Meet You in Hell or Commodities For Dummies

Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America

Author: Les Standiford

Two founding fathers of American industry.One desire to dominate business at any price.

The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the riveting story of Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the bloody steelworkers’ strike that transformed their fabled partnership into a furious rivalry. Set against the backdrop of the Gilded Age, Meet You in Hell captures the majesty and danger of steel manufacturing, the rough-and-tumble of the business world, and the fraught relationship between “the world’s richest man” and the ruthless coke magnate to whom he entrusted his companies. The result is an extraordinary work of popular history.

Also available as a Random House AudioBook and an eBook

Kirkus Reviews

Life lesson number one for a would-be robber baron: Don't cross Andrew Carnegie. Prolific genre novelist Standiford (Havana Run, 2003, etc.) turns to fact to portray the fraught partnership of steelmaker Carnegie and Henry Frick, supplier of industrial coke to the world. Frick was a tough dealer, but Carnegie was tougher; when the coke producers of Pittsburgh agreed to fix a price of $1.50 per ton for the stuff, Carnegie countered that he would pay Frick $1.15 a ton, "and there would be no further discussion of the matter." Frick became the lesser of equals as the chairman of Carnegie Steel and enjoyed considerable freedom of movement as Carnegie spent more and more of his later life in his native Scotland and left routine administration to Frick and Carnegie Steel president Charles Schwab. Indeed, Frick orchestrated Carnegie Steel's response to the Homestead Strike of 1892; although Carnegie was doubtless troubled by the hired strikebreakers' brutality, "the fact is that he had chosen to absent himself from Homestead when he was well aware of what was coming." For his trouble, Frick was nearly assassinated by the anarchist Alexander Berkman, who shot and stabbed him. When he recovered, Frick busied himself pushing out executives whom he felt insufficiently served his interests, including the superintendent of the Homestead plant. For various reasons, Carnegie and Frick, never fond of each other, began to develop a serious mutual dislike; as Standiford writes, plots thickened as Carnegie looked for ways to force Frick out while Frick, it appears, tried to leverage the company in what Carnegie regarded as "a despicable exercise in speculation." Frick remained a member of the board whenCarnegie sold out to Andrew Mellon, but he seems to have dedicated his later years to one-upping Carnegie's charitable work (" 'I'm going to make Carnegie's place look like a miner's shack,' Frick told friends") and otherwise spreading poison about the old man. Sometimes a little too breezy, but Standiford's glimpse into the greed-is-good Gilded Age will interest business-history buffs. Author tour

Books about: Poisonous Affair or Almanac of Political Corruption Scandals and Dirty Politics

Commodities For Dummies

Author: Amine Bouchentouf

Since 2002, commodities have outperformed every other asset class including stocks, mutual funds and real estate. If you’re itching to get in on the fun and profit, Commodities For Dummies is the resource you need to find out how to break into the commodities market and understand how to trade and prosper.

You’ll discover:

• How commodities stack up against other investment vehicles

• How to identify, manage, and overcome risk

• The pros and cons of futures, equities, ETFs and mutual funds

• Specific techniques for analyzing and trading in commodities

• Powerful profits in energy—crude oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, and alternatives

• What you need to know about trading in metals—precious and not-so-precious

• How to grow your portfolio with farm products

Featuring time-tested rules for investment success, this comprehensive, user-friendly guide helps you minimize risk, maximize profit, and find the shortest route to Easy Street.

Table of Contents:

