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Monday, April 13, 2009
The full title of this book is Blink, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell had also written two other books that I have read called The Tipping Point and the Outliers. His books are very easy reads and you always learn something. Usually, we find out something very interesting about us humans.
One thing you might find interesting is Chapter 6, The Delicate Art of Mind Reading. It gives the science behind the new TV show, Lie to Me. He talks about Silvan Tomkins and Paul Ekman classifying facial expressions. They also talk about what all these expression mean. These are facial expressions that cross all racial and ethnic groups. There are times when people can be very good at picking up on facial expressions and time when they are not. It is basically when we are under stress, when our adrenalin is flowing that we can be particularly bad at this. So, you can learn to be cautious about the time when you can be bad about picking up on facial expressions. Another interesting thing is that you can also learn to be better at picking up on facial expressions.
This book is also about decision making. Sometimes we are better off going with our gut instincts or our unconscious mind than putting a lot of effort into thinking about what we want or want to do. It is ironic that we are better off doing a lot of thinking about the small decisions than with the big decisions. The small things may be buying kitchen accessories. The big things may be buying furniture or deciding where to live.
Malcolm Gladwell also points out that often what people say they want and what they actually want can be very different. When people at a speed dating session were asked what they wanted in a date and asked to fill out a questionnaire on this, they had no problems in filling it out. However, who they really turned out to like was very different that what they said. Speed dating can work because people can tell very quickly if they like a person or not.
He also talks about the Pepsi challenge. Apparently, if people take a sip of a drink, they like the sweeter one. This is why Pepsi wins the Pepsi challenge. Pepsi is sweeter than Coke. The problem is people will have a different opinion about the drinks of Pepsi and Coke if they drink a whole can. This is why the new coke, which was sweeter than regular coke, failed so badly.
You can find reviews on this book on Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org You can see a discussion on this book and its topic at homerdixon.com. There is another review at about.com.
Malcolm Gladwell has his own site at www.gladwell.com. On this site, he talks about his three books of The Tipping Point, Outliers, and Blink. Also on this site, he has his New Yorker magazine articles, his Blog, and his biography. Wikipedia has an article on him at en.wikipedia.org and he is at TED at www.ted.com. He is also on YouTube.
If you are interested in buying these books, they are available at Amazon.com. Click here to find Blink by Malcolm Gladwell it in the right hand panel.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The full title of this book is Wars, Guns, and Votes - Democracy in Dangerous Places. Collier had also written another book that I have read called The Bottom Billion. I also wrote a review of the book, the Bottom Billion.
One of the things Paul Collier talks about is that in places that are very poor and violent, having the international community or the US come in and force a vote solves nothing. The place will still be poor and violent. Well, duh! I would have thought that being a Brit, Paul Collier would know, at least some of British history and not assume places will be fixed with a free vote.
I can understand where the Americans are coming from. They had their revolution, elected their own government, and thought they had found freedom and democracy for themselves. They did not realize what else they had. Britain had the concept of the rights and responsibilities of their citizen, and more important had concept of the rule of law. The British system was not perfect, but it by and large, functioned well. This is why, when they got what we consider democracy, where all citizens had the right to vote, things went smoothly.
Now, in the Americans, the 13 colonies already had such things as the rule of law. They also had experience voting, as there were local voted-in governments. Now, when they kicked out their British rulers, they had no problems. They did not realize what a debt their owned their British forefathers, for without individual rights and responsibilities, and the rule of law, I cannot see how just voting will give anyone decent government. This is, of course, what Paul Collier found out by studying what happen in poor violent countries that got a vote. They did not get decent government. They did not get problems solved.
As with the other book of Paul Collier’s, this book is a very easy read. He does a lot of research and presents the research and possible solutions in a manner this is easy to understand. He talks about more than just democracy and voting. If you want to read a regular review, see timesonline.co.uk. If you want to see his book from an economic perspective, see oxonomics. Paul Collier is also on www.ted.com. If you do a search for Paul Collier, you will find him. He is also very easy to listen to.
If you are interested in buying these books, they are available at Amazon.com. Click here to find Wars, Guns, and Votes by Paul Collier it in the right hand panel.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The full title of this book is Outliers, The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell had also written another book that I have read called The Tipping Point. I am currently reading his book called Blink. His books are very easy reads and you always learn something.
