Book Description
"The Long Tail" is a powerful new force in our economy: the rise of the niche. As the cost of reaching consumers drops dramatically, our markets are shifting from a one-size-fits-all model of mass appeal to one of unlimited variety for unique tastes. From supermarket shelves to advertising agencies, the ability to offer vast choice is changing everything, and causing us to rethink where our markets lie and how to get to them. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it, from DVDs at Netflix to songs on iTunes to advertising on Google. However, this is not just a virtue of online marketplaces; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for business, one that is just beginning to show its power. After a century of obsessing over the few products at the head of the demand curve, the new economics of distribution allow us to turn our focus to the many more products in the tail, which collectively can create a new market as big as the one we already know. The Long Tail is really about the economics of abundance. New efficiencies in distribution, manufacturing, and marketing are essentially resetting the definition of whats commercially viable across the board. If the 20th century was about hits, the 21st will be equally about niches.
Customer Reviews:
Fabulos... indispensable para entender la nueva realidad de internet.......2007-10-08
Este es un libro estructural. Ayuda a comprender la forma en que trabaja la economia a la luz de los avances de internet.
Pero tambien es un placer leerlo, lenguaje claro, ejemplos relevantes. Un lujo.
Good article, stretched out to a padded book.......2007-09-26
This book started off as an article in Wired Magazine, and it was an excellent one. But Anderson must have decided to cash in, because the book doesn't add anything that wasn't covered in the article itself. It's not a complex concept.
Read the article on the Wired website. Then go spend your money on something from a tiny niche market.
One Trick Pony.......2007-09-09
This is one of those books that has one, keen insight and then takes one hundred + pages to say the same thing over and again. The keen point is indeed interesting. It just does not a complete book make. My $.02 !!
Good book for the startup entrepreneur in the 21-century .......2007-08-20
This is an insightful book into the today's world of retail business. Cool examples of how the Internet has leveled the playing field for many small businesses and artist.
Looking at it from the point of view of the producer and not the consumer or the retailer .......2007-08-16
I am not much of a business mind but I think I get the picture here. Instead of twenty percent of the product bringing in eighty percent of the revenue ninety- eight percent of the product is going to bring in all the revenue. Having so much available, and having ready access to it means sales no longer concentrate on a relatively few items. Freedom of choice abounds, niches multiply, Alvin Toffler is happy, future shock is no longer shocking, customization is here forever, and we all can have anything we want as long as we are able to pay for it.
Good. But I think of this in another way. Does this mean that 'value' also will not be centered as we ordinarily center it in the great works, the masterpeices, the few chosen ones? Does it mean our whole conception of valuing cultural goods will change, and a few big things will be less worshipped while many more appreciated? In other words will deTocqueville be happy here because 'equality' is in the saddle and mankind has many little good things, instead of the aristocracy only having a few?
And what does that mean for creators of culture? As a writer can I now happily post my unpublished writings with the thought that perhaps a few will read them, where before none did. In other words a moneyless long- tail is still a long- tail.
I don't know. But I do sense Anderson has hit on to a new truth here which will have all kinds of implications better business people than me will have to see.
Book Description
"Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world." Napoleon's words seem eerily prescient today, as the shock waves from China's awakening reverberate across the globe. In China Shakes the World, the former China bureau chief of the Financial Times, James Kynge, traces these tremors from Beijing to Europe to the Midwest as China's ravenous hunger for jobs, raw materials, energy, and food -- and its export of goods, workers, and investments -- drastically reshape world trade and politics.
Delving beyond mere recitation of by-now-familiar statistics, Kynge's on-the-ground reporting provides alternative explanations for China's explosive transformation, revealing many of the usual reasons given for its growth to be myths. Most important for the future, he details China's deep, systemic weaknesses -- rampant fraud, crippling environmental crises, a corrupt banking system, faltering government institutions, a rapidly aging population -- that threaten even greater global disruptions. And he demonstrates the profound consequences of those weaknesses for American manufacturers, oil companies, banks, and ordinary consumers.
Through dramatic stories of entrepreneurs and visionaries, factory workers and store clerks at the heart of this global phenomenon, China Shakes the World explains how China's breakneck rise occurred, the extraordinary problems the country now faces, and the consequences of both for the twenty-first century.
Customer Reviews:
It is shaking me up now.......2007-10-16
I am Chinese, and of course I am attracted by the title. Finally, China get to shake the world a little too, what an accomplishment. Well, as I read the book, it is making me less and less proud of my motherland. The counterfeit product, the stealing of high-tech information, degradation of environment and the insitutionalized corruption are making my stomach turn. When 1/2 of the population is going at 80 miles an hour in the globalized world, the other half is being left behind by their own country. It makes me wonder, what will happen if the economy slow down in China? What will the people who had already tasted the fast world will do, and what will the ultra-dictatorship of the Ruling Communist party do, and what will the other half of the population that had been left behind do. This is a question worth pondering. Maybe, China is not as rosy as it projected to the rest of the world, and maybe people, or investors should listen to not just the official talking head, but what the people are doing. This is a good read, it will help with my school project too.
An enormous shift in geopolitical power.......2007-10-08
James Kynge analyzes and illustrates brilliantly the emergence of China as a major geopolitical power. He shows that the drastic shift in economic policies under Deng came from rural farmers who used creatively the concept `collective' to found private capitalist companies. The result is now a schizophrenic one party communist State with a capitalist economy. Its social stability can only be maintained with fast economic growth and job creation for its enormous population created by Mao's demographic policy.
The actual industrialization process causes massive population and gender shifts (urbanization resulting in a higher status for women), colossal energy demands (one Italy every year) and huge environmental problems (water, air). In a one party State, corruption and nepotism (with stolen identities) cannot be eradicated and provoke a declining trust in government.
Economically, corporations are mainly concerned with market share, not profits. They continue to (over) produce for the next surge in demand after every dip. They are also beginning to build consumer loyalty by branding their own products.
Internationally, the Chinese voracity created energy and commodities price surges worldwide. The end is not in sight. On the other hand, the bulk of the profits made with China's low cost factory army (no welfare) goes into the pockets of Western retail giants and their shareholders, leaving only 10 to 15 % for their Chinese counterparts. In the meantime, the deindustrialization of the Western world continues with massive job losses in the textile, car, computer and even the service industry.