Introduction     1
About This Book     1
Conventions Used in This Book     3
Foolish Assumptions     3
How This Book Is Organized     4
Commodities: Just the Facts     4
Getting Started     5
The Power House: How to Make Money in Energy     5
Pedal to the Metal: Investing in Metals     5
Going Down to the Farm: Trading Agricultural Products     5
The Part of Tens     6
The Appendix     6
Icons Used in This Book     6
Where to Go from Here     7
Commodities: Just the Facts     9
Investors, Start Your Engines! An Overview of Commodities     11
First Things First     12
Going for a Spin: Choosing the Right Investment Vehicle     14
The futures markets     14
The equity markets     16
Managed funds     18
Physical attractiveness     18
Checking Out What's on the Menu     19
Energy     19
Metals     20
Agricultural products     21
Benefiting from Commodities Creatively     23
Earn, Baby, Earn! Why You Should Invest in Commodities     25
You Can't Argue with Success     26
The 21st Century Is the Century of Commodities     28
Ka-boom! Capitalizing on the global population explosion     29
Brick by brick: Profiting from urbanization     30
Full steam ahead! Benefiting from industrialization     32
It's All about Me! Why Commodities Are Unique     34
Inelasticity     34
Is it safe in here? Commodities as a safe haven     36
Hedge-hogging galore! Commodities as a hedge against inflation     36
Could you hurry up, please! Bringing new sources online takes time     38
Sell in May and go away? Definitely nay!     38
Time to Get Down to Business: Commodities and the Business Cycle     39
Is Investing in Commodities Only for the Brave?     41
Biting Off More Than You Can Chew: The Pitfalls of Using Leverage     42
Watch Your Step: Understanding the Real Risks behind Commodities     43
Geopolitical risk     43
Speculative risk     44
Corporate governance risk     45
Managing Risk     45
Due diligence: Just do it     45
Diversify, diversify, diversify     49
Get Ready to Rumble! Commodity Bulls vs. Bears     51
Seeing Both the Forest and the Trees     52
Ride the Wave? Kondratieff and the Super Cycle Theory     58
Keeping It Simple: Looking at the Laws of Supply and Demand     58
Feel the Love: Welcoming Commodities into Your Portfolio     61
The Color of Money: Taking Control of Your Financial Life     62
Looking Ahead: Creating a Financial Road Map     63
Figuring out your net worth     64
Identifying your tax bracket     66
Are you hungry? Determining your risk appetite     68
Making Room in Your Portfolio for Commodities     69
Fully Exposed: The Top Ways to Get Exposure to Commodities     70
Looking towards the future with commodity futures     70
Funding your account with commodity funds     73
You're in good company: Investing in commodity companies     74
Getting Started     77
Show Me the Money! Choosing the Right Manager     79
Mutually Beneficial: Investing in Commodity Mutual Funds     79
Riddle me this, riddle me that: Asking the right questions     80
Taking a look at what's out there     83
Examining Exchange Traded Funds     84
Mastering MLPs     85
The ABCs of MLPs     86
Cash flow is king     89
The nuts and bolts of MLP investing     91
Heads Up! Risk and MLPs     92
Relying on a Commodity Trading Advisor     93
Jumping into a Commodity Pool     95
Track and Trade: Investing through Commodity Indexes     97
Checking Out Commodity Indexes     98
What's the use of an index?     98
So how do I make money using an index?     99
From Head to Toes: Anatomy of a Commodity Index     99
Cataloguing the Indexes     101
Goldman Sachs Commodity Index     101
Reuters/Jefferies Commodity Research Bureau Index     104
Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index     106
Rogers International Commodities Index     108
Deutsche Bank Liquid Commodity Index     111
Which Index Should You Use?     113
Understanding How Commodities Exchanges Work     115
Why Do We Have Commodities Exchanges, Anyway?     116
Identifying the Major Commodity Exchanges     117
Ready, Set, Invest: Opening an Account and Placing Orders     120
Choosing the right account     121
Placing orders     123
Tracking your order from start to finish     126
Owning a Piece of an Exchange     129
Back to the Future: Getting a Grip on Futures and Options     133
The Future Looks Bright: How to Trade Futures Contracts     134
The competition: Who trades futures?     136
Contract specs: Keeping track of all the moving pieces     138
For a Few Dollars Less: Trading Futures on Margin     142
Taking a Pulse: Figuring Out Where the Futures Market Is Heading     143
Contango: It takes two to tango     143
Backwardation: One step forward, two steps back     144
Keeping Your Options Open: Trading with Options     145
Cutting to the chase: Options in action!     146
Trader talk     147
Options have character     148
Technically Speaking: Using Technical Analysis     151
Looking at Charts: A Picture Is Worth More Than a Thousand Words     152
Line it up: Checking out line charts     153
Going for bar charts     153
Lighting up the chart with candlesticks     155
Identifying Patterns: The Trend Is Your Friend     156
Identifying support and resistance     156
Trend lines: Ride the trend till the end     159
Pump Up the Volume!     160
Moving Averages: Anything But Average      162
Keeping it simple with the SMA     162
Taking it up a notch with the EMA     162
It's All Relative: Using the RSI     164
Breaking into Bollinger Bands     165
The Power House: How to Make Money in Energy     167
It's a Crude, Crude World! Investing in Crude Oil     169
Crude Realities     170
No need for a reservation: Examining global reserve estimates     171
