Book Description
This frightening book shows how massive consumer debt will trigger the next depression, starting in 2007. With interest rates increasing, savings rates near zero and debt at its maximum, people will be pushed over their debt limit, causing the depression.
Customer Reviews:
A THESIS OF EXCELLENCE ON HOW DEPRESSIONS HAPPEN.......2007-09-09
A Timeless work of Mastery in that it exposes what will be obvious in a few months to years. Based on concrete fact the conclusions support the facts. A Brilliant Writ which should be in every Economics class from High School to College!
A must read from the young entrepenuer to the MBA.
What the Government wishes to avoid is the harsh reality of impending Depression. After a brief dicussion with the author I can state he is a solid concrete thinker. I have injected thoughts of Taxflation (TM) which are sure to happen. I hope for sequele where the author can expound on defensive manuvers. One which I thought of is the "Roth Shuffle" (T.M.) about to take effect where 401 K's, IRAs and Sep Iras can be converted and taxed up front removing the Draconian "Taxflation" T.M. from future years of the Next Great Depression.
This gives more leverage to the author's well done tables of pension and investment income preserved by TIPS. Don Iden MD,FAAD,FABD,Mayo Clinic Alumnus. 4521 S Staples Street Ste 100 Corpus Christi, TX 78411-2603
Dated and not so great.......2007-03-15
This book doesn't really contain anything I didn't already know from books like "Empire of Debt" by Bonner and Wiggin. The latter is a much more well researched and well written book in addition to being more current. I would recommend it instead if you haven't read it. This book at hand had mediocre writing and some arguments that were crankish, especially the ones regarding investing in the stock market. It has many charts but most of them are rather obvious from the text and often unnecessary. Much of the data tables are things anyone could crank out on a spreadsheet program with ease and are embarrassingly simplistic at times. I do not recommend this book.
Debt on top of debt as we survive on a sort of "flywheel" effect. (but when happens when they call in the loans?).......2006-11-21
Being an Engineer myself, I appreciate his approach to analyzing a problem and breaking it down into parts. I think the data he has pulled together is very relevant, and his conclusion make sense. (I only wish they did not)
The world assigns a certain "value" to everything, and the value we have as a country is that of a consumer. Without our consumption, these fast climbing countries would NOT be able to grow their production capacity. (their own value)
The problem is that we are such poor savers that these "growing" producers are actually loaning us the money to buy their goods! in doing so, they are handing us the rope to hang ourselves!
If and when they build up enough wealth and consumption in their own society that they do not need us.....they will cut off our allowance and expect us to pay them back....then what?
This book has a similar view of our problems as another book I read called "Three Billion New Capitalists", though the author of that book was the Counselor to the Secretary of Commerce under Ronald Reagan. So while that book talked with quite a bit of first-hand knowledge, Mr. Brussee lookst at the same situation by analyzing all the data that is available to each of us...except he pulls it all together and makes sense of it.
I think Mr. Brussee has a more negative outlook for the situation, though I don't think either book paints a rosey picture of how our debt and imbalance of trade is doing anything by killing our value/worth to the world.
Both of the above books are worth the price and I suggest you read both books.
Very worthwhile reading.......2006-11-10
The author offers fairly complelling evidence for his prediction - I have actually checked the Personal Savings Rate [...] and found that his prediction in that area is still holding firm. Recent (Nov '06) news reports also agree that the public debt is reaching unsustainable levels. Now the stock market is going even higher (read over-valued) so we have a situation that appears to be just the scenario that the author paints.
The book is fairly dry but unfortunately the bare facts usually are.
Convincing!.......2006-06-12
Based on clear analysis of economic facts, Brussees conclusions are very convincing. Get ready!
Max Otte, Ph.D.
Professor of International Business
Book Description
The #1 New York Times bestselling authors of the Rich Dad Poor Dad series deliver a financial plan to help Baby Boomers survive an impending economic crash. Anyone with a 401K knows that investing in mutual funds is not safe, or so claim Kiyosaki and Lechter. Even worse, they warn that a devastating economic crash is imminent because Baby Boomers will soon be required by law to drain trillions of dollars stashed in 401Ks, IRAs, SEPs, and other mutual-fund savings accounts as they start to retire. In short, the country's financial system won't withstand the drain, and relying on a 401K and Social Security will mean financial disaster. Here, Kiyosaki and Lechter provide a financial roadmap for readers to prosper during these troubled times.
Download Description
This is a "Gloom and Boom" book.First the bad news: Between the years of 2007 and 2012-just a few years from now-the vast majority of Baby Boomers will be on the verge of retirement-and they'll be looking to cash in on their hefty retirement plans. Quite frankly, the country is not prepared to handle this major drain of cash reserves, and there's every chance that peoples' lifelong savings will dramatically lose their value.And now, the good news:Sensing this financial crisis in the offing, Kiyosaki and Lechter provide a detailed financial plan to help forward-thinking people prepare for the worst-and they urge that one's planning start NOW. They go over a variety of alternative ways of generating wealth through other forms of investments, including real estate development, self-employment, and investing in other companies. Warns Kiyosaki: "I think we've all learned from this past year that mutual funds are NOT the answer to accumulating long-term wealth."
Customer Reviews:
Move along..........2007-03-17
There is nothing to see (read) here. You know now what you will get from this book. Spend your money elsewhere on Amazon.
Important Concept with a Road Long Taken!.......2007-02-01
I must admit -- I can almost ghost write for Kiyosaki at this point. Rich Dad's 'Prophecy' is an example of what I could have done if given the concept to write about.
Within 'Prophecy,' Kiyosaki this time offers us his view on an impending stock market crash that will be caused by Baby Boomers in layman terms "cashing out" between the years 2010 to 2020. It's an important topic and something that most of us know by now -- not a secret as they say nor earth shattering information. But -- his information is very important to think about as we go about the course of our lives in securing a financial future for ourselves.
Highlighs:
As a result of ERISA (Employment Retirement Income Security Act) we are now away from the days of Defined Benefit plans and are now well-entrenched into Defined Contribution plans - gold watch -- may'be; predictable retirement income -- no! As a result, the working American (in most cases according to Kioyaski) will put her money in safe mutual fund investments on the premise that the stock market over time always goes up (with peaks and valleys along the way) hoping that the mutual fund manager's dollar cost averaging concept is at her advantage.
I think we know where this is going (especially if you've read Kiyosaki's previous work). You have to take control in an active sense and become an educated investor. There are some pages within that one should review:
Page 61: Points out just who is your financial planner - what qualifies him or her? Find out. Also -- the premise (my take on it): Government intervention has pushed retirement funding on the shoulders of a future generation with laws in place that are counter-intuitive to sound financial planning.
Page 116: Regardless if you think the health care crises is overblown or not, this page brings it home. Health care costs are rising. Many will be without insurance. Medicare and social security bankrupt -- probably. But we're living longer without adequate protection to carry us in our golden years.
