A mostly accessible survey of the financial scene. Readers take note: Buy gold, land and art—and hunker down.
Behind Door No. 1 is inflation. Behind Door No. 2 is deflation. Neither is pretty—however, assures financial counselor and intelligence adviser Rickards (Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis, 2011), one or the other lies in our path.
The thought that the world’s economic systems are doomed to collapse anytime soon might be dismissed as the stuff of the tinfoil-hat crowd. Quickly entering into the realm not of paranoia but of fiscal wonkiness, Rickards examines the many ways this might come about—through financial cyberterrorism, for instance, or simply the unwieldiness of banks too big to fail but that surely will. “Large banks are not necessary to global finance,” he writes, and particularly dangerous to the health of the world economy is their flourishing trade in derivatives, which “serve practically no purpose save to enrich bankers through opaque pricing and to deceive investors through off-the-balance-sheet accounting.” On the matter of off-the-sheet calculations, Rickards notes that the common excuse—that times may be tough but at least we don’t have inflation—is a smoke screen: Allowing for “alternative methods” of accounting, real inflation is probably 9 percent annually, gauged by the prices of milk, bread and other inelastic goods. Rickards rides an old hobbyhorse of fiscal conservatives, namely, the tragedy of our abandonment of the gold standard (under Richard Nixon, of all presidents) and the desirability of readopting it—and real gold at that, and not its derivatives. Though the collapse he foretells will induce chaos, he assures his readers that it is not necessarily inevitable, though avoiding it is unlikely. As he writes in a rare moment of drama, “as the dollar’s 9/11 moment approaches, the system is blinking red.”
A mostly accessible survey of the financial scene. Readers take note: Buy gold, land and art—and hunker down.Pub Date: April 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59184-670-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