Staying busy and productive: Looking at production figures     173
It can be demanding: Checking out demand figures     174
Going in and out: Eyeing imports and exports     176
Going Up the Crude Chain     178
You want that light and sweet or heavy and sour?     179
Make Big Bucks with Big Oil     182
Oil companies: Lubricated and firing on all cylinders     182
Get your passport ready: Investing overseas     185
Welcome to Gas Vegas, Baby! Trading Natural Gas     189
What's the Use? Looking at Natural Gas Applications     190
Calling all captains of industry: Industrial uses of natural gas     192
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen! Natural gas in your home     193
Going commercial: Natural gas's commercial uses      194
Truly electrifying! Generating electricity with natural gas     195
Getting from here to there: Natural gas and transportation     196
Liquefied Natural Gas: Getting Liquid without Getting Wet     196
Investing in Natural Gas     197
Natural selection: Trading Nat Gas futures     199
Nat Gas companies: The natural choice     200
Fuel for Thought: Looking at Alternative Energy Sources     201
Out with the Old and in with the New?     201
King Coal: Not as Scary as You Think     203
Coal hard facts     203
Paint it black     206
It's a coal investment     207
Investing in Nuclear Power: Going Nuclear without Going Ballistic     208
You've Been Zapped! Trading Electricity     210
Current affairs     210
Power plays     211
Always Brand Spanking New! Renewable Energy Sources     213
Sunny delight: Solar energy     214
Fast and furious: Wind energy     214
Totally Energized: Investing in Energy Companies     217
Bulls Eye! Profiting from Oil Exploration and Production     217
Going offshore     218
Staying on dry land     221
Servicing the oilfields      221
Oh My, You're So Refined! Investing in Refineries     223
How to Become an Oil Shipping Magnate     226
Swimming in oil: Transportation supply and demand     226
Ships ahoy!     228
Masters of the sea: Petroleum shipping companies     229
Swimming with sharks: Avoiding industry risk     231
Pedal to the Metal: Investing in Metals     233
Getting the Glitters: Investing in Gold, Silver, and Platinum     235
Going for the Gold     235
The gold standard     236
Good as gold     240
Get the Tableware Ready: Investing in Silver     244
Checking out the big picture on the silver screen     244
A sliver of silver in your portfolio     246
Bling Bling: Investing in Platinum     248
Platinum facts and figures     249
Going platinum     249
Metals That Prove Their Mettle: Steel, Aluminum, and Copper     253
Building a Portfolio That's As Strong As Steel     254
Steely facts     254
Investing in steel companies     255
Aluminum: Everything Is Illuminated     257
Just the aluminum facts     257
Aluminum futures      258
Aluminum companies     260
A Visit to Dr. Copper     260
Quick copper facts     260
Copper futures contracts     262
Copper companies     263
Weighing Investments in Heavy and Not-So-Heavy Metals     265
Palladium: Metal for the New Millennium     265
Zinc and Grow Rich     269
You Won't Get Nickel and Dimed by Investing in Nickel     270
Mine Your Own Business: Unearthing the Top Mining Companies     273
Diversified Mining Companies     274
BHP Billiton     274
Rio Tinto     275
Anglo-American     276
Specialized Mining Companies     278
Newmont Mining-Gold     278
Silver Wheaton-Silver     278
Phelps Dodge-Copper     279
Alcoa-Aluminum     280
Arcelor-Mittal-Steel     281
Going Down to the farm: Trading Agricultural Products     283
Breakfast of Champions: Profiting from Coffee, Cocoa, Sugar, and Orange Juice     285
Give Your Portfolio a Buzz by Investing in Coffee     285
Coffee: It's time for your big break     286
Brewing the right investment strategy     287
Warming Up to Cocoa      289
Invest in Sugar: It's Such a Sweet Move!     291
Orange Juice: Refreshingly Good for Your Bottom Line     293
How to Gain from Grains: Trading Corn, Wheat, and Soybeans     297
Field of Dreams: How to Invest in Corn     298
Welcome to the Bread Basket: Investing in Wheat     300
Trading Soybeans: It's Not Just Peanuts     302
Soybeans     303
Soybean oil     304
Soybean meal     305
Alive and Kicking! How to Make Money Trading Livestock     307
Holy Cow! How to Invest in Cattle     308
Live cattle     309
Feeder cattle     310
Lean and Mean: Checking Out Lean Hogs     311
You Want Bacon with That? How to Trade Frozen Pork Bellies     312
The Part of Tens     315
Top Ten Ways to Invest in Commodities     317
Futures Commission Merchant     317
Commodity Trading Advisor     318
Commodity Pool Operator     318
Integrated Commodity Companies     318
Specialized Commodity Companies     318
Master Limited Partnerships     319
Exchange Traded Funds     319
Commodity Mutual Funds     319
Commodity Indexes     320
Emerging Market Funds     320
Top Ten Market Indicators You Should Monitor     321
Consumer Price Index     321
EIA Inventory Reports     322
Federal Funds Rate     322
Gross Domestic Product     322
London Gold Fix     323
Non-farm Payrolls     323
Purchasing Managers Index     324
Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index     324
US Dollar     324
WTI Crude Oil     324
Ten or So Resources You Can't Do Without     327
The Wall Street Journal     327
Bloomberg     328
Commodities-Investor.com     328
Nightly Business Report     328
Morningstar     329
Yahoo! Finance     329
Commodity Futures Trading Commission     329
The Energy Information Administration     329
Stocks and Commodities Magazine     330
Oil & Gas Journal     330
National Futures Association     330
The Appendix     331
Glossary of Technical Terms     333
Index     343

