Planning Wealth

“Security analysis toward both better odds and higher long-term payoff: A readable, authoritative guide.”
–Professor Bill Baumol, New York University

“In reading this book, one is struck by the simplicity of the ideas and the dependence of the investor on his own understandings of reality as opposed to the myths on the street. The updated version of this 1979 classic incorporates all the modern financial engineering that has occurred as a product of the late 20th century, and the new methodologies refine your abilities to measure risk but don’t change the fundamentals of value. The updated version of The Aggressive Conservative Investor is very much a value-added proposition.”
–Sam Zell, Chairman, Equity Group Investment LLC

“I concur with those people who regard Marty Whitman as the ‘Dean of Value Investing.’ This book is a must-read for everyone interested in understanding the art of investing.”
–Melvin T. Stith, Dean, Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University

This no-holds-barred presentation of one of the most successful investment strategies of all time — value investing in distressed securities/companie — shows you how to analyze and evaluate stocks just like controlling owners. Based on the assumption that stock price rarely reflects real value, authors Whitman and Shubik use numerous case studies to present risk-minimizing methods that also provide high rewards. Still relevant today, this classic work includes a new introduction discussing the dramatic changes that have taken place in the value investing world since its first publication in 1979.

This completely revised and updated, plain-English guide is packed with the latest information on choosing the best annuity for your retirement needs. You’ll find out exactly what annuities are, whether they’re the right financial vehicle for you, and which of the many annuity options might have your name on it. You’ll learn the ins and outs of using annuities to fund your retirement years, figure out whether to stress investments with insurance or insurance with investments, and find out how the right combination of annuities can help you squeeze more income out of your savings that any other financial tool. Discover how to:

• Identify the main types of annuities
• Weigh the pros and cons of annuities for yourself
• Minimize the complexity and cost of your annuity investment
• Figure out how much money to commit
• Avoid common annuity pitfalls
• Create an income you can’t outlive

The time to start securing your financial future is now. Annuities For Dummies, 3^rd Edition, gives you knowledge, insider tips, and expert advice you need to make your money do its best for you.

By far, the most controversial of the audiobook’s assertions will be that giant 401(k) type mutual funds can’t help but regress to the mean, and in the next twenty years, the mean could be very disappointing indeed. There’s a very real chance that a 401(k) investor could see his holdings not grow at all in the next few decades. Fortunately, Town’s stockpicking techniques are meant to walk investing phobes through the do-it-yourself process, equipping them with the tools they need to make quantum leaps toward financial security.

Rule #1 says something new, and it says it in a way that every listener can understand.

From the Compact Disc edition.

Bestselling author and renowned economic forecaster Harry S. Dent, Jr., has observed these trends for decades. As he first demonstrated in his bestselling The Great Boom Ahead, he has developed analytical techniques that allow him to predict the impact they will have. The Great Depression Ahead explains “The Perfect Storm” as peak oil prices collide with peaking generational spending trends by 2010, leading to a more severe downtrend for the global economy and individual investors alike.

He predicts the following:

• The economy appears to recover from the subprime crisis and minor recession by mid-2009 — “the calm before the real storm.”

• Stock prices start to crash again between mid- and late 2009 into late 2010, and likely finally bottom around mid-2012 — between Dow 3,800 and 7,200.

• The economy enters a deeper depression between mid-2010 and early 2011, likely extending off and on into late 2012 or mid-2013.

• Asian markets may bottom by late 2010, along with health care, and be the first great buy opportunities in stocks.

• Gold and precious metals will appear to be a hedge at first, but will ultimately collapse as well after mid- to late 2010.

• A first major stock rally, likely between mid-2012 and mid-2017, will be followed by a final setdback around late 2019/early 2020.

• The next broad-based global bull market will be from 2020-2023 into 2035-2036.

Conventional investment wisdom will no longer apply, and investors on every level — from billion-dollar firms to the individual trader — must drastically reevaluate their policies in order to survive. But despite the dire news and dark predictions, there are real opportunities to come from the greatest fire sale on financial assets since the early 1930s. Dent outlines the critical issues that will face our government and other major institutions, offering long- and short-term tactics for weathering the storm. He offers recommendations that will allow families, businesses, investors, and individuals to manage their assets correctly and come out on top. With the right knowledge and preparation, you can take advantage of new wealth opportunities rather than get caught in a downward spiral. Your life is about to change for reasons outside of your control. You can’t change the direction of the winds, but you can reset your sails!

Amazon.com Review

What do you do after you’ve written the No. 1 bestseller The Millionaire Next Door? Survey 1,371 more millionaires and write The Millionaire Mind. Dr. Stanley’s extremely timely tome is a mixture of entertaining elements. It resembles Regis Philbin’s hit show (and CD-ROM game) Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, only you have to pose real-life questions, instead of quizzing about trivia. Are you a gambling, divorce-prone, conspicuously consuming “Income-Statement Affluent” Jacuzzi fool soon to be parted from his or her money, or a frugal, loyal, resole your shoes and buy your own groceries type like one of Stanley’s “Balance-Sheet Affluent” millionaires? “Cheap dates,” millionaires are 4.9 times likelier to play with their grandkids than shop at Brooks Brothers. “If you asked the average American what it takes to be a millionaire,” he writes, “they’d probably cite a number of predictable factors: inheritance, luck, stock market investments…. Topping his list would be a high IQ, high SAT scores and gradepoint average, along with attendance at a top college.” No way, says Stanley, backing it up with data he compiled with help from the University of Georgia and Harvard geodemographer Jon Robbin. Robbin may wish he’d majored in socializing at L.S.U., instead, because the numbers show the average millionaire had a lowly 2.92 GPA, SAT scores between 1100 and 1190, and teachers who told them they were mediocre students but personable people. “Discipline 101 and Tenacity 102″ made them rich. Stanley got straight C’s in English and writing, but he had money-minded drive. He urges you to pattern your life according to Yale professor Robert Sternberg’s Successful Intelligence, because Stanley’s statistics bear out Sternberg’s theories on what makes minds succeed–and it ain’t IQ.