One of the most interesting subjects that he talks about is what he calls the 10,000 hour rule. What it is, is that to get really good at anything, you must spend 10,000 hours on it. This would be approximately 8 hours a day, every day for about 3 ½ years.
The first person he talks about his Bill Joy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, which was one of the critical players in the computer revolution. He started at the University of Michigan in 1971 and came across their new Computer Center. He started at this university when computer terminals and time-sharing systems came in. The University of Michigan’s new Computer Center had the latest. The center was open 24 hours a day and he lived near the center and spent a lot of his time there. The center gave out fixed amount of time on their computers, but then some of the kids figured out how to get unlimited amount of time on the systems. This was how he got to spend a phenomenal amount of time programming.
In this chapter, he also talks about the Beatles. They got invited to Hamburg. In Hamburg, you did not just play for one hour sessions; you had to play for eight hours. The played at a club seven nights a week and they played almost non-stop until after midnight. On their first trip, they played 106 nights for five or more hours. By the time of their success in 1964, they had performed live an estimated 1200 times.
If you do not know who Bill Joy is, you will certainly know who Bill Gates is. He went to a private school called Lakeside. There was a Mothers’ club that raised money to put in a computer terminal. It had a direct time-sharing link to a mainframe in downtown Seattle. Bill Gates got to do real-time programming as an eighth grader in 1968. When the Mothers’ Club ran out of money to pay for the kids computer club’s programming, they got an offer to test out a company’s software programs in exchange for free programming time.
All these people may have been very brilliant, but they also got opportunities to put in huge amount of time at the things for which they got famous. They got opportunities and they took advantage of their opportunities. There is, of course, much more to this book. For book reviews, see the New York Times review at www.nytimes.com/ and www.nytimes.com/. Also, see a Social Capital blog at socialcapital.wordpress.com.
Malcolm Gladwell has his own site at www.gladwell.com. On this site, he talks about his three books of The Tipping Point, Outliers, and Blink. Also on this site, he has his New Yorker magazine articles, his Blog, and his biography. Wikipedia has an article on him at en.wikipedia.org and he is at TED at www.ted.com. He is also on YouTube.
If you are interested in buying these books, they are available at Amazon.com. Click here to find Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell it in the right hand panel.
Monday, January 5, 2008
The full title of this book is Panic, The Story of Modern Financial Insanity. In this book, Michael Lewis talks about the financial panic from 1987 to the current one. So this is all about the most recent insane market gyrations. This book is not really written my Michael Lewis; in fact, it is collection of articles published at the time of the recent panics that include 1987 stock market crash; the Russian default (including the failure of Long-Term Capital Management Hedge Fund); the Asian currency crisis; the Internet stock bubble and the latest subprime debacle.
It is a fairly light read and it is interesting because you can read what people were saying at the time of the financial problems. The down fall of this is that there is no historical perspective to help with our current financial difficulties. It might be helpful for people who had never been in a financial panic before. And, as it said, this book is a light read.
The most interesting thing that Michael Lewis says is that “The man on the street, for the first time, acted on the same foolish principles that have guided the behavior of sophisticated Wall Street traders for the past few decades.” To read more about Michael Lewis, see Michael_Lewis_(author)in wikipedia. I read this book recently and I did understand more about the financial panics he was talking about, but this is not the best book to read about financial panics.
To really understand what financial panics are all about, you might be better off reading a classic like “Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds” by Charles Mackay. See a review of this at www.buzzle.com.
If you are interested in buying these books, they are available at Amazon.com. Click here to find Panic by Michael Lewis it in the right hand panel or click here to find “Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds” by Charles Mackay it in the right hand panel.
Monday, January 5, 2008
The full title of this book is The Ascent of Money, a Financial History of the World. If you want to understand the world of financial, this is an excellent book to read. This is a great basic book on finance that is clear and easy to follow. I also enjoy reading books by Niall Ferguson as he always has something interesting to say.
I will point you to some typical book reviews later, but first I want to mention a few things in this book. One of thing he talks about is that while inflation is monetary phenomenon, hyperinflation is always a political phenomenon. Another point he makes is that stock markets are mirrors of the human psyche. He points out the idea of stocks for the long term has only worked in the western world, and this is not true of other places. For instance, stock for the long term would have been a losing proposition in say, South America.