Jim Cramers Stay Mad for Life or Conspiracy of Fools

Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer)

Author: James J Cramer

Jim Cramer, bestselling author and host of CNBC's Mad Money, has written the ultimate guide to lifetime investing for readers of any age.

Whether you're a recent college grad trying to figure out how to start investing, a young parent struggling to decide where and how to put away money, or someone well into middle age and worried about whether you've saved enough for retirement, Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life has the answers. Cramer covers all the essentials: how to save, where to invest, which pitfalls to avoid. He offers valuable advice on everything from mortgages to college tuition. He explains what professional money managers do right that amateur investors do wrong. Because there is always a bull market somewhere, Cramer tells readers where to find the bull markets of the future, and for those willing to do the homework, he chooses twenty stocks that could be long-term moneymakers. For those who don't have the time or the temperament to invest in stocks, he identifies the mutual funds that are proven winners. He's investigated these funds by using his own twenty-five years' experience managing money for himself and dozens of America's wealthiest families. Throughout, in addition to his own enormously successful experience, Cramer draws on rigorous research to back up his advice.

Jim Cramer is America's #1 financial guru. Every day he advises investors on how to get ahead of the markets and stay ahead on his daily television show, Mad Money; in his online columns and commentary at TheStreet.com; in his popular "Bottom Line" column in New York magazine, and on television programs from early morning to late night. His books have all been nationalbestsellers and have helped educate hundreds of thousands of investors about the perils and promises of the financial markets. USA Today called him "the media's most electrifying market pundit," and his legions of fans agree. Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life is the definitive money book, a practical, concrete, insightful book of invaluable financial advice that is a joy to read.

New interesting book: Winepassport or California Practical Cook Book

Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story

Author: Kurt Eichenwald

From an award-winning New York Times reporter comes the full, mind-boggling story of the lies, crimes, and ineptitude behind the spectacular scandal that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever . . .

The Washington Post - Barbara Ley Toffler

Eichenwald has masterfully depicted the devastating results of that lost love of purposeful work. He also has given us a fine example of what love of the job can produce: a dynamite book. Kurt Eichenwald clearly loves what he does.

The New York Times - Charles R. Morris

Two questions arise: How could financial and investing professionals have been so badly gulled? And behind all the Potemkin-village financial reports, what was actually going on at Enron? The first question may be one for aficionados of mass hallucination, but Kurt Eichenwald's Conspiracy of Fools brilliantly answers the second … Conspiracy of Fools is a splendid achievement. Mr. Eichenwald has an encyclopedic grasp of a watershed business collapse, and has turned it into a gripping read, a true tale for our times.

Newsday

A RIVETING NARRATIVE... Eichenwald, a reporter for The New York Times, is becoming known not just for his strong newspaper reporting, which has won him two Polk Awards, but for turning stories of corporate crime into books that read something like John Grisham novels.

Barron's

MAGNIFICENT... written in the manner of a breezy crypto-thriller and told from the viewpoint of a fly on the wall-or at times, a devil on the shoulders. The style makes gripping reading... readers looking for a fact-filled companion to one of the all-time greatest Ponzi schemes will find everything they're expecting here, along with compelling prose and remarkable insights.

Booklist

A PAGE-TURNING FINANCIAL THRILLER....This book compares with Liar's Poker and Barbarians at the Gate in its breadth and depth of coverage of esoteric corporate culture and financial practices, recognizing the compelling human drama beneath the scandal.

New York Post

If it's an inside look at corporate malfeasance you're after, look no further than Conspiracy of Fools, the story of Enron and Kurt Eichenwald, who previously aimed his investigative pen at Archer Daniels Midland with The Informant, now on the Hollywood drawing board.

Bookpage

Although Enron's story is more convoluted than a Medici revenge plot, Eichenwald... spins out the essential facts in quick, colorful scenes. He recreates the dialogue of the principal characters as convincingly as if he had been at their elbow taking notes.

Details Magazine

Only this white-collar-crime reporter for the New York Times could turn the Enron scandal into a book that reads like a Joel Schumacher script (starring Gene Hackman as glad-handing Ken Lay?). . . Eichenwald's style, which worked so well in The Informant, carries the day.

US News & World Report

After reading Kurt Eichenwald's Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story, you will wonder how it was possible no one heard the din of voices crying out in the wilderness of Enron's ruinous financial schemes.... The hefty book, an outgrowth of Eichenwald's three years covering the scandal for the New York Times, offers a timely reminiscence as the trials of former Enron chairman Ken Lay and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Skilling approach.