Overall, however, China's economic development continues to benefit enormously world trade, notwithstanding the regularly surfacing accusations of protectionism, currency manipulation and rampant piracy. Politically, the problem of Taiwan is still not solved.
Mencius''ren' (benevolence) is not a basic ingredient of Chinese foreign policy, but the author believes that ultimately pragmatism and flexibility will have the upper hand.
This book is a must read for all those who want to understand the world we live in.
MBA Mom.......2007-07-15
I am full time Mom and just recently visited Beijing with my 2 young children and husband. As a result of our travels, all the news in the media regarding China, and my own personal experience with respect to my shopping purchase power and selection in the last many year, I was very interested in the "China story." This book is an easy read, and provides a good big picture. It reminds me of the center column in the Wall Street Journal... Too boot, well written, and excellent use of vocabulary.
Mom
Well written, informative book.......2007-06-01
This book is money and time well spent if you're interested in a contemporary survey of China.
Kynge really does an outstanding job with a complex topic. He has a journalist's nose for a story, is well connected in China, and the length of time he lived in the country allows him to really portray his observations in a sophisticated cultural and historical context. He nicely weaves in statistics and facts throughout the book without distracting from the narrative.
A Journalist's Eye.......2007-05-24
I've loved the lyrical quality of this book. It looks at the many problems facing China from the ground up and individual journalist's eyes. For a big picture view that is based more on economic analysis, see my own book: The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won
Book Description
The new paradigm for investing and building wealth in the twenty-first century. The Future for Investors reveals new strategies that take advantage of the dramatic changes and opportunities that will appear in world markets.
Jeremy Siegel, one of the world’s top investing experts, has taken a long, hard, and in-depth look at the market and the stocks that investors should acquire to build long-term wealth. His surprising finding is that the new technologies, expanding industries, and fast-growing countries that stockholders relentlessly seek in the market often lead to poor returns. In fact, growth itself can be an investment trap, luring investors into overpriced stocks and overly competitive industries.
The Future for Investors shatters conventional wisdom and provides a framework for picking stocks that will be long-term winners. While technological innovation spurs economic growth, it has not been kind to investors. Instead, companies that have marketed tried-and-true products for decades in slow-growth or even declining industries have superior returns to firms that develop “the bold and the new.” Industry sectors many regard as dinosaurs—railroads and oil companies, for example—have actually beat the market.
Professor Siegel presents these strategies within the context of the coming shift in global economic power and the demographic age wave that will sweep the United States, Europe, and Japan. Contrary to the popular belief that these economic and demographic trends doom investors to poor returns, Professor Siegel explains the True New Economy and how to take advantage of the coming surge in invention, discovery, and economic growth.
The faster the world changes, the more important it is for investors to heed the lessons of the past and find the tried-and-true companies that can help you beat the market and prosper in the years ahead.
Customer Reviews:
Very Good.......2007-10-21
This is a very good book. Highly recommended and well worth the time. It is normally tough to decide among the many competing books which one to read. As usually time available is the limiting factor. The author explains some very importants concepts to value investing with simplicity. At times it appears that the Author may be going too far to prove how he sounded the warning bells before the 2000 market crash, but overall I really enjoyed reading the book and had many take aways.
dividends resurface.......2007-01-27
The professor touts stocks and funds that feature dividends.Up until 1958 dividend income on stocks exceeded the interest income on long term bonds. For this reason it is difficult to assume that the good professors recommendation to go for dividend income is a prudent strategy when his data is biased by a condition that does not exist in today's market. I would prefer to use index funds that provide excellent diversification and insure that you are being compensated for the risks taken. To explore this strategy I can recommend a book titled How to Make Money in the Stock Market Buy 2500 different stocks Pay no commission. It takes off where this book ends.
Investing does not take a lot of work, in fact, the more you read of the wrong material of which there is an abundant supply, the more you will trade, and the less you will make in the market.
Active buying and selling of stocks by individuals will only run up brokerage commissions and waste your time and money. Turning your money over to a professionally managed mutual fund is even worse because of the fees you are required to pay well compensated `experts' to waste their time. This book shows you how to invest using index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.
This book can be read and understood in 45 minutes to an hour.
The author follows the strategy promoted here. His portfolio contains over 8,200 different stocks and bonds all through index mutual funds and exchange traded funds. How to Make Money in the Stock Market-Buy 2,500 Different Stocks-Pay no Commission
Classic Siegel.......2007-01-17
For those who have read "Stocks for the Long Run", this is right up that same alley in terms of style and no-frills content, after all, it is written by a researcher. However, this is a great book with lots of wisdom to digest. Siegel discusses the "growth trap", a very counterintuitive point that everyone should be aware of....it alone makes the book worth reading. If you are a serious investor/advisor it is a must read. I would caution those who would take this book and start trying to manage a portfolio of all high dividend paying stocks...Siegel's conclusions are insightful, but the right application of them is still critical. See other reviews.
Fantastic.......2007-01-09
One of the most important books on investing that I have ever read. Based in fact, backed up with decades of research, this is a must read.
Good Book, Has Some Holes.......2006-09-19
The Future for Investors has some really great points - the main one being that the compounding power of reinvested dividends should be a significant consideration in stock selection. I agree with this approach, and Siegel makes some persuasive arguments that it provides higher returns and less volitility than other approaches.
However, I agree with some of the criticisms of the book as well:
1) Siegel does not address the tax impact on dividends. His research uses 1957 as a starting point. While our current dividend tax rate is 15% at the federal level, during most of the period from 1957 the rate was higher (sometimes the same as the income rate). During these times, the reinvested amount of the dividend would have only been about 60-70% of the total. Thus, returns would have been lower. (Some people have said that this would only make a marginal difference - maybe so, but it might have changed his argument in comparing Standard Oil to IBM as well as the small advantages he pointed out in some of his stock recomendations. A 1% per annum difference over a multi-decade period amounts to serious money).