Chapter 9: The whole chapter -- nice summurization of some contributing factors that will bring about 'The Perfect Storm'. Japan's status as a major economic force; China becoming the powerhouse economy; Wall Street being obsolete, and other factors that are important -- this chapter combined with Chapters 4 and 5 and you have the main point of the book.
All this leads us into --- Kiyosaki's familar concepts: Invest in real estate (passive), become an active investor in the stock market (portfolio), and start or grow a business. There are some pointers within for those that desire to remain employed, but again, the remainder of the book is not "must read" material if you've read RDPD, CFQ, Guide to Investing, and RY-RR!
My 3-star review is based upon an important concept being introduced in a very enjoyable (though long-winded) format. In addition, Kiyosaki consistently allows the reader to join at any point and catch-up on his concepts. This was at one-tiime considered by Kiyosaki himself as his most important work. I disagree with that based on where I am in his series; however, it is an extremely important concept to be reviewed and put at the forefront of our minds. Most of you will probably be able to read this within 1 - 3 days and this would have been better placed in a newsletter to die-hards -- but he has built the brand, so if you want to roll with it -- roll with it! Just a sidebar: What kind of cap rate is he going for?! I must disagree with his Triple Net Lease and some of his commercial real estate information, but at least it's well-written for those familiar with real estate to critique.
Stop your whining, it's only a book........2006-07-19
I can't stand all of these reviewers expecting books to solve their financial problems. Look if you're looking at this book thinking, "Wow, if I read this, I'll be rich and not have any problems in life ever." Then DO NOT BUY IT. But if you're looking for other views on life instead of the one you're looking through, then get this book. It offers a couple lessons, and yeah, it's similar to the other books. But the reason I read those is because I need different outlooks on the same subject, "Getting out of the rat race."
In this book, he points out the downfalls of our U.S. financial policies and that we try to push out our financial problems as far into the future as possible. "Let our children handle it". Could Kiyosaki have said it in fewer words? Probably. But I enjoy reading his work, so I didn't mind so much. It seems to me the people that are so anxious for an answer on how to get rich are the same ones that are saying, "Well, he's not saying when this will happen." or "Well, he's only saying to get passive income so I can be financially free." If he were to say those things, why is it so bad? Being financially free is key no matter how the markets are doing.
A different perspective on how you look at the same thing, that's all he's offering. He's not offering world renowned remedies, he's not the solve it all, nor does he make himself out to be. There just seems like there are a whole bunch of poor dads out there looking for the solve all book, and complaining that they don't own the right book. I feel it was worth my time to read it. And not really worth my time to read these other reviews.
The same point reiterated over and over........2006-07-07
A much better and concise book on this topic is called "The Great Bust Ahead". Authored by Daniel Arnold, it provides much more statistical data for an up-coming crash / depression.
It's not the 70.5 year olds withdrawing from their 401k's which will cause a crash, it's the 49-54 year old spending age bracket which are heading into retirement.
Arnold is predicting a much earlier crash to occur around 2010. I highly recommend his book. It's a short read and will only take about an hour; but is well worth it.
Point Made in Many Words.......2006-05-08
Kiyosaki's main point is that the stock market will react to the required-by-law RMDs (required minimum distributions) when the first year of Baby Boomers turn 70 years old in 2016. Many Boomers will have to sell part of their retirement investments according to the U.S. law. As more Boomers reach age 70, more will be forced to sell part of their holdings each year...and keep selling until they die. In any market, when sellers abound, prices fall. This will, in Kiyosaki's prediction, affect the investments and retirement accounts of the rest of us post-Baby Boomers before we reach retirement. His advice: we have until 2012 to "build our financial arks" and get out of the stock market. His suggestion is to get into real estate and business building (same theme as his previous 3 books in the Rich Dad series).
He could have made this point in a few chapters. He tends to repeat his points, perhaps so we remember them. More theoretical than practical advice is given.
To be a wise investor, you must know the laws of the land...and use them to your advantage. Do not count on the government (Social Security or Medicare) for your retirement because government has a track record and continuing mentality of pushing financial problems forward to future generations.
Amazon.com
Rampant speculation. Record trading volumes. Assets bought not because of their value but because the buyer believes he can sell them for more in a day or two, or an hour or two. Welcome to the late 1920s. There are obvious and absolute parallels to the great bull market of the late 1990s, writes Galbraith in a new introduction dated 1997. Of course, Galbraith notes, every financial bubble since 1929 has been compared to the Great Crash, which is why this book has never been out of print since it became a bestseller in 1955.
Galbraith writes with great wit and erudition about the perilous actions of investors, and the curious inaction of the government. He notes that the problem wasn't a scarcity of securities to buy and sell; "the ingenuity and zeal with which companies were devised in which securities might be sold was as remarkable as anything." Those words become strikingly relevant in light of revenue-negative start-up companies coming into the market each week in the 1990s, along with fragmented pieces of established companies, like real estate and bottling plants. Of course, the 1920s were different from the 1990s. There was no safety net below citizens, no unemployment insurance or Social Security. And today we don't have the creepy investment trusts--in which shares of companies that held some stocks and bonds were sold for several times the assets' market value. But, boy, are the similarities spooky, particularly the prevailing trend at the time toward corporate mergers and industry consolidations--not to mention all the partially informed people who imagined themselves to be financial geniuses because the shares of stock they bought kept going up. --Lou Schuler
Book Description
Of Galbraith's classic examination of the 1929 financial collapse, the Atlantic Monthly said:"Economic writings are seldom notable for their entertainment value, but this book is. Galbraith's prose has grace and wit, and he distills a good deal of sardonic fun from the whopping errors of the nation's oracles and the wondrous antics of the financial community." Now, with the stock market riding historic highs, the celebrated economist returns with new insights on the legacy of our past and the consequences of blind optimism and power plays within the financial community.
Customer Reviews:
The Hobo Philosopher.......2007-09-14
This is the best book that I have read so far on the 1929 depression. Galbraith is so easy to read. He has a great sense of humor - dry but great. He is logical, sensible and supports his prejudices with numbers and facts. Anyone who is interested in the 1929 depression should have this on their list as required reading.
Financial Reporting at its finest...........2006-10-05
All writers of market histories should read and absorb Galbraith's short and eminently readable history of the start of the depression. Going beyond popular ideas it gets to the heart of the matter and provides sobering lessons to speculators in today's markets. I give this a hearty 5 stars!
Pretty Good.......2006-08-01
This gives a pretty good examination of the economic crash of 1929 and important events in the preceeding decade.
However, since this was originally published in 1954, there was at least one section in the book where the "rhetorical present" of the author's narration was in the 1950s (in its comparison on the 1929 crash with circumstances extant in the 1950s); however, in this same section, it refers to 'our current situation' in the late 1990s, and then later in the same section, it reverts back to the reference to the 1950s as 'our present.'