Publishers Weekly

This enormous, intimate blow-by-blow of Enron's implosion gets as close to what actually happened, in terms of people making (bad) decisions in real time, as anyone who wasn't there with a concealed video-phone possibly could. Having combed endless documents and interviewed countless principals and peripherals, Eichenwald (The Informant) presents short declarative sentences (and lots of sentence fragments) that may have run through the heads of men like top executives Skilling, Lay and Fastow as they managed to cook a very large set of books, as well as men like Stuart Zisman, a lawyer in the firm's wholesale division who wrote an early memo titled "Overall Book Manipulation" that stated "the majority of investments being introduced to Raptor are bad ones." Eichenwald's bald depictions ("Skilling sank deeper into depression"; "It couldn't be true, [Anderson partner Tom] Bauer thought") make for real tension. Collegial meetings at the White House with Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and others; charged conference calls with skeptical investors; endless buy-ins, buyouts and acronyms-all are presented in a rat-a-tat style thick with corporate anxiety, keeping pages turning even as the details themselves are numbing. (Luckily, Eichenwald includes a "Cast of Characters" and "List of Deals" so that readers can remind themselves of past carnage.) As an unadorned attempt to get into the heads of some major manipulators, this book can hardly be bettered. (On sale Mar. 8) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The fools here are the folks who ran Enron, as well as those who got sucked up in their shenanigans. From the author of The Informant. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A chatty, overly long, but highly readable account of the collapse of Enron and the reasons the energy empire fell. New York Times reporter Eichenwald (The Informant, 2001, etc.) is careful to separate what is reliably known from what can only be inferred in the Enron affair. Still, the narrative is rich in implication. Early on, for instance, Eichenwald ventures that top executive Andy Fastow threatened Enron head Ken Lay with some sort of exposure on being fired: "Had his chief financial officer, a man he had trusted implicitly, really been a crook all along?" Eichenwald quickly cautions that there's much more to the collapse of Enron, an energy-trading firm that traded in many intangibles besides, than simple lawbreaking: "Shocking incompetence, unjustified arrogance, compromised ethics and an utter disregard for the market's judgment all played decisive roles." But then we're back to crime or criminally stupid behavior: Here Enron execs are playing fast and loose with "squirrely numbers," trying alternately to show profit where none existed or to hide profit, but sometimes paying far more tax than the law required; there they're making incredibly poor investment decisions ("Skilling worked his jaw. . . . Seven billion dollars invested to earn $100 million in profits. Hell, if they had stuck the money in a bank account earning three percent, the earnings would have been higher!"). All the while, Lay hovers above the scene, merrily joining George W. Bush's inner circle while apparently never quite grasping what was happening inside his own corridors of power-and placing trust in bad lieutenants, some of whom were "secret participants in Fastow's schemes," others of whom were simply bad.Interestingly, toward the end of the book, one of the few good lieutenants to emerge earns sidelong praise from Lay-namely, Sherron Watkins, the whistleblower who helped establish federal cases against the company and author of an early insider account of the debacle. There's a certain guilty, craning-to-see-the-accident pleasure in these pages, which could have benefited from a careful trimming. Likely not the last word on the Enron affair, but also likely to endure as a standard account.

The Money Book for the Young Fabulous Broke or The Business Style Handbook

The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke

Author: Suze Orman

A financial guide aimed squarely at "Generation Debt" - and their anxious parents - from the country's most trusted and dynamic source on money matters.

The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke is financial expert Suze Orman's answer to a generation's cry for help. They're called "Generation Debt" and "Generation Broke" by the media - people in their twenties and thirties who graduate college with a mountain of student loan debt and are stuck with one of the weakest job markets in recent history. The goals of their parents' generation - buy a house, support a family, send kids to college, retire in style - seem absurdly, depressingly out of reach. They live off their credit cards, may or may not have health insurance, and come up so far short at the end of the month that the idea of saving money is a joke. This generation has it tough, without a doubt, but they're also painfully aware of the urgent need to take matters into their own hands.

The Money Book was written to address the specific financial reality that faces young people today and offers a set of real, not impossible solutions to the problems at hand and the problems ahead. Concisely, pragmatically, and without a whiff of condescension, Suze Orman tells her young, fabulous & broke readers precisely what actions to take and why. Throughout these pages, there are icons that direct readers to a special YF&B domain on Suze's website that offers more specialized information, forms, and interactive tools that further customize the information in the book. Her advice at times bucks conventional wisdom (did she just say use your credit card?) and may even seem counter-intuitive (pay into a retirement fund even though your credit card debt is killing you?), but it's her honesty, understanding, and uncanny ability to anticipate the needs of her readers that has made her the most trusted financial expert of her day.

Over the course of ten chapters that can be consulted methodically, step-by-step or on a strictly need-to-know basis, Suze takes the reader past broke to a secure place where they'll never have to worry about revisiting broke again. And she begins the journey with a bit of overwhelmingly good news (yes, there really is good news): Young people have the greatest asset of all on their side -- time.

Publishers Weekly

With more than 6.5 million books in print (nearly three million of The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom alone), an eponymous CNBC show, contributing editorships at O: The Oprah Magazine and Costco Magazine and a biweekly Yahoo! column, Orman commands a great deal of economic bandwidth. This seventh book will be released with a PBS special (her fourth) pitched specifically to 20- and 30-somethings early in their working lives, who are, to put it nicely, having trouble negotiating a challenging economy: "