2) Siegel cites Altria as the best performing stock during this period. I won't disagree with the conclusion, but I will point out that going for high dividends and reinvesting them works well only when the company survives. What if Beth Steel had been your choice rather than Altria? You would have received lots of dividends and reinvested them, but the ultimate outcome would have been a disaster. The point is that reinvesting dividends works especially well when the reinvestment happens during a difficult time for the stock AND (most importantly) the stock MUST recover from those difficult times. This is not generally the case, but it was with Altria.
3) Siegel's idea that the developed world will sell assets (stocks, bonds, etc) to the developing world to fund the huge retirement wave is full of problems. While the strategy will work to maintain the standard of living of the baby boomers, it will also permanently ruin the future for all subsequent generations of Americans. If you sell the assets (companies) that create your wealth in order to live a comfortable retirement (read consumption), you are giving away your ability to earn in the future. This is something Warren Buffett has been warning us about for a few years now. You cannot indefinitely fund consumption with income producing assets. When you decrease your income producing assets by selling for consumption, you increase your current standard of living at the expense of your future standard of living.
Criticisms aside, this is still a thought provoking book that is well written. Ironically, even though I think there are some questions about many parts of the book, I generally agree with the ultimate types of investments that Siegel recommends - just for different reasons.
Average customer rating:
- A solid introduction to Biotech from a business perspective
- Extrememly lucid, well thought out analysis
- Not what I expected
- Science Business: the promise, the reality and the Future of Biotech
- Important background
|
Science Business: The Promise, the Reality, and the Future of Biotech
Gary P. Pisano
Manufacturer: Harvard Business School Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1591398401 |
Book Description
Why has the biotechnology industry failed to perform up to expectations—despite all its promise? In Science Business, Gary P. Pisano answers this question by providing an incisive critique of the industry. Pisano not only reveals the underlying causes of biotech’s problems; he offers the most sophisticated analysis yet on how the industry works. And he provides clear prescriptions for companies, investors, and policymakers seeking ways to improve the industry’s performance.
According to Pisano, the biotech industry’s problems stem from its special character as a science-based business. This character poses three unique business challenges: 1) how to finance highly risky investments under profound uncertainty and long time horizons for R&D, 2) how to learn rapidly enough to keep pace with advances in drug science knowledge, and 3) how to integrate capabilities across a broad spectrum of scientific and technological knowledge bases.
The key to fixing the industry? Business models, organizational structures, and financing arrangements that place greater emphasis on integration and long-term learning over shorter-term “monetization” of intellectual property. Pisano maintains that all industry players—biotech firms, investors, universities, pharmaceutical companies, government regulators—can play a role in righting the industry. The payoff? Valuable improvements in health care, and a shinier future for human well-being.
Customer Reviews:
A solid introduction to Biotech from a business perspective.......2007-07-26
I found this book to be well-researched, current, and insightful. If you're at all interested in the biotech business, especially in starting a company or investing, read this book first. Pisano's narrative really helps one understand the foundations of the biotech industry, and sheds some light on what does, and doesn't, work within that industry. The fact that it's off the Harvard Business School Press gives it additional credibility, which is well deserved. A wealth of references, as well as a listing of the companies listed in the study, give the reader both a sense of the research that went into the book and a start on the search for more resources on the subject.
Extrememly lucid, well thought out analysis.......2007-05-17
For my money, most business school professors write with a detached, dry atmosphere about business topics.
Not Gary Pisano!
He has a strong point of view that the ecosystem for biotech is not working well. His observations about why are right to the point and convincing.
His prescriptions are well worth considering.
If you're new to biotech, this is a great book to start out with. I would then proceed to Building Biotechnology, which is also a fine book.
Not what I expected.......2007-05-02
I don't know what I expected from this book, except for some new insights on how to invest in the biotech industry. I was extremely disappointed to find a whiney critique of biotech companies that take enormous risks in discovering new life-saving or life-improving chemicals, and oftentimes crash and burn in the process. Well, that's capitalism, for ya'! Would the author prefer a centrally run system in which lazy bureaucrats barely advance scientific discovery? It all comes back to risk and reward. This book is the updated version of complaints about Silicon Valley, and the dot-com bust. OK, the technology business may not be profitable as a whole, but the efforts of millions of people in the pursuit of the big payoff has created great advances and has improved lives in making people more efficient, more educated, and less carbon-intensive.
Science Business: the promise, the reality and the Future of Biotech.......2007-03-15
While many of us in the biotech industry are aware of products, companies and issues, this invaluable book is not only a great resource but an important guide and should be recommended reading for all biotech industry executives as well as investors.
Important background.......2007-03-13
This book is an excellent example of applied academic research. Pisano and his Harvard team have dug deep into the economics of biotech. What he describes is an industry that is not performing as expected, and he points to some possible reasons for this. Perhaps my favorite single sentence in the book is, "Deals alone can never create value." A more speculative statement from the same paragraph is: "As a percentage of the total workforce, biotech may have more people involved in business development than any other industry (almost certainly the highest per dollar of revenue)." Why? Well, that should be the subject of another book.
Highly recommended to those digging into biotech issues; not at all for those who want a quick-fix-read to tell them what to think. That's a compliment, but does point up that the audience for this is limited.
Average customer rating:
- An almost complete history
- Great background for understanding the Internet age.
|
Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western Electric
Stephen B. Adams , and
Orville R. Butler
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0521651182 |
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Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western Electric is the first full-length history of the Western Electric Company, the manufacturing arm of the Bell System. As a manufacturer in the communications revolutions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Western Electric made new products such as telegraphs, telephones, an early computing machine, radios, radar, and transistors. The book demonstrates, through Western's 1882 acquisition by Bell Telephone, that vertical integration was a lengthy process rather than a single event. It also shows the coming of age of industrial psychology and describes the advent of civil rights in corporate America.
Customer Reviews:
An almost complete history.......2007-06-27
Now that Lucent Technologies is gone, swallowed up by the French Telecom giant, this history of Western Electric could be completed. For now, we'll have to do with this comprehensive edition written when Lucent Technologies still had an apparently bright future. What becomes clear is that Lucent's downfall stems from a series of decisions beginning nearly a century earlier in which the manufacturing unit's interests always took second place to those of the Bell operating companies and AT&T.