Also, the tone of the narration occasionally comes off as elitist when it refers to 'others who aren't intelligent enough to understand this discussion' (my paraphrase-I don't have the time/inclination to cite the exact page number).
All-in-all, though I would encourage the reading of this book for an understanding of the events leading up to and surrounding the 1929 crash and the following depression.
A little brief, but a good intro for me to the Crash.......2006-04-30
I'm not a big expert in the politics and economics of the Great Depression. I do have interests in American history, however, and I felt that this would be a good intro to both Galbraith and the nature of the Crash. For me, the day-to-day specifics of the Crash were a little rushed. I didn't get the full-blown treatment of narrative history that would have enabled me to walk away from this text feeling like a newly born expert in the field. Nor did I walk away with a great desire to learn more about the principal players in the Crash. What I did walk away with was helpful, though. This book is a more a sketch of the psychology of the American market than a history of the Crash. Galbraith strives to show that Americans want to be fooled into believing that speculative gains can lead to fulfillment of dreams of wealth. Of greater importance, this book emphasizes how our political and economic culture does not provide adequate incentives for leaders who wish to dampen our enthusiasm. Yes, there are a few villains in this book. But the greater cause for concern is our tendency to blow up balloons that will inevitably burst.
I hope that sound investing and the Great Crash our taught with great care in our schools, and I would consider this either a passable quick intro or a source for supplementary insights into the nature of how our culture can lead to this kind of market failure.
3 stars
--SD
JKG thinks he funny. He's not........2005-08-29
While I did find the book informative and a good supplement to Robert Sobel's The Great Bull Market: Wall Street in the 1920s, Galbraith interjects his sarcastic view of the participants in the 1920s Bull Market way too much. This makes parts of the book extremely difficult to read. While I persevered to the end, I fouynd Sobel's account as informative and much more enjoyable to read.
Book Description
The scientific study of complex systems has transformed a wide range of disciplines in recent years, enabling researchers in both the natural and social sciences to model and predict phenomena as diverse as earthquakes, global warming, demographic patterns, financial crises, and the failure of materials. In this book, Didier Sornette boldly applies his varied experience in these areas to propose a simple, powerful, and general theory of how, why, and when stock markets crash.
Most attempts to explain market failures seek to pinpoint triggering mechanisms that occur hours, days, or weeks before the collapse. Sornette proposes a radically different view: the underlying cause can be sought months and even years before the abrupt, catastrophic event in the build-up of cooperative speculation, which often translates into an accelerating rise of the market price, otherwise known as a "bubble." Anchoring his sophisticated, step-by-step analysis in leading-edge physical and statistical modeling techniques, he unearths remarkable insights and some predictions--among them, that the "end of the growth era" will occur around 2050.
Sornette probes major historical precedents, from the decades-long "tulip mania" in the Netherlands that wilted suddenly in 1637 to the South Sea Bubble that ended with the first huge market crash in England in 1720, to the Great Crash of October 1929 and Black Monday in 1987, to cite just a few. He concludes that most explanations other than cooperative self-organization fail to account for the subtle bubbles by which the markets lay the groundwork for catastrophe.
Any investor or investment professional who seeks a genuine understanding of looming financial disasters should read this book. Physicists, geologists, biologists, economists, and others will welcome Why Stock Markets Crash as a highly original "scientific tale," as Sornette aptly puts it, of the exciting and sometimes fearsome--but no longer quite so unfathomable--world of stock markets.
Customer Reviews:
A Good Book--But No Longer Pertinent........2007-10-07
I could not enjoy this wonderful book with the knowledge that the unprincipled 41st and 43rd Presidents of the United States have negated all the time-tested principles of good investment strategies. The oil-rich Arab nations will soon officially join Israel and North Korea who demanded that aid (free money) be paid in Euros. The harsh freezing winds of ignoring the laws of God and man are on their way. These winds are going to rip through America's financial institutions like George H.W. Bush and the CIA ripped through the S & Ls. Like Bush's friend, Ken Lay, ripped out the hearts of hard working Americans with his Enron scheme. Before you invest ten cents of your savings in the stock market you had better take a 110 minute crash course in financial survival. If these people didn't care about the state of California, what makes you think they'll care about you? Go now, this very second, and rent the documentary, "The Smartest Guys in the Room". I'm, Bob Miller, the creator of the FreeStockSystem.
2068.......2007-07-17
1 Lorenz Weather equations: The vertical axis is time, which goes from 0 to 5 in this plot. For each time, the third dimension in perspective show the probability distribution of the wind velocity v: the maximum of the initial bell-shape distribution corresponds to the best initial guess of what is the present state of the system. The width of the bell-shape curve quantifies the initial uncertainty of our observations: we perform an initial measurement of the wind velocity and we know that any measure has some uncertainty, here quantified by the probability that the true initial condition deviates from the best estimate corresponding to the peak. As the peak decreases in amplitude and widens this suggests increasing uncertainty in the value v.
2. "Regions of decreasing uncertainty may exist in chaotic dynamics." Increasing the forecast horizon does not always lead to a degradation of the prediction, in contrast to standard views on chaotic dynamics.
3. English mathematician F.P Ramsey proved that compete disorder is impossible. Every large set of numbers, such as an ensemble of financial price series or points or objects, necessarily contains highly regular patterns. The relevant question is then, to figure out how many stars, numbers, or figures are required to guarantee a certain desired pattern. How probable is it to find a certain pattern in a given set? 50 of the 400 week intervals since 1910-1996 were chosen at random. The terms of the fit parameters correspond with three crashes in 1929, 1962, and 1987. "The probability that the log-periodic component results from chance is about or less than one in twenty."
4. A crash is not the critical or singular point itself, but its triggering rate is strongly influenced by the proximity of the critical point: the closer to the critical time, the more probable is the crash.
5. The Law of One price, states that two assets should sell for the same price. If the price differs in two markets, a profitable opportunity arises to sell the asset where it is overpriced and buy where it is under-priced. "Clearly, a noise-free stock market with all information available occupied by fully rational traders of infinite analysis abilities would have a very small trade volume, if any." A significant number of traders exhibit rational behavior. Information is incomplete and stock traders have limited abilities with respect to analyzing the available information. The market becomes rational if there are many heterogonous agents working on limited information. Perfectly rational investing won out, not because it was perfect, but because it was useful. "The machinery behind market rationality is that each investor, using the market to serve his or her own self-interest, unwittingly makes prices reflect the investor's information and analysis." The irrationalities should be studied concerning how they aggregate in the complex, long-lasting, repetitive, and subtle environment of the market.