I know that the left hates this man. This is probably because he makes such clear, reasonable augments supporting what he says. This is unlike writers like Christopher Higgins and Richard Dawkins, which the left loves. The reason I do not like readings these lefties is that their basic point seems always to revolve around ‘If you do not think like I do, you are stupid’. I read this beautifully illustrated book on evolution by Dawkins. What I remember about this book was his deep implacable hatred for Bush and the religious right. I thought I would be reading a beautifully illustrated book on evolution, obviously not.
Niall Ferguson has his own web site at www.niallferguson.org/ and there is an entry for him at Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson. As always, you should read anything in Wikipedia with a critical eye. This site will not allow anything to stand that is not politically correct. This article either has a bland description of his work or is critical. Niall Ferguson is not politically correct. Robert Fulford has written a number of articles about Niall Ferguson and they are available at www.robertfulford.com/NiallFerguson1.html. There are also videos with him at video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-506628656225988940 and www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtw6UWx_UuA.
If you are interested in buying his book, it is available at Amazon.com. Click here to find it in the right hand panel.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The full title of this book is Risk, The Science and Politics of Fear. It is a very interesting book. We are, in the Western World at least, the longest living, the wealthiest and we live in the safest or most peaceful societies in human history, and yet we are more fearful than past generations. Dan Gardner worries about how our fearfulness will affect our children.
In Canadian surveys, it has been found that half the population thinks that a risk-free world is possible. Also, the majority of the population thinks that our government should completely protect them from risk in their daily lives. No one, or no government, or no government agency can guarantee zero risk. Things can be made safer, but zero risk is impossible. I find it absolutely irrational that people expect to live risk free.
One of the things Dan Gardner talks about, of which I found interesting, is that of surveys of basic cultural world views. Anthropology wise, we can be slotted into one of four world views. These world views are individualist, egalitarian, hierarchist, and communitarian. Dan Gardner also mentions that there is a strong correlation between risk perception and world views.
A hierarchist is someone who believes that people should have defined places in society and respect authority. An egalitarian is someone who believes in the equality of all people, especially in political, economic, or social life. An individualist is someone who believes the answer to problems is more freedom that is, you let people determine their own choices and things will come right. A communitarian is someone who believes in placing the interests of the community above the interests of the individual.
I have some of the characteristics of a communitarian in that I believe that people should live up to their social and civic responsibilities and should not merely focus on what they are entitled to, however, I must admit that I am individualist at heart as I believe that people are responsible for what they do and for their own lives. I also certainly believe in individual freedom. However, I also feel that there must be some balance between the rights of communities and the rights of individuals.
Dan Gardner has his own site at www.dangardner.ca/. For a review of this book, see www.speakers.ca/gardner_dan.aspxl. At the web site http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9600 you will find information on Mary Douglas who is an anthropologist involved in world view and risk perception.
If you are interested in buying his book, it is available at Amazon.com. Click here to find it in the right hand panel.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The full title of this book is Hot, Flat, and Crowded - Why We Need A Green Revolution – And How It Can Renew America. I read Friedman because he always says interesting things. The US and indeed the world, is in deep shit, environmentally.
However, I am Canadian and as most Canadians do and what our Country does, is muddle through things. We will muddle through this environment thing. Canada never goes to extremes that the US does and we are generally quite happy about that. This book is available on Amazon; see the panel to the right side.
If you want to read a typical review on this book, see www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/hot-flat-and-crowded/ or see www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-09/pl_print. or see www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/27/politics.climatechange. To read an excerpt from this book, see www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/books/chapters/chapter-hot-flat-crowded.html. Thomas Friedmand has his own site at www.thomaslfriedman.com/.
Treating pollution as an externality is dangerous. Past Civilizations fell because they destroyed their environment. One quote I love in this book is on page 259. “Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth. If you learn nothing else from this book besides this, you will do very well.
The other very interesting thing he quotes is Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider. He asks, “Can democracy survive complexity?” on page 406. “It is so difficult. It is multi-scale, multidisciplinary, with large certainty in some areas and small certainty in others. It is irreversible and reversible and we won’t know how we did until it is over. We will only know forty years later. That is why climate complexity is a challenger to democracy.”
An interesting suggestion is that since the price of oil is so high and it is therefore pushing innovation, we should keep the price of oil high. If it comes down, we should have a tax that automatically comes in and keep the price high. That is if oil is $100 a barrel, and it does to $90, we should have $10 a barrel tax.