On the downside, it's a bit of an "official" history from the point of view of the corporate higher-ups. It would have been interesting to contrast their veiw with those of the regular employees. Still, it's probably the best available history of this important institution.
Great background for understanding the Internet age........1999-10-06
I'm actually an analyst of the telecom industry, so I come to this with a special interest. Nonetheless, I would highly recommend the book for those interested in some real foundations to understand the communications revolution. (and not just sound-byte Internet history). It's a pity that the name Lucent Technologies isn't in the title, because that's the real subject of the book. It's a history of Western Electric, which after a 120 year "pit stop" at AT&T ultimately spun out to become Lucent. The best part is the early chapters where we learn about the competition between the telegraph and Bell's telephone, the coalescing of local telephone companies under Bell's leadership, and ultimately the emergence of AT&T (with Western Electric)as the "Bell System" that most of us grew up with. Don't be put off by the fact that Lucent commissioned the book. It's a throughly documented, balanced, and obviously professional undertaking.
Average customer rating:
- Has history been tampered with?
- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
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History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
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History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
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They Cast No Shadows: A Collection of Essays on the Illuminati, Revisionist History, and Suppressed Technologies
ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Has history been tampered with?.......2007-10-23
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RAZQNMXM4M9CL Has history been tampered with? Yes, it has! Did events and eras such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Roman Empire , the Dark Ages, and the Renaissance, actually occur within a very different chronology from what we've been told? Yes, they certainly did!
The history of humankind is both drastically shorter and dramatically different than generally presumed.
Why is it so? On one hand, it was usual custom to justify the claims to title and land by age and ancestry, and on the other the court historians knew only too well how to please their masters. The so called universal classic world history is a pack of intricate lies for all events prior to the 16th century. World history as we learn it today was entirely fabricated in the 16th-18th centuries. It's likely that nobody told you before, but
there is not a single piece of firm written evidence or artefact that is reliably and independently dated prior to the 11th century.
Naturally, after what you've learned in school and university, you will not easily believe that the classical history of ancient Rome, Greece, Asia, Egypt, China, Japan, India, etc., is manifestly false.
You will point accusing finger to the pyramids in Egypt, to the Coliseum in Rome and Great Wall of China etc., and claim, aren't they really ancient, thousands of years ancient? Well, there is no valid scientific proof that they are older than 1000 years!
The oldest original written document that can be reliably dated belongs to the 11th century!
New research asserts that Homo sapiens invented writing (including hieroglyphics) only 1000 years ago. Once invented, writing skills were immediately and irreversibly put to the use of ruling powers and science.
The consensual chronology we live with was essentially crafted in the 16th century by the Jesuits.
The world history was compiled from contradictory mix of innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts and other irrefutable proofs delivered by late mediaeval astronomers that were cemented by the authority of writings of the Church Fathers.
Early in life, we learn about ancient history. Children love the magical lessons of history - they are like fairy tales. Teachers recite breathtaking stories; very soon We learn by heart the names and deeds of brave warriors, wise philosophers, fabulous pharaohs, cunning high priests and greedy scribes.
We learn of gigantic pyramids and sinister castles, kings and queens, dukes and barons, powerful heroes and beautiful ladies, emaciated saints and low-life traitors.
Ancient history is based documents, manuscripts, printed books, paintings, monuments and artefacts - called primary sources.
The problem is that neither these ancient documents, nor events described therein can be irrefutably dated, moreover they contradict each other for the most part.
When a school textbook tells us that Genghis Khan in year X or Alexander in year Y, have each conquered half of the world, it means only that it is so said in some of the written sources.
There are no answers to simple questions:
When were these primary sources written?
Where and by whom were these sources found?
It is wrongly presumed that ancient and medieval chronicles, written by Genghis Khan's or Alexander the Great contemporaries and eyewitnesses, are readily available. Actually, only sources written hundreds or even thousands of years after the events are there, compiled mostly in the 16th 18th centuries, or even later.
As a rule, these sources suffered considerable multiple manipulations, falsifications and distortions by editing. At the same time,
innumerable originals of ancient documents under various pretexts were destroyed in Europe under various pretexts.
The names of persons and geographical sites often changed meaning and location during the course of the centuries.
Geographical locations became clearly defined on maps only with the advent of printing.
This made possible the circulation of identical copies of the same map for purposes of the military, navigation, education and governance tasks.
Historians from Oxford say: "hey, everybody knows that Julius Caesar lived in the first century B.C.
`Julius Caesar' statement is only a point of view as
there is simply no irrefutable documentary proof that Julius Caesar or any other great name of antiquity ever existed.
Better than that - extremely rare sources that can be reliably dated back to the 10th-14th centuries A D, do not show the polished picture of classical history.
They show a picture both contradictory and confusing.
All methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts are erroneous:
Radio-carbon C14 method produces dating with exactitude of plus minus 1500 years, therefore it is too crude for dating of events in historical timeframe!
The Almagest tractate, which lies as corner stone contemporary chronology, compiled in the 2nd century A D by Ptolemy, the founding father of astronomy, contains astronomical data of 9th to 16th century!
The Bronze Age,that has supposedly began 5000 years ago. Bronze is made of 90% copper and 10% tin, but the technology for tin extraction dates back to 14th century A D!.
All eclipses contained in manuscripts, like Thucydides one, relating 'ancient' events have exclusively medieval dating. All horoscopes cut in stone or painted in Egyptian temples, like Dendera have exclusively early medieval dating solutions.
Not quite what you have learned in school? Open your eyes, and, you will find sufficient proof to reach step by step the inevitable conclusion that the classical chronology is false and therefore, that the history of ancient and medieval world universally accepted today, is also false. Have a fresh outlook on everything said or printed about "ancient" and "enigmatic" Roman, Greek and Egyptian, medieval as well as all other "lost and found" civilizations.
Antiquity and Dark Ages are phantoms invented in the 16th 18th and polished in 19th 20thcenturies. Human civilization is in fact barely 1000 years old!
This book will change your perception of History forever!
What if Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt were invented during Renaissance?
What if The Old Testament was a rendition of events of the Middle Ages?
What if Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086 AD?
Sounds Unbelievable?
Not after you've read "History: Fiction or Science?" by Anatoly Fomenko, the genius mathematician.