6. What makes a share in a company valuable? It is earnings, which provide dividends and its potential appreciation, which gives rise to capital gains. Goldstone modes are the zero-energy infinite-wavelength mode fluctuations that attempt to restore broken symmetry. Value today is equal to its expected value tomorrow discounted by the discount factor. In the bubble component, there is not dividend! The bubble is playing the role of the Goldstone mode. "The bubble price can wander up or down and, in limit where it becomes very large in absolute value, dominate over the fundamental price, restoring the independence of the price with respect to dividend." Goldstone modes appear spontaneous since it has no energy cost, the rational bubble can be spontaneous without any dividend. There is a competition between the increasing growth of the company and the decreasing impact of dividends further in the future due to the effect of the discount factor. The increasing growth of dividends tends to raise price. Dividends are reduced to a risk-adjusted growth rate. When the risk adjusted growth rate becomes equal or larger than the discount rate, the fundamental valuation formula becomes meaningless. The price is the sum of all future presently adjusted dividends. Speculative phases are often stopped by successive increase of the discount rate. 1929 (3.25% to 6%), 1990 in Japan ( 2.55 to 6%)
7. The Crash Hazard rate quantifies the probability that a large group of agents place sell orders simultaneously and create enough of an imbalance in the order book for market makers to be unable to absorb the other side without lowering prices substantially. Cooperative behavior results from imitation. "Our working hypothesis is that agents tend to imitate the opinions of their connections." "A crash occurs when order wins. In stable markets buyers and sellers balance out each other, normal times are when disorder wins. When the imitation strength K gets close to a special critical value Kc, a very large group of investors share the same opinion, a may act in a coordinated way, an abrupt drop in price, infinite slope K/Kc, a crash occurs. "New demographic, technological, or economic developments prompt spontaneous innovation in financial markets and the first wave of investors and innovators become wealthy. Then imitators arrive and overdo the new techniques. In the ensuing crises, latecomers lose big before regulators and academics put out fires."
8. Log-periodic equation: Flp(t)=A2 +B2(tc-t)^m2*[C*Cos(w*log(tc-t)/T))]. Decimal year 365 days=1.00 year, Oct 19, 1987 = 87.800 or 1 day=.00274
9. Oct 19, 1987: A2=412, B2=-165, tc=87.74, C=12, w=7.4, T=2, m2=.33 Oct 1929: A2=61 B2=-0.56 Tc=29.84 C=0.08 W=5 T=3 M2=0.63
10. For a few weeks after the crash, a exponentially decaying sinusoidal function emerged. For a few weeks after the crash, a single dissipative harmonic oscillator, with a characteristic decay time of about one week equal to he period of the oscillations.
11. "The concept that emerges here is that the organization of traders in financial markets leads intrinsically to systemic instabilities, which probably result in a very robust way from the fundamental nature of human beings." "The global behavior of the market, with its log-periodic structures that emerge as a result of the cooperative behavior of traders, is reminiscent of the process of the emergence of intelligent behavior at a macroscopic scale that individuals at the microscopic scale cannot perceive."
12. It is estimated that the 25 companies that make up one-third of S&P500 index of market capitalization earn roughly half of their income from non-US sources. Oct 1987, to carry the bull-run, the market need to sustain corporate earnings, if not the cycle of rising prices would wither, concern over earnings may have been the straw that broke the camels back.
13. Bubble pathology: a. The bubble starts smoothly with some increasing production and sales or demand for some commodity in an otherwise relatively optimistic market. B. The attraction in investments with good potential gains leads to increasing investment with leverage coming from international investors. Price appreciation occurs. C. This in turn attracts less sophisticated investors, leveraging is further developed which leads to the demand for stock rising faster than the rate at which real money is put into the market. (earnings) D. At this stage, the behavior of the market becomes weakly coupled or practically uncoupled from real wealth. E. As price skyrockets, the number of speculative investors decreases and a period of nervousness starts until a point when the instability is revealed and the market collapses.
14.Pollution: Life expectancy, which the best overall index of the pollution level, has improved markedly as the world population has grown. Food: There is compelling reason to believe that human nutrition will continue to improve into the infinite future. Land: The amount of agricultural land has increased substantially, and is likely to continue to increase where needed. Natural Resources: Natural resources will progressively become less costly, hence less scarce, and will constitute a small proportion of our expense in the future. Energy: The long-term impact of more people is likely to speed the development of cheap energy supplies that are almost inexhaustible. Standard of Living: per capita income is likely to be higher with a growing population than with a stationary one. Human fertility: the contention that poor breed without constraint is wrong. Population growth: Even though the population for the world is increasing, the density of population on most of the world's surface will decrease.
15. Parabolic Trend to get the (a,b,c coefficients of the Log peridocity function)
a. Create a Price Y column and input a range of prices then sum the prices into a variable called SumY
b. Create a time interval called X representing a numeric value. For example (1..n) and sum these values with the label SumX
c. Count the number of price values and store in a variable called n
d. Xmean=X/n
e. Create a column labeled x where x=X-Xmean values
f. Create a column labeled x^2 where x^2=x*x and sum values into a variable SumX^2
g. Create a column labeled x^4 where x^4=x*x*x*x and sum values into a variable SumX^4
h. Create a column labeled x times Y=x*Y and sum values into a variable Sumx_times_SumY
i. Create a column labeled x^2_times_Y=x*x*Y and sum into a variable Sum_x^2_times_Y
j. Solve for coefficients a,b,c where
Equation 1: SumY=a*n+c*Sumx^2
And
Equation 2: Sumx^2*SumY=a*Sumx^2+c*Sumx^4
And
Equation 3: b=Sumx_times_Y/Sumx^2
k. Solve for c using substitution of values into Equation 1 and Equation 2. Here's how. Multiple equation 1 by sumx^2-1, canceling the a coefficient and solving the c coefficient value.
l. Substitute the c coefficient value into equation 1 and solve for the a coefficient value
m. Substitute values for Sumx_timesY and Sumx^2 into Equation 3 and solve for the b coeffient.
n. Plot the curve using the Y and x columns and a new column called Yprime where Yprime=a+b*x+c*x^2
Very convincing.......2007-07-07
Buy low and sell high: In trading stocks this cliché is obvious, but its ramifications can be extremely painful for all those involved, as well as many who are not, especially when a large collection of traders act in concert and engage in massive sell-offs. Financial bubbles, stock market crashes, and out-of-control speculation have been the subject of countless books and research papers and dozens of Hollywood movies, and mathematicians, economists, systems analysts, and financial engineers have spent thousands of hours of time attempting to understand and predict financial meltdowns, all with varying degrees of success. Some of these researchers have argued that it is the large-scale, collective properties of the financial markets that must be understood if stock market crashes are to be predicted or at least anticipated quantitatively.
