solutions for weathering financial emergencies, from bankruptcy to foreclosure

From the Back Cover
Get smart about spending and saving - and ride out a recession!

Looking for practical ways to make every dollar count? This savvy guide gives you expert tips for tightening your belt and saving cash in every area of your life - from your house and car to dining and entertaining to banking and managing debt. You get realistic solutions for making smarter choices and living well in this time of economic turmoil - without extraordinary sacrifice!

• Bump up your take-home pay- spiff up your resumé, find a good job fast, explore telecommuting, or start a home-based business

• Get your personal finances in tip-top shape - create a budget, pay down debt, save on insurance, and protect your retirement funds

• Develop recession-proof habits - use coupons and rebates, extend the life of your wardrobe, utilize community resources, travel on a budget, and save on utilities and fuel expenses

• Decorate on a dime and entertain on a shoestring - plan parties, celebrate the holidays, and give gifts without losing your shirt

• Bounce back from bad financial situations - improve bad credit scores, and negotiate with creditors or the IRS

Open the book and find:

• 125 tips for making changes in your life that allow you to continue to live well

• Ways to stand out on paper and in an interview when looking for a job

• Tips on managing debt - from working with credit counselors and consolidating your debts to boosting your income

• Smart solutions for weathering financial emergencies, from bankruptcy to foreclosure

Click Here to see more reviews about: Living Well in a Down Economy For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance)) (Paperback)