Armed with astronomy and computers Anatoly Fomenko turns History into a rocket science.
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
Customer Reviews:
Capture the art of scenario planning in hours .......2006-02-23
Scenario thinking is not science but an "art," which is a disciplined way of foreseeing alternative futures and difficult decisions in this complex and uncertain world. This popular book written by Peter Schwartz, a renowned futurist and business strategist, aims to help readers learn the art and methodology of scenario planning. Scenario is defined as "a tool for ordering one's perceptions about alternative future environments in which one's decisions might be played out (Schwartz, 1996, p.4)." The purpose of scenario building is not a clear picture of tomorrow, but sound decisions about the future. Its method that uses individuals as a filter to study the evolution of the future is able to let individuals, organizations or countries reduce the unpredictability and act with a knowledgeable sense of risk and reward.
Perceiving future in the present, scenario builders write stories that give meaning to multifaceted and complicated events. The storytelling of scenarios is based on both facts and imagination. On the one hand, since scenarios are not fictions, their production process involves rigorous research and skilled information hunting and gathering. For instance, Schwartz encourages scenario researchers to look at "fringes" because new knowledge usually originates there. On the other hand, imagination is the vital ingredient to forecast alternative futures with reasonable gallantry. Writing scenarios, researchers attempt to influence perceptions inside the heads of decision makers and further change their attitudes and/or behaviors toward future.
The key contribution of this book is clearly elaborating the process and method about scenario building. According to Schwartz, the building blocks of scenario creation encompass driving forces (society, technology, economic, politics, environment), predetermined elements (i.e. slow-changing phenomena, inevitable collisions, demographics), and critical uncertainty. There are eight steps to build a scenario: 1) identifying focal issue or decision; 2) listing key forces in the local environment; 3) listing the macro-environment and micro-environment driving forces; 4) ranking key forces and driving trends by importance and uncertainty; 5) deciding the axes to select scenario logics and plots; 6) fleshing out the scenarios; 7) looking at implications; and 8) selecting leading indicators and signposts. Besides, scenario planners have to avoid assigning probabilities to different scenarios, to name scenarios cleverly, and to establish an open-minded and participatory scenario development team.
A good scenario has to be simple, plausible and surprising. The intriguing scenarios that Schwartz uses in this book are not only corporations in western countries, like Royal Dutch/Shell, but also various cases in Asia and Europe. He suggests readers explore two to three alternative scenarios at one time and avoid single prediction. The most common types of scenarios addressed here are: 1) more of the same, but better; 2) worse (decay and depression); and 3) different but better (fundamental change). In later chapter, he provides three scenarios (new empires, market world, and change without progress) as examples to demonstrate how to write scenarios of forecasting about the world in 2005. Although, in reality, it is impossible to know which scenario will take place, the preparation for three let people rehearse the future and look for hints to recognize which drama is unfolding. Accordingly, individuals, organizations, or countries can avoid unpleasant surprises and know how to react to the uncertain happenings shortly.
In sum, "An Art of a Long View" is a reader-friendly book that allows novices to quickly grasp the gist of scenario writing. It concretely depicts the scenario art and the methods to mimic its practices. By reading this book, I obtain the "freedom" to create scenarios for alternative futures, to recognize the unfolding events, and hopefully respond to the unpredictable guardedly. It is valuable to learn scenario planning as it can be extensively used for forecasting futures at micro-level (i.e. individuals, family, community) and at macro-level (i.e. organization, society, nation, globe). Although not everyone is gifted in mastering the art of scenario creation, this great book opens a door for those who are willing to absorb its fundamental principals and polish their skills by practicing. Thus, I highly recommend it!
Pleasant, provacative, and easily read........2005-02-18
There should be only two criteria for the quality of a book: whether it provokes thought, and how easy it is to read. The Art of the Long View is both an easy read, and provocative. It coerces, challenges, and invites you to examine your own perceptual barriers to envisioning the future. It provides a slew of anecdotes, stories, and scenarios that illustrate approaches to future studies, and each person's inherent connection to the field. Finally, it can be thoroughly read in one or two days.
Every human has an innate desire, and skill, at perceiving the future. This pervasive theme is brought up continually, every instance highlighting ways in which the people of the world are often caught unawares of future that, while adjacent to us, we blind ourselves from. Interspersed among Schwartz's easy, conversational style are hard and fast pointers that will probably help even the more detail-oriented readers to figure out what the author is talking about when he talks about the "long view". Additionally, Schwartz discusses ways in which we can increase our capacity to open our perceptions. Some people are born to be brilliant forecasters, but everyone can learn, he contends.
Pragmatic creativity is perhaps the keystone to the long view, with a curiously settling notion that this optimism is central to any successful person, if not forecaster or businessman. The development of this creativity is perhaps one of the other things I found particularly exciting in Long View. When we increase the diversity of our knowledge, we can learn to develop these scenarios that encourage the decisive, robust action that Schwartz seems to genuinely feel will make our world a better place. His notions of optimistic future scenario preparedness, as well as my own enjoyable experience with this book, prompt me to recommend it without reservation.
Denial is the first step.......2004-12-24
A very good friend of mine recommended this book to me, as Schwartz's technique on scenario planning became the backbone of his research topic in urban planning. I was very eager to see what Schwartz had to say about his livelihood.
There are complaints about his examples being outdated. I think they serve the point of illustration. The three thing that are critical, as Schwartz pointed out, are
1) Denial - which drives even the biggest companies to the ground,
2) Strategic conversation - think of it as those "business" meetings that in Godfather (with less blood), and
3) Technological trends - this one is self-explanatory.
The deatils for each area, I will let you find out.
Incidentally, I read Schwartz's "Inevitasble Surprises" before reading this book, so this is contrary to the chronlogical order of publication. Nevertheless, they complement each other, and should be read concurrently.