All in all, this is very good book about a current and complex problem. If you are interested in buying his book, it is available at Amazon.com. Click here to find it in the right hand panel.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The 4th edition of this book you can find at Amazon.com (see side bar). (I had read the 2nd edition.) Jeremy Siegel has his own site at www.jeremysiegel.com/. See www.mcnallyrobinson.com/product/isbn/9780071494700/bkm/true, for a review of his book. Siegel has articles on the internet at www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Enc/StockPrices.html.
Even though the book is American and it deals with the US, it can also apply to us here in Canada. I, of course, started investing in stocks long before I had read this book. I also invest for the long run and I have done very well. As near as I can figures, I have made, since I started investing in the 70’s an average annual return of 10.3%.
I am basically 100% invested in stocks, 100% of the time. The one main problem with this is that when good investment opportunities come along, I have no available cash for investing. Take the current situation. The fall in the TSX has presented lots of very good buying opportunities and I can take advantage of few.
However, even with the above problem, over the long term, being investing 100% in stocks has been very good for me and I have made good long term returns. The problem with holding back some cash for good investments is that you never know when these opportunities will come. Look at the bear market we had in 2000, 2001. A stock market crash had been predicted for sometime. Alan Greenspan made his “irrational exuberance remark in December 1996. If I had put money aside, it would have earned little money for over 4 years or more.
So in closing, I should say there is no really good answer about whether or not too keep money in reserves for good opportunities. I did not do this so I really have no idea on how it would have affected my returns. In any event, this is an excellent book to read.
If you are interested in buying his book, it is available at Amazon.com. Click here to find it in the right hand panel.
Friday, August 15, 2008
The sub-title of this book is “Adventures in a New World”. This is a surprisingly readable book. I highly recommend it. Considering some of the past statements made by Alan Greenspan, I found it rather shocking that he can write an interesting and readable book. You should read this book as you might learn, in an entertaining and enjoyable way, something about economic matters. You will certainly learn a bit more about a man, no matter what you may think about him, that has had a big impact on the US economy and therefore on our Canadian economy.
You can find his book at at Amazon.com; see panel to the right side.
Reading about Alan and reading reviews on this book, there seems to be too groups of people, those who love him and those who hate him. Those who hate him blame him for the current asset bubble crisis in the US and anything else wrong with the US economy.
So there are huge arguments on what he may or may have done for the US economy. You can take sides, or do as I do and just believe that no one knows what they are talking about when it comes to the economy. What I can see is that, whatever else you might think of Bush, he has certainly been bad for the US economy. The Social Security is still not properly funded. The federal debt is way out of control and it was only made worse by Bush.
We in Canada are in a much better position. We have the CPP under control. Our federal debt is under control. I never like Jean Chretien, however, you have to admit that between him and Paul Martin, our economy was put into great shape. I was so disappointed in Paul Martin as he made an awful Prime Minister. I was looking forward to him being Prime Minister, but it did not turn out as I had imagined. I guess he spent so much time and effort into getting the job, he did not know what to do when he got it.
Wikipedia, of course, has a section on Alan Greenspan. See book review in the NY Times at www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/books/18leonhardt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. There is some discussion of him at The Nation at www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=233482. For some of the book being read, go to www.audible.com/adbl/site/openplayer.jsp?popUp=false&productID=BK_PENG_000754&title=The+Age+of+Turbulence:+Adventures+in+a+New+World+(Unabridged).
If you are interested in buying his book, it is available at Amazon.com. Click here to find it in the right hand panel.
Friday, August 8, 2008
If you want to know how our food gets to us, and how animals are treated, this is the book to read. It is American, so I do not know how relevant it is for Canadians, but it is interesting none the less. I am sure a lot of what sells in Canada is the same as in the US. Our food is the result of an industrial system. It is interesting how much corn plays a part in the food we get at our grocery stores. You can find his book at at Amazon.com; see panel to the right side.
Although, I must admit that I always tended to get only fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy in my weekly shopping. About the only prepackaged stuff I got was some cereal, and this was usually things like a package of oatmeal. I had a kid, so I had to also get some boxed cereal and some pop.