The author of this book, a geophysicist by training, is one of these and has taken the "buy low-sell high" strategy and some straightforward mathematical constructions to give an interesting and plausible explanation of why stock markets crash. Intuitively, traders synchronously try to buy low and sell high, and a "herding effect" results in a rapid sell-off that results in a market crash. This behavior is analogous to what one observes in physical systems that are close to a `critical point', where they can undergo `phase transitions' and their behavior as they near the critical point has been shown to be "universal" in the sense that quantities called `scaling exponents' can be calculated explicitly and measure the "universality" of the systems near the critical point.
Naturally the stock market crashes of 1929 and 1987 are ones that that will stand out in every reader's mind and ones that must be test examples for the author's assertions. He discusses these two examples and many others in enough detail that a convincing case is made. The techniques he uses however are out of the mainstream of econometrics, and no doubt some in this mainstream will there be highly skeptical of his conclusions. The physicist-turned-financial engineer however will be delighted, as there will be many familiar concepts and constructions throughout the book. There may be a few new ones to such a reader however, such as `algorithmic complexity' and `computationally irreducible'. The clarity of the author's writing and the many real-world examples that he employs makes the assimilation of these concepts and others much more palatable than would be the case in a standard mathematical monograph on the subject. In addition, the techniques he uses can be applied to areas of finance that are not discussed in the book, such as the mortgage "antibubble" in net credit losses for second-lien (HELOC) loans that began in the second quarter of 2006. And with respect to applications, the author is honest enough to note that he refrains from discussing many of them in detail since his involvement in them is strictly proprietary. Most refreshingly, charts, graphs, and tables appear throughout the book, as would be necessary in the validation of any algorithm or predictor in financial theory.
There are also many interesting "toy models" in the book that enhance the didactic quality. One of these concerns the dependences that can occur in successive price variations. The author constructs a model where there is zero correlation but where one can predict the current price variation with an accuracy of over 50% by only knowing the variations in the past two days. This example serves as a good counter to the idea that the frequency distribution and two-point correlation function must always be non-zero in order to obtain successful prediction. The author goes on to use this example to show how "drawdowns", rather than the correlation structure, play the predominant role in measuring price changes. This example, among others, also illustrates the author's belief that the "standard" models in the financial industry have great difficulty in dealing with large financial crashes.
Although the author uses somewhat elementary mathematics in the book, its implications are profound. One will find for example discussions of log-periodic oscillations in hierarchical systems, the renormalization group, and complex fractal dimension. Central to the author's case is the concept of discrete scale invariance, which is a specialization of the continuous case, and which is manifested in real data by log-periodic oscillations. These should be viewed as corrections to simple power law scaling. The author discusses a few natural systems that exhibit log-periodicity, such as bats and dolphins, and in evolutionary biology. He also discusses other examples in mathematics such as the Newcomb-Benford law. Pre-crash stock market data is fitted to expressions that have log-periodic corrections to a pure power law and the validity of the fits discussed in great detail. The author's arguments are powerful and convincing, and the formalism that he outlines needs to be part of every financial analyst's toolbox.
why this stock market book should crash.......2006-11-09
After reading the book, I still didn't know why stock markets crash other than it's a greater than 3-sigma event. However, one doesn't need this book to find that out. Just a quick glance at any major stock market indices for the last 100 years indicates that crashes occur only rarely. But more to the point, how does one use any of the data presented by the author to develop a safer strategy for investing in the market? The author never once definitively enumerated the specific "a priori" signs, indications, or patterns indicative of an impending crash.
While the author presents diverse data and arguments as to why stock markets have crashed in the past, she never assembles them into an integrated and cohesive postulate as to why they really do. Nor does she take the data and extract information for predicting future trends. This book was written too early in the developmental cycle of any unified theory purporting to quantify any stock market behavior. Once I finished the book, I had this nagging feeling that this book was a "publish or perish" driven event.
If you must spend money on stock market investing, buy a simple and inexpensive book on stock charting or candlesticks or visit a John Murphy internet website. You'll have a better probability of determining a downtrend following a double top or a head and shoulder formation than you will predicting an imminent stock market crash based on any of the disintegrated data discussed in her book. And when all is said and done, who cares about why stock markets crashed? What any reasonable investor wants to know is what the market is going to do tomorrow, next month, next year, and between now and the time one retires. And that trend has always been positive in spite of the rare three-sigma events to the downside.
Worth the effort, but still..........2005-12-21
This is a very interesting book, with some intriguing propositions about the nature of stock market bubbles and crashes, but saying this there also seem to be some fundamental problems with the positions being taken. Perhaps the largest reservation I have with the arguments in this book is that they presume that financial markets are governed by the same kind of invariances as physical phenomena, which is the only way it seems to me that these arguments can be expected to hold. These assumed 'invariances' take the form of "fundamental prices," "efficient markets," and "rational expectations," the proofs for which are by no means established in anything close to the same degree as the Galilean local invariances to which they are being compared. I also found it difficult to determine whether the author does or does not advocate equilibrium theories of markets, which again are highly dubious assumptions in regards to actual markets (especially General Equilibrium assumptions, which have been definitively refuted at least as far back as 1968, with Roy Radner's "Competitive Equilibrium Under Uncertainty"). However, saying all this, the author does present an intriguing analysis of crashes being quantitatively different from the regular activity of stock markets, and he does provide some plausible techniques for perhaps discovering when these differences are present.
Still, for this treatment, as for most treatments purporting to be able to statistically identify trends in as nonstationary an environment as the stock market, the feeling I keep returning to is the same one articulated by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eugene Wigner in his seminal paper "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" in which the question is asked "How do we know that, if we made a theory which focuses its attention on phenomena we disregard and disregards some of the phenomena now commanding our attention, that we could not build another theory which has little in common with the present one but which, nevertheless, explains just as many phenomena as the present theory?" (and this question was being asked in the context of the natural sciences, which as mentioned before are actually subject to local invariances, which are themselves not above suspicion...).
For a more realistic and grounded treatment of physics and finance, I would definitely recommend Dynamics of Markets by Joseph L. McCauley (who is coincidentally another reviewer of Sornette's book), as well as the writings of Giovanni Dosi, who is unique among economists for his emphasis on empirical support and verification of his theories and models. In addition, I would suggest that anyone interested in this book should also read "Comment on recent claims by Sornette and Zhou," which is a disclaimer by Anders Johansen, who was a recent collaborator with Sornette.
Customer Reviews:
BUY!!!.......2001-03-03
In the waning months of the year 1929, the New York Stock Exchange was going strong. Millions of small and large investors poured their life savings into the pool of speculative issues, hoping for a big return on their gamble. On Black Tuesday, October 29th, the dream came to a crashing halt. This is the heart wrenching tale of that fateful day: the giddy years that preceded it, and the miserable decade that followed in it's wake. Sterling drama, with many poignant stories of the principal movers and shakers of Wall Street...before the Bubble burst.