What a great book?.......2004-02-16
You have to buy The Art of the Long View. I don't know how to explain how great the book is. Don't hesitate to grap one
Open Your Brain and Reperceive the World.......2004-02-16
This book will help you to learn the scenario planning process. At the beginning, the author presents a short but insightful example how scenario playing an important role for starting up a gardening tool company. The author also shares an "information hunting and gathering process" which tell you where to get some helpful data. Various factors influencing the futures are also discussed (including socials, politics, economic, technologies, and environment). In addition, at the end of the book, the author provides a user's guide (eight steps of how to hold a strategic conversation) and eight steps to develop scenarios which I found very useful. The book enables us to use scenario planning as a tool to deal with uncertain futures. Scenarios help us to awake and "reperceive" others possible and impossible alternative futures including both short and long term. The author also believes that a good scenario leads you to ask better questions. The point of scenario-planning is "to help us suspend our disbelieve in all the futures: to allow us to think that any on of them might place. Then, we can prepare for what we DO NOT think is going to happen." (p.195)
However, one annoying thing in this book is that the author keeps referring to chapters (e.g. look in chapter 7) but physically, there are just no chapters number indicated in the book. There are just short titles in the table of content and at the beginning of each chapter. You have to go back and forth between the TOC and chapters to to see which one is actually being referred. However, I consider this is a minor issue comparing to what you will learn from this book.
You may find this book useful if you are preparing for your strategic plans, making decisions having critical impacts to your firm or your personal life, or even you are just an ordinary reader, this book will open your mind to a new level of critical thinking and imagination about unfolding futures. Highly recommend.
Amazon.com
Winning in business today is not about being number one--it's about who "gets to the future first," write management consultants Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad. In Competing for the Future, they urge companies to create their own futures, envision new markets, and reinvent themselves.
Hamel and Prahalad caution that complacent managers who get too comfortable in doing things the way they've always done will see their companies fall behind. For instance, the authors consider the battle between IBM and Apple in the 1970s. Entrenched as the leading mainframe-computer maker, IBM failed to see the potential market for personal computers. That left the door wide open for Apple, which envisioned a computer for every man, woman, and child. The authors write, "At worst, laggards follow the path of greatest familiarity. Challengers, on the other hand, follow the path of greatest opportunity, wherever it leads." They argue that business leaders need to be more than "maintenance engineers," worrying only about budget cutting, streamlining, re-engineering, and other old tactics. Definitely not for dilettantes, Competing for the Future is for managers who are serious getting their companies in front. -- Dan Ring
Book Description
New competitive realities have ruptured industry boundaries, overthrown much of standard management practice, and rendered conventional models of strategy and growth obsolete. In their stead have come the powerful ideas and methodologies of Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, whose much-revered thinking has already engendered a new language of strategy. In this book, they develop a coherent model for how today's executives can identify and accomplish no less than heroic goals in tomorrow's marketplace. Their masterful blueprint addresses how executives can ease the tension between competing today and clearing a path toward leadership in the future. The paperback edition features a new preface by the authors. Also available in hardcover; ISBN 0875844162, $24.95
Download Description
This is an enhanced edition of HBR article 94403, originally published in July 1994. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article plus a summary of key ideas and company examples to help you quickly absorb and apply the concepts. Is your company a rule maker or a rule follower? Does your company focus on catching up or on getting out in front? Do you spend the bulk of your time as a maintenance engineer preserving the status quo or as an architect designing the future? Difficult questions like these go unanswered not because senior managers are lazy--most are working harder than ever--but because they won't admit that they are less than fully in control of their companies' future. In this adaptation from their upcoming book, Hamel and Prahalad urge senior managers to look toward the future and ponder their ability to shape their companies in the years and decades to come. Creating the future, as Electronic Data Systems has done, for example, requires industry foresight. Since change is inevitable, managers must decide whether it will happen in a crisis atmosphere or in a calm and considered manner. Too often, profound thinking about the future occurs only when present success has been eroded.
Customer Reviews:
good book.......2007-04-09
Like every business book, it has at least 100 pages more than what would have been necessary to get the idea.
Don't Ignore the Lessons in this Book..........2006-02-11
"Gary Hamel is one of the brightest corporate strategist on the planet. And C.K. Prahalad is a brilliant business mind from the University of Michigan. Together, they have produced a profound book that will revitalize many companies. Those firms and organizations that ignore the new strategic architecture will be like `the deer caught in the headlights'... they will be doomed like many of the companies that have already disappeared from the ranks of the Fortune 1000."
-- Ko Hayashi
Managing Director, Chandler Leadership & Development, LLC www.corevaluetraining.com
Don't be a bug on the windshield!.......2005-04-27
"On the road to the future, who will be the windshield, and who will be the bug?" - Gary Hamel
To be competitive in today's world, you must focus not only on the here and now, but also focus on creating the future because "Nothing is more liberating than becoming the author of one's on destiny."
Hamel and Prahalad deeply understand the very core of competition, and provide the reader with an understanding of how to build a great company.
Chapter 1: Getting Off the Treadmill
In addition to paying attention to their position in the current market, companies must focus more on creating the future of the industry and their stake in it.
Chapter 2: How Competition for the Future is Different
Competition for the future is competition to maximize the share of future opportunities.
Chapter 3: Learning to Forget
Unless a company wishes to meet the fate of the dinosaurs, it must stop looking in the rear view mirror.
Chapter 4: Competing for Industry Foresight
Industry foresight allows companies to envision ways of meeting unarticulated needs. Foresight arises from wanting to make a difference in people's lives.
Chapter 5: Crafting Strategic Architecture
"Not only must the future be imagined ... it must be built."
Strategic architecture is a set of plans on how to turn your dream into reality.
Chapter 6: Strategy as Stretch
"It is not cash that fuels the journey to the future, but the emotional and intellectual energy of every employee." Strategy must be built upon the juncture of where the firm is and where it wants to be.
Chapter 7: Strategy as Leverage
The real issue for many struggling managers is not a lack of resources, but too many priorities, too little stretch, and too little creative thinking about how to leverage resources.
Chapter 8: Competing to Shape the Future
Getting to the future first may empower a company to establish the rules by which other companies will have to compete.
Chapter 9: Building Gateways to the Future
Every top management team is competing not only to protect the firm's position within existing markets, but to position the firm to succeed in new markets.
Chapter 10: Embedding the Core Competence Perspective
All too often, opportunity that falls between the cracks of existing market and departmental definitions, gets overlooked.