Besides offering insights into millionaires’ pinchpenny ways, pleasing quips (”big brain, no bucks”), and 46 statistical charts with catchy titles, Stanley’s book booms with human-potential pep talk and bristles with anecdotes–for example, about a bus driver who made $3 million, a doctor (reporting that his training gave him zero people skills) who lost $1.5 million, and a loser scholar in the bottom 10 percent on six GRE tests who grew up to be Martin Luther King Jr. Read it and you’ll feel like a million bucks. –Tim Appelo

Read by millions, this timeless book holds the key to success-in the secrets of the ancients. Based on the famous “Babylonian principles,” it’s been hailed as the greatest of all inspirational works on the subject of thrift and financial planning.

ACHIEVE PERSONAL WEALTH…

This celebrated bestseller offers an understanding of-and a solution to-personal money problems.This is the original classic that reveals the secrets to acquiring money, keeping money, and making money earn even more money. Simply put: the original money-management favorite is back!

In this unique re-creation of one of the most dramatic periods in modern American history, Studs Terkel recaptures the Great Depression of the 1930s in all its complexity. The book is a mosaic of memories from those who were richest to those who were most destitute: politicians like James Farley and Raymond Moley; businessmen like Bill Benton and Clement Stone; a six-day bicycle racer; artists and writers; racketeers; speakeasy operators, strikers, and impoverished farmers; people who were just kids; and those who remember losing a fortune.

Hard Times is not only a gold mine of information—much of it little known—but also a fascinating interplay of memory and fact, showing how the Depression affected the lives of those who experienced it firsthand, often transforming the most bitter memories into a surprising nostalgia.

Amazon.com Review

First published in 1970, this classic of oral history features the voices of men and women who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s. It includes accounts by congressmen C. Wright Patman and Hamilton Fish, as well as failed presidential candidate Alf M. Landon, who recalls what it was like to be governor of Kansas in 1933:

Men with tears in their eyes begged for an appointment that would help save their homes and farms. I couldn’t see them all in my office. But I never let one of them leave without my coming out and shakin’ hands with ‘em. I listened to all their stories, each one of ‘em. But it was obvious I couldn’t take care of all their terrible needs.

The book includes also the perspectives of ordinary men and women, such as Jim Sheridan, who took part in the 1932 march by World War I veterans to petition for their benefits in Washington, D.C., where they were repelled by army troops led by General Douglas MacArthur. Or Edward Santander, who was a child then: “My first memories come about ‘31. It was simply a gut issue then: eating or not eating, living or not living.” Studs Terkel makes history come alive, drawing out experiences and emotions from his interviewees to the degree few have ever been able to match.

Starting from scratch, simply by picking stocks and companies for investment, Warren Buffett amassed one of the epochal fortunes of the twentieth century–an astounding net worth of $10 billion, and counting. His awesome investment record has made him a cult figure popularly known for his seeming contradictions: a billionaire who has a modest lifestyle, a phenomenally successful investor who eschews the revolving-door trading of modern Wall Street, a brilliant dealmaker who cultivates a homespun aura.

Journalist Roger Lowenstein draws on three years of unprecedented access to Buffett’s family, friends, and colleagues to provide the first definitive, inside account of the life and career of this American original. Buffett  explains Buffett’s’ investment strategy–a long-term philosophy grounded in buying stock in companies that are undervalued on the market and hanging on until their worth invariably surfaces–and shows how it is a reflection of his inner self.

Amazon.com Review

Starting from scratch, simply by picking stocks and companies for investment, Warren Buffett amassed one of the epochal fortunes of the 20th century — an astounding net worth of $10 billion and counting. That awesome record has made him a cult figure.

This illuminating biography reveals a man whose conscientiousness, integrity, and good humor exist alongside an odd emotional isolation. Buffett also masterfully traces his life: his enormously successful partnership; his early, inspired investments in American Express and Geico; his companionship and investment with Katharine Graham of the Washington Post; his role in the Capital Cities purchase of ABC; his unique relationship with his wife and mistress; and his rescue of the scandal-ridden Salomon Brothers.

A number-one bestseller from coast to coast, Den of Thieves tells, in masterfully reported detail, the full story of the insider-trading scandal that nearly destroyed Wall Street, the men who pulled it off, and the chase that finally brought them to justice. Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart shows for the first time how four of the biggest names on Wall Street — Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, and Dennis Levine — created the greatest insider-trading ring in financial history and almost walked away with billions, until a team of downtrodden detectives triumphed over some of America’s most expensive lawyers to bring this powerful quartet to justice.

Based on secret grand jury transcripts, interviews, and actual trading records, and containing explosive new revelations about Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky written especially for this paperback edition, Den of Thieves weaves all the facts into an unforgettable narrative — a portrait of human nature, big business, and crime of unparalleled proportions.

In the spirit of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, a social critique of our obsession with choice, and how it contributes to anxiety, dissatisfaction and regret. This paperback includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested readings, and more.

Whether we’re buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions–both big and small–have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented.

We assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression.

In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice–the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish–becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice–from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs–has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse.

By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on the important ones and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.