Average customer rating:
- Luminous
- Sea Glass: A Novel
- Boring Boring Boring but in the end, it was okay
- First Timer
- Another great read by Anita Shreve
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Sea Glass: A Novel
Anita Shreve
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ASIN: 0316780812
Release Date: 2002-04-09 |
Amazon.com
From its opening pages, Anita Shreve's Sea Glass surrounds the reader in the surprisingly rich feeling of the New Hampshire coast in winter. Vividly evoking the life of the coastal community at the beginning of the Great Depression, Sea Glass shifts through the multiple points of view of six principal characters; it's a skillfully created story of braided lives that bounces easily (even inevitably) from character to character. We learn how these lives come together following the stock market crash of 1929 and about the struggles of mill workers on the starkly beautiful New Hampshire coast during the following year. At the novel's center is the story of Honora Beecher, a young newlywed who compulsively collects sea glass along the beach as she collects unexpected friendship in her new beachside community, and Francis, a boy who discovers a father figure in the towering character of McDermott, an Irish mill worker, at a time when he most needs direction. Each character finds unexpected new purpose beyond the struggle to survive during that turbulent year among the dunes. First their lives barely touch, then they intersect, and finally they become inextricably bound. By the powerful and unexpected final scenes of the story, every point of view, every brilliant shard of life depends deeply on all the others. It is a very satisfying read--confidently told and deeply felt--with as many subtle colors and reflections as the sea glass that permeates the narrative. --Paul Ford
Book Description
The year is 1929 and Honora Beecher and her husband, Sexton, are just settling into a new marriage and a cottage on the coast of New Hampshire. While Honora fixes up the derelict house and searches for bits of sea glass on the beach, Sexton risks everything they own to buy the house they both love. Along with millions of other Americans, he is blindsided by the stock market crash and finds himself penniless. The only work he can find is in a nearby mill, where a labor conflict is erupting into violence. Shaken by forces they scarcely understand, Honora and Sexton try to build a marriage and a home while overwhelmed by passions of every kind.
Writing with the power and immediacy that have made her novels bestsellers, Shreve unfolds interlocking lives, each with its own share of love, loss, and challenge. This is another gripping and unforgettable story of the human heart from one of the most accomplished novelists of our time.
Download Description
The year is 1929 and Honora Beecher and her husband, Sexton, are just settling into a new marriage and a cottage on the coast of New Hampshire. While Honora fixes up the derelict house and searches for bits of sea glass on the beach, Sexton risks everything they own to buy the house they both love. Along with millions of other Americans, he is blindsided by the stock market crash and finds himself penniless. The only work he can find is in a nearby mill, where a labor conflict is erupting into violence. Shaken by forces they scarcely understand, Honora and Sexton try to build a marriage and a home while overwhelmed by passions of every kind. Writing with the power and immediacy that have made her novels bestsellers, Shreve unfolds interlocking lives, each with its own share of love, loss, and challenge. This is another gripping and unforgettable story of the human heart from one of the most accomplished novelists of our time.
Customer Reviews:
Luminous.......2007-09-09
When I started reading "Sea Glass," I almost stopped.
The first pages are exceedingly flat. Flat declarative sentences, describing ordinary things in ordinary language.
But Shreve's method is sly. She builds her strokes like a painter (nothing is more boring than watching a painter beginning to paint), then, click, the picture comes into place.
Her picture is brilliant.
She portrays a house by the sea, just before the Crash of 1929--rural New Hampshire. She enters the minds of her characters one by one.
Her feeling for character is acute.
Each short chapter is told from the point of view of an individual character--Honora, the newlywed, discovering a new world, her husband whom she hardly knows, the people around her, and of course herself. All this discovery is symbolized by the sea glass she finds washed up on the beach--opaque, translucent, glittering, multicolored, soft-edged with history yet mysterious.
Then there is McDermott, the partly deaf millhand, who takes care of the waif Alphonse--a child, but laboring in the spinning mills--and they run into Honora in, of all places, an airport (a rudimentary thing, in 1929).
And Vivian, the rich, bored, flashy but very smart heiress, who, suddenly confronted with the desperate harshness of the Crash and the Depression, quickly pitches in and figures out what to do.
Even Sexton, Honora's undependable husband, is treated with marvelous sympathy.
And around all these wonderfully observed points of consciousness, there is the epic, slow catastrophe of the Crash and the Depression.
In its way, "Sea Glass" is as harrowing and enormous as "The Grapes of Wrath."
Through it all, Shreve manages to retain the quiet (and the loneliness) of awareness--that sense of time-out-of-time that a beach always provides.
A brilliant, luminous book, almost more real than reality.
Sea Glass: A Novel.......2007-07-21
I would actually give this book more than 5 stars if possible! It was great-the characters were very deep-it required a lot of thinking afterwards-I would love a sequel to find out what happened next.
Boring Boring Boring but in the end, it was okay.......2007-07-12
The best thing I can say about this book is that the chapters are very short and that is what gets you through this unbelievably boring story. I wanted to love this book and the characters but their stories and interactions were terribly dull. After I put the book down, I would ask myself why am I torturing myself!
The story is mainly about one woman who gets married to someone she hardly knows. The woman collects sea glass along the shore, hence the title. Set in New England in the late 1920's, this woman meets and becomes involved with a cast of characters who all live in the same town, but all come from different points of view. In the end their lives are intertwined in a very stirring way, which is the other only positive thing I can say about this book -the ending was very dramatic. Something actually does happen in this book to make it worthwhile! The ending was really good, although sad.
I would not recommend this book, but if you are determined to give it a shot, it won't cause you too much pain. This was another book club choice, and 90% of the ladies also hated this book because it was really really boring.
First Timer.......2007-06-06
This is the first book I've read by Anita Shreve. She has a unique style, and I enjoyed this book a lot. I want to read another book by her.
Another great read by Anita Shreve.......2007-05-18
SEA GLASS by Anita Shreve
May 17, 2007
Rating ***** (5 Stars)
SEA GLASS by Anita Shreve takes place in familiar territory. Fans who have read FORTUNE'S ROCKS will recognize the setting, 1920's New England in the fictional town of Ely Falls (near Fortune's Rock). There are even references to some of the characters from that previous book, letting the reader know that this book takes place after the time frame of FORTUNE'S ROCK.
The book opens with 20-year old Honora Beecher, a newlywed, who sets foot at the entrance to her new home, a beach side cottage that needs a lot of work. She and her husband Sexton are renting it. She ponders her new life as a married woman, and flashes back on how the two met.
Other characters are introduced throughout the next few chapters, and at first it will not be obvious how these characters are going to relate to each other. They come from various stations of life. McDermott is a mill worker, and he and his friends are becoming involved with the Unions, and the wages that they feel they deserve. Alphonse is a child who works to help his mother feed their large family. His father is dead. Vivian is a wealthy woman who is vacationing in the beach side town, not too far from Honora and Sexton, and is about to start an affair with her friend Dickey. Alice Willard isn't a physical presence in the book, but appears in the form of letters to her daughter Honora, with her chitchat about the goings on at home.
At the heart of the novel is the stock market crash, and Sexton, who is a traveling salesman, is one of many who loses his job and livelihood. He eventually (by accident) gets a position at the mills, and thus their lives became tangled with the soon-to-be striking mill workers. And McDermott, who had met Honora by coincidence only recently, is now seeing her almost daily, as Sexton has told his new found friends that he has a typewriting and copy machine that will help in their cause. The friendship that develops between McDermott and Honora threatens to become something more, but Honora is devoted and loyal to her new husband, a man she realizes she barely knows.
SEA GLASS is a beautifully written book. I have always enjoyed the way Anita Shreve writes, in an almost gentle prose that suits her books that take place in the early 1900's. She expertly conjures up the ambience of this era. I also admire the way she can bring characters together, writing the book in such a way that keeps the readers guessing as to how these characters will relate to one another. It adds to the suspense of the story, and always helps her books to be fast reads. Her style of writing, changing viewpoints from chapter to chapter, is what I think makes her books unique and appealing. She also does a wonderful job in describing the feelings of the people of that time, the poverty, the desperation that was felt by all, rich and poor alike.
I especially enjoyed reading about the relationship between Honora, the newlywed who seemed at first to be walking in a fog, and Vivian, the seemingly shallow wealthy woman who showed more depth to her personality as the story progressed. SEA GLASS ends in tragedy, as would be expected for a story that takes place after the stock market crash and the start of the Depression. I didn't know what to expect, but I knew the book would end with a bang. As always, this Anita Shreve novel was a joy to read, and I am looking forward to yet another book by her.
Book Description
The first major history of the Crash in over a decade, Rainbow's End tells the story of the stock market collapse in a colorful, swift-moving narrative that blends a vivid portrait of the 1920s with an intensely gripping account of Wall Street's greatest catastrophe. The book offers a vibrant picture of a world full of plungers, powerful bankers, corporate titans, millionaire brokers, and buoyantly optimistic stock market bulls. We meet Sunshine Charley Mitchell, head of the National City Bank, powerful financiers Jack Morgan and Jacob Schiff, Wall Street manipulators such as the legendary Jesse Livermore, and the lavish-living Billy Durant, founder of General Motors. As Klein follows the careers of these men, he shows us how the financial house of cards gradually grew taller, as the irrational exuberance of an earlier age gripped America and convinced us that the market would continue to rise forever. Then, in October 1929, came a "perfect storm"-like convergence of factors that shook Wall Street to its foundations. We relive Black Thursday, when police lined Wall Street, brokers grew hysterical, customers "bellowed like lunatics," and the ticker tape fell hours behind. This is followed by the even worse Bloody Tuesday, when an irrational desire to sell at any price gripped the market and even blue chip stocks plummeted precariously. This compelling history of the Crash--the first to follow the market closely for the two years leading up to the disaster--illuminates a major turning point in our history.
Customer Reviews:
Starts stong, loses pace. A weak entry for the Pivotal Moment Series........2006-12-05
Rainbow's End, by Maury Klein could have been a good book. In fact, it should have been a great historical read about America during the Roaring Twenties, leading up to and precipitating the Crash and the Depression. But Klein falls far short and disappoints with this entry into the "Pivotal Moments in American History" published by the Oxford University Press. This volume seemingly couldn't decide whether to be decidedly research based or, as with others in this series, to be a narrative form "that can be read for pleasure and instruction by anyone with an interest in its subject", according to it editors, David Hackett Fischer and James M. McPherson.
The book's prologue "The Summer of Fun, 1929" is clearly its highlight, certainly a dubious distinction. "In the summer of 1929 much of America was on an artificial high. It was a high born not of drugs but of an illusion that the prosperity and the good times then being enjoyed were made of new miracle ingredients that would last forever." Klein paints a vivid portrait of life in America in his early pages but sadly does not follow along in that form.
Throughout the book the reader cannot help but think that this is more of a reporter giving much more detail than needed, literally day by day of the Dow and the New York Times Index, often in the absolute and without percentages so one gets a relative idea of what was going on. Additionally, and quite strangely, Klein doesn't weave into his writing the many causes of the Crash and also poorly differentiates between the Crash and the Depression. One gets the idea that if he were to take out long and seemingly unrelated passages such as one on Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson and much of the above mentioned ticker tape readings he would have had ample room to discuss not only the causes and effects of the Crash but also would have been able to maintain the narrative style in the beginning of Rainbow's End.
To Klein's credit he does a very good job with the Coolidge and Hoover administrations and in his discussions on the nascent stages of the Federal Reserve. He also drives home the point of a much smaller federal government role in the years prior to FDR and its lack of ability to "rescue" a calamitous market and the resultant depressed economy, "Federal purchase of goods and services totaled about 1.3 percent of GNP and federal construction a tiny 2 percent, hardly enough to serve as a prime stimulant".
Perhaps the saddest part of this writing is that, in its current form, much could be done to improve it. Little to no additional research is needed. Just a rewrite and more color and less droning on and on about redundant economic and market statistics. This book, in its research and obvious talents of its author, fails to make an interesting topic captivating to the reader. Clearly a laggard in this fabulous series.
One of the best books to learn about the market and enjoy it too!.......2006-02-20
I have to admit I am a bit biased since I am interested in the Stock Market and especially the present market's similarity to that of the time referred to in the book. But, it's a lot more than that! It is very well written and though it probably is written for those 11th grade and higher, it is easy to read. It is loaded with real-life history. My wife has already completed it and I am part done. We plan on having our oldest four children read it. The prologue on the 1929 summer seemed to place you right there--even though I never visited New York City itself. My wife mentioned it made the stock market easy to understand especially margins and short selling. I think she also mentioned puts and calls, which is the one area of the stock market I would like more practice with. If you are into history or want to really learn about the market, this is the best place to start. Highly recommended!
Tom from Michigan
Good, but not good enough.......2003-06-27
Klein's retelling of the story of the stock market crash of 1929 is just too little and much too late. Other books, notably Only Yesterday by F.L. Allen for anecdotal material and The Great Crash of 1929 by J. K. Galbraith for analysis, go over the same material and do a better job. Klein's book does have some strong points: wonderful vignettes of some of the people, big and small, who were caught up in the crash; a good analysis of why Herbert Hoover, "the great engineer," couldn't engineer his way out of this one; some interesting anecdotal material I haven't seen anywher else. But all of that could have been done in less than half the space. Nice try, but no cigar.