Chapter 11: Securing the Future
What counts most is not hitting a bulls' eye the first time, but how quickly one can improve one's aim and get another arrow on the way to the target.
Chapter 12: Thinking Differently
"To ultimately 'be' different, a company must first 'think' differently." To share in the future, a company must learn as much about thinking differently as it does about what to do.
Competing for the Future is a lively study in how to transform today's dreams into tomorrow's reality. Don't read this book at your own peril. Competing today, without regard to tomorrow's possibilities will certainly stack the odds in your competitor's favor.
Michael Davis, President - Brencom Strategic Business Consulting
A perennial favorite that still packs a punch.......2004-09-30
This perennial favorite is now ten years old. While some of its specific examples have aged and its basic message around core competencies and numerator growth rather than denominator reduction have passed into common business parlance, it is still a solid read that has much to offer. Every businessperson has to decide what his or her company is going to do, how it is going to do it, and what its future course will be. This is a surprisingly complex task and it is all too easy to make the wrong steps simply because they seem safe, pragmatic, and obvious.
Hamel and Prahalad help clarify how to think about what is at the core of your business and how to build on that while changing and shedding everything that distracts from that. Do not be fooled, however. Simply because the book reads well, and its thoughts are clearly presented, applying them in the real world is shockingly hard.
Some of the specific examples of this or that company doing this or that have aged. Not all the companies that were up in 1994 have continued their success. Nor have all their chosen paths led to continued prosperity. This is to be expected and does not diminish the message.
The key is to think hard about what the authors are saying, gather the things that can help you move forward, and then work to avoid complacency and distractions from what your business is about with every bit of energy you can bring to bear to support your chosen strategy.
An important book to read.......2004-03-05
Few companies that began the 1980s as industry leaders ended the decade with their leadership in tact and undiminished. Many household name companies saw their success eroded or destroyed by tides of technological, demographic and regulatory change and order-of-magnitude productivity gains made by nontraditional competitors. "Do you really have a global strategy", the first HBR article by Hamel and Prahalad, developed the theme that small companies could prevail against larger, richer companies by inventing new ways of doing more with less. Differences in resource effectiveness could not be explained by efficiency, labor or capital, but by amazingly ambitious goals that stretched beyond typical strategic plans, raising the question how such incredible goals could get past the credibility test and be made tangible and real to employees? Frequently the small challengers rewrote the rules of engagement; flexibility and speed were built atop supplier-management advantage, built atop quality advantages. Companies made commitments to particular skill areas a decade in advance of specific end-product markets. How did executives select which capabilities to build for the future? Some managers were foresightful, others imagined and gave birth to entirely new products and services. These managers created new competitive space while laggard companies protected the past rather than creating the future. Existing theory throws little light on what it takes to fundamentally reshape an industry and the gap provoked this book in which the goal is to enlarge the concept of the industry and not just the organization. Being incrementally better is not enough because a company that cannot imagine the future won't be around to enjoy it. This book is about strategy and how to think by drawing on the experience of companies that have overcome resource disadvantages to build positions of global leadership. It is about companies that escaped the curse of success to rebuild industry leadership a second or third time. It has been written for companies that believe that the best way to win is to rewrite the rules; it is for those who are not afraid to challenge orthodoxy, for those who prefer to build rather than cut, for those committed to making a difference and staking out the future first.
We need to ask ourselves eight questions:
- does senior management have a clear and broadly shared understanding of how the industry may be different in ten years time? Is management's view of the future clearly reflected in short-term priorities?
- How influential is my company in setting the new rules of competition within the industry? Is it regularly defining new ways of doing business and setting new standards of customer satisfaction?
- Is senior management fully alert to the dangers posed by new, unconventional rivals? Are potential threats to the current business model widely understood? Do senior executives possess a keen sense of urgency about the need to reinvent the current business model?
- Is my company pursuing growth and new business development with as much passion as it is pursuing operational efficiency and downsizing? Do we have a clear view of where the next revenue growth will come from?
- What percentage of our improvement efforts focuses on creating advantages new to the industry, and what percentage focuses on merely catching up to our competitors? Are competitors as eager to benchmark us, as we are to benchmark them?
- What is driving our improvement and transformation agenda - our own view of future opportunities or the actions of our competitors? Is our transformation agenda mostly offensive or defensive?
- Am I more of a maintenance engineer keeping today's business humming along or an architect imagining tomorrow's businesses? Do I devote more energy to prolonging the past than I do to creating the future?
- What is the balance between hope and anxiety in my company; between confidence in our ability to find and exploit opportunities for growth and new business development and concern about our ability to maintain competitiveness in our traditional businesses; between a sense of opportunity and a sense of vulnerability, both corporate and personal?
These are not rhetorical questions. We are told to get a pencil and rate our company because these questions go unanswered in many cases. Such questions challenge the assumption that top management is in control or even that their knowledge and experience may be irrelevant or wrong-headed for the future. The urgent drives out the important and the future goes largely unexplored; the capacity to act is considered to be more important than the capacity to imagine. A capacity to invent new industries and to reinvent old ones is a prerequisite for getting to the future first and a precondition for staying out in front. Gaining an understanding of how to accomplish this most difficult task is the central mission of this book.
What must we do to ensure that the industry evolves in a way that is maximally advantageous for us? What skills and capabilities must we begin building now if we are to occupy the industry high ground in the future? How should we organize for opportunities that may not fit neatly within the boundaries of current business units and divisions? The answers are to be found in this book. Armed with this information, a company can create a pro-active agenda for organizational transformation and can control its own destiny by controlling the destiny of its own industry. No company can escape the need to reskill its people, reshape its product portfolio, redesign its processes, and redirect its resources. There is not one future but hundreds; there can be as many prizes as runners; imagination is the only limiting factor. In no way does the success of one preordain the failure of another. What distinguishes leaders from laggards, and greatness form mediocrity is the ability to imagine what could be. If your senior management did not do well on the eight questions, then your company may not be around a decade from now. There are few who would not profit from reading this book.
Book Description
For over fifteen years, New York Times bestselling author Harry S. Dent, Jr., has been uncannily accurate in predicting the financial future. In his three previous works, Dent predicted the financial recession of the early nineties, the economic expansion of the mid-nineties, and the financial free-for-all of 1998-2000.