It is interesting how such books as thus one come out just when thinks are changing. This summer, in my local area, we have a farmer’s market opening one day a week. Also, just in the past year, we have a small bakery opened. The bread is wonderful. They list the ingredients for the bread, and it is only 5 items and I understand what all are. Unlike the awful bread, we were subjects to just 10 years ago (and still in the shops) which have a list of ingredients as long as your arm. I had no idea what most of the ingredients were.
When I had a cottage, I got local meat, and the local cattle were grass fed. The steaks were the best I have ever had. I do not know how the pigs and chickens were fed, but the chops and chickens I got were great also. The local place I went for meat was called an abattoir. This is just a French word for slaughterhouse and I do not know why it was called that. It would seem that such small local slaughterhouses are illegal in the US. That is too bad. I heard nothing locally about anyone having any problems with this slaughterhouse. This was a small community, and everyone knows everything that happens. If there had ever been a problem, I would have heard. I guess that sometimes it helps to be behind the US in things as having the privilege of a local slaughterhouse.
Michael Pollan has his own site at www.michaelpollan.com/. He also has a blog at pollan.blogs.nytimes.com/ and is on the Berkeley web site at journalism.berkeley.edu/faculty/pollan/. There is also an review of his commandments of eating at www.seriouseats.com/required_eating/2008/01/michael-pollans-twelve-commandments-for-serio.html.
If you are interested in buying his book, it is available at Amazon.com. Click here to find it in the right hand panel.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The full title is “The Bottom Billion, Why The Poorest Countries Are Failing And What Can Be Done About It.” This is a very interesting book about the poorest people on earth and what the Western World can do for them. It does not give practical advice for individuals, but it does give practical things governments and aid agencies that give out aid can do. You can find his book at at Amazon.com; see panel to the right side.
What I like about Paul Collier’s book is that he looks at various things that have been done to help poor people and poor countries and then tries to analyses these things to see if they actually work or not. I like that he advocates practical things that seem to work. He talks about some standard solutions that do not work and solutions that do work.
I think that this is a very important book on world poverty. It is filled with statistics and common sense. He tries to come up with workable practical solutions. What I did not like about Jeffery Sach’s book on the End of Poverty, is that he comes up with grand schemes to help the poor. We have had grand schemes before, and they have not worked.
For book review at Oxford Press, see www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Economics/Developmental/?view=usa&ci=9780195311457 and at Financial Times see www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4858ed7e-0178-11dc-8b8c-000b5df10621.html?nclick_check=1.
He is also on www.ted.com, a wonderful site of speakers on all sorts of ideas. He is at www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul_collier_shares_4_ways_to_help_the_bottom_billion.html.
If you are interested in buying these books, they are available at Amazon.com. Click here to find it in the right hand panel.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Giving - How Each Of Us Can Change The World - is a great book. It is a very easy read. It inspired me to start lending money via Kiva.org. On this website, you can loan small amounts of money to people all over the world. It finally seems that I was actually helping someone. All the money I have given to charity seems to have disappeared down a black hole, never to be seen again, never to actually do any good for anyone. You can find his book at at Amazon.com; see panel to the right side.
Now if you are a capitalist, as I would judge anyone who invests is, Kiva is the perfect investment for the future. Here you seem to be investing in people who want to be capitalists. If we want to keep the wealth we now have, I feel we must do something to spread around some wealth. Charity never seems to help. I have been giving to charity since I started to work in the late ‘60s. This is something like 40 years ago. I cannot point to any improvement in anyone’s life or any improvement for the poor of Toronto, where I live. In fact, we seem to have a lot more poor in Toronto now than there was 40 years ago.
Getting one great idea from a book is fantastic. What else can I say? If you believe in liberty, freedom and capitalism, then investing in potential capitalists in poor counties may be a very good investment indeed.
This micro-credit site is at www.kiva.org/. Bill Clinton’s site is at giving.clintonfoundation.org/.
On the web, you can find both positive and negative reviews of this book. There are a lot of negative reviews. However, I read books all the time, often having 3 or 4 on the go at one time. I read mostly non-fiction (history, economics etc) and some sci-fi. Most of the negative reviews feel that the book is too filled with feel-good stories when there is so much misery around the world. Sorry, but I still feel that if a book gives you one great idea, it is worth it.
If you are interested in buying his book, it is available at Amazon.com. Click here to find it in the right hand panel.
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