A colossal event seen through individual's eyes.......2003-05-18
Maury Klein, in his book Rainbow's End: The crash of 1929, has given us a blend of a newer style of historiography with the traditional sense of examining historical events. He has given us a look at the Stock Market Crash of 1929 through the eyes of the people that participated, rather than looking at it strictly from an economic or political historical viewpoint.
Klein starts his book with a description of American society in the 1920's and explains to us why the society of excess and speculation led to the crash moreso than a failing of the general American economy. By dotting the landscape with characters, some familiar and some unfamiliar, Klein gives us a good portrayal of the times.
There is, unfortunately, only a short section of the book that actually deals with the events of the crash itself. This section focuses the days between Black Thursday and Bloody Tuesday, which culminated in a horrific period of losses in the market.
Klein does a good job of staying on task during the sections of the book in explaining the economic factors and the behind-the-scenes actions that took place during these few hectic days. He does not, however, explain the immediate social ramifications (such as the fact that people who lost everything gave up on life) as well as might be expected; he gives this facet of the crash only peripheral coverage.
I would recommend this book to anyone that is looking for a socio-economic history of America during this 1920's. It does a very good job of covering this topic. However, if one is looking for details just on the crash itself and those few terrible days on Wall Street, that reader would be well served to find another book to read.
Wha' Happ'n?.......2002-08-24
"No era ever vanished so suddenly, so completely, as the
twenties." -- -- David Dempsey, _New York Times_, Feb 15, 1970
This is a quick run-through of the Crash, with a little pop-sociology about America in the Twenties. It's eerie, reading quotes from bankers, politicians, and brokers from the months before the Crash, about how the market had become so modernized and shockproof that panics were now impossible. Sounds familiar...
New York Times financial columnist Alexander Noyes is a primary source in this book. It is fascinating, watching these titanic events being filtered daily through this not-stupid man's pen. We've heard more than 70 years of second-guessing about the Crash by now, so it is interesting seeing how it was taken point-blank by analysts at the time.
In Maury Klein's account, the Crash is nobody's fault. Like Stanislaw Lec once said, every snowflake in an avanlanche pleads not guilty. Big brokers ostentatiously placed big orders, hoping to spur rallies. Consortia of financiers struggled to maintain public confidence in the market. President Herbert Hoover-who as a humanitarian first and failed President second was Jimmy Carter in reverse-tried to get Big Business together in a game plan to retrieve the situation. But in a free market, there is no one pulling levers and hauling cables controlling things. There was no one to stop the free market from going into freefall.
Throughout the book are amusing little vignettes, like the man who sat smiling in his broker's office throughout Black Monday. His termagant wife wouldn't be able to nag him about the neighbors doing better in the market than him anymore...
Customer Reviews:
Great slice of historical social perspectives of the 1929 Crash..........2006-01-08
A very good presentation of the social and economic events occurring around the 1929 stock market crash. Klingaman always has an excellent way of organizing various aspects of history during a certain time period. In this book you get a slice of what is occurring in the White House, Hollywood, organized crime and the some of the average person economic happenings. Klingaman presents the before crash event(with all the optimism), what occurs during with all the hopeful speculation, and the afterward follow-up. He highlights the ineffectiveness of Hoover and touches upon the emerging FDR and talks of how Joe Kennedy enjoyed taking others money while people fell poor. This book was a great read about social and economic history of this time. I recommend reading this, along with a "Once in Golconda" by John Brooks.
Excellent Read........2005-12-17
I cant add anything to what the other reviewers report. But the book is well-written, interesting, and holds your attention superbly.
An absorbing reading experience.......2003-05-02
I read this book because I so enjoyed reading the author's 1941: Our Lives in a World on the Edge, which I finished reading 29 Nov 1997. This book is just as good. This is not academic history, but Klingaman weaves from other books and contemporary sources an account of the time from Election Day in 1928 till mid-1930, and does a superlative job. He does not tell what happens in the future but tells the events as they unfold. The only way that the future is involved is in the selection of the events to be related. And he does not discuss only the stock market, but brings in things such as the St. Valentine's Day massacre on Feb 14, 1929, and the events when Hoover was inaugurated--supposedly Hoover and Coolidge as they rode to the Inauguration said not a word to each other! The book is just filled with interesting items of information. One wonders how different it would be written after the bubble burst of 2000-2001. I have read at least two other books on the Crash of 1929 (The Day America Crashed, by Tom Schactman--read 3 July 1979--and The Day the Bubble Burst, by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts--read 25 Mar 2000)and this book is a better book than either of those.
Compelling and a bit scary!.......2003-01-11
Had I read this book 10 years ago (it's now 2003), I would have passed it off as an interesting story and a good account of a time long past. When reading it today, I have to constantly look at the title to remind myself that it is referring to 1929 and not 1999!
Compelling and a bit scary!.......2003-01-11
Had I read this book 10 years ago (it's now 2003), I would have passed it off as an interesting story and a good account of a time long past. When reading it today, I have to constantly look at the title to remind myself that it is referring to 1929 and not 1999!
Average customer rating:
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The Causes of the 1929 Stock Market Crash: A Speculative Orgy or a New Era? (Contributions in Economics and Economic History)
Harold Bierman
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
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Book Description
Attempting to reveal the real causes of the 1929 stock market crash, Bierman refutes the popular belief that wild speculation had excessively driven up stock market prices and resulted in the crash. Although he acknowledges some prices of stocks such as utilities and banks were overprices, reasonable explanations exist for the level and increase of all other securities stock prices. Indeed, if stocks were overpriced in 1929, then they more even more overpriced in the current era of staggering growth in stock prices and investment in securities. The causes of the 1929 crash, Bierman argues, lie in an unfavorable decision by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities coupled with the popular practice known as debt leverage in the 1920s corporate and investment arena. This book extends Bierman's argument in an earlier book, The Great Myths of 1929 and the Lessons to Be Learned (Greenwood, 1991), in which he discussed and refuted seven myths about 1929 but could not explain the crash. He now believes he has a reasonable explanation. He also examines the actions of Charles E. Mitchell and Sam Insull and their subsequent unjust criminal prosecution after the crash of the 1929 stock market.
Book Description
In Kathleen’s Shaken Dreams you will meet a spunky, gifted, eleven-year-old girl who enjoys competition and strives for high achievement. But when “Black Tuesday” comes and the stock market crashes, will Kathleen’s faith be shaken or will she trust God no matter what her circumstances?
Customer Reviews:
is this the right book....?.......2007-02-10
I was looking foward to reading this series because i LOVE the other four girl series books by Mission City Press--Elsie Dinsmore, Millie Keith, Violet Travilla and Laylie Cobert. But this book really disappointed me. It was just like reading an american girl book and really lost my intrest. I expected it to be more like the others since they are in the same series basically. It was easy to tell what was going to happen next, and each chapter seemed like a whole new story, instead of one story and main lesson through the whole book.
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