The Next Great Bubble Boom -- part crystal ball, part financial planner -- offers a comprehensive forecast for the next two decades, showing new models for predicting the future behavior of the economy, inflation, large- and small-cap stocks, bonds, key sectors, and so on. In taking a look at past booms and busts, Dent compares our current state to that of the crash of 1920-21, and the years ahead of us to the Roaring Twenties. Dent gives advice on everything from investment strategies to real estate cycles, and shows not only how bright our future will be but how best to profit from it.
Dent gives us all something to look forward to, including:
- The Dow hitting 40,000 by the end of the decade
- The Nasdaq advancing at least ten times from its October 2001 lows to around 13,500, and potentially as high as 20,000 by 2009
- Another strong advance in stocks in 2005, with a significant correction into around September/October 2006
- The Great Boom resurging into its final and strongest stage in 2007, and even more fully in 2008, lasting until late 2009 to early 2010
Dent's amazing ability to track and forecast our financial future is renowned, and here he takes that ability to the next level, showing not only what our economy will look like but also how it will affect us as individuals, as organizations, and as a culture. From the upcoming wealth revolution to the essential principles of entrepreneurial success, the book describes a new society where economic and philanthropic development go hand in hand.
In The Next Great Bubble Boom, Dent shows not only how the economic growth of the late 1990s was a prelude to the true great boom right around the corner but how all of us can reap its benefits.
Customer Reviews:
Next Great Bubble Boom, Revised Again.......2007-09-03
Hindsight tells us a lot of things. For the Next Great Bubble Boom, hindsight shows that Harry Dent's analysis of a 40,000 Dow and 20,000 Nasdaq are just as fanciful now as they were when he made the predictions in 2004. His latest revisions, which came out last year, show he has cut his original estimate in half, and that the predicted outcomes are much more within reason. The difficulty with accepting his predictions now is that the past ones ended so dismally. The seductive part of Dent's analysis is that it squares with historical and demographical cycles. The ridiculous part is the extrapolation into predictive behavior. It you want some really wild stuff, just look at what he says will happen from 2023 on. If anybody made any investment decisions based on this book, they're about due for a thorough reality check. His most powerful cycle, the 10-year cycle, seems the most likely one to come true. But the difficulty with predicting what will happen in each 10 year cycle is that Dent bases it strictly on stock market past behavior. And whenever that prediction fails, Dent finds some new cycle to explain his error. His latest cycle, the geopolitical cycle, supposedly explains the failure of the markets to rise in 2004-2005. What he failed to recognize early on was the impact of commodities, hedge funds, and Fed interest rate policy. Whenever the Fed raises rates, the stock market goes numb, because large institutional investors stay away. This time around, those investors put their billions into hedge funds, to get the promise of 40%+ returns. That alone explains the 2004-2005 doldrums. Add the spectacular housing boom/bust and you see why Dent's predictions went south. Now that the Fed has stopped raising rates and is apparently going to drop them, some of what Dent predicted still could come time. But notice that the title for the short book now says 2006-2010 rather than 2005-2010. The revisions just keep coming. I can't wait for the next one.
Is Dent Such A Big Liar or Just that Stupid?.......2007-06-26
I really do not know what to think. So many people write books based on a positive premise rather than reality because they know positivity sells. There's nothing wrong with positivity, but it should be reserved for motivational speakers not investments and economics. We are talking about people's retirement funds here!
Dent does not say much of anything new that he hasn't already said in his previous books. He is just trying to cash in on a rebound from the Internet bubble collapse. What kind of value is there in predicting a stretch of 4 years of great market returns? Regardless, we have yet to see this spectacular market performance. I'll tell you why he did this. Anyone with common sense knows that extremes in the market are followed by compensatory reversals which may or may not last. What this means is that Dent (like many others) expected a rebound from the lows in the market merely due to normal stock market behavior. The fact that he has restricted it to 2010 tells you where he thinks the market is really headed--down.
NEVER BUY A BOOK BY ANYONE WHO HAS A VESTED INTEREST IN a BULLISH STOCK MARKET (THOSE WHO WORK FOR MUTUAL FUNDS AND WALL STREET). ALSO NEVER BUY A BOOK BY ANYONE WORKING FOR A HEDGE FUND UNLESS YOU WANT TO HEAR THAT THE MARKET WILL GO DOWN. THESE GUYS ARE ALREADY TAKINGYOUR MONEY IN TEH MARKET AND NOW THEY WANNA TAKE YOUR MONEY BY SELLING YOU BOOKS FILLED WITH DREAMS THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
Don't waste your money on this book. Instead get some books that talk about how bad the economy really is and how it is going to get worse for many years.
interesting read.......2007-04-11
interesting read. I am still waiting for his predictions to come true...
Dent in my wallet.......2007-04-07
If only I could express how much time and optimism I wasted after reading this book...
The fact is that the forecasts are wildly out of sync with reality, Dent's methods are proving to be nearly useless and market risks are actually on the INCREASE as I write this review.
Dent did not predict the real estate boom, he did not predict the commodity boom, he did not predict the 2000 bear market, he did not predict the dollar loss against the Euro... the list goes on. When he gets a prediction wrong, he just adds another "cycle" to his forecasts... the stock market turned to goo after 2000? "oh, well we discovered the 10 year stock cycle, and this PROVES that stocks should have gone down"... the Dow didn't go to 14,000 (as predicted in this book)? "Oh, we forgot about the commodity super-cycle". How many other 'cycles' does Dent not know about?
After reading this book a couple years ago, I'm sad to say I subscribed to his newsletter at around $400-500 /year, and while their knowledge of economic fundamentals was clearly solid, I can't say I made any money from his insights, or that his insights were any better than what I'd read on the Internet for free.
I'd recommend you take this book (along with everything else) with a grain of salt, and learn from a lesson that sinks in only after you've blown money... no one knows the future, especially Dent.
Wealth takes research.......2007-03-09
Harry Dent has another winner. Being the third in a series of books by Harry Dent, "The Greatest Boom in History: 2006-2010," tells us again how to save what wealth we have and increase it during the current economic and investment boom. Anyone with money to invest must read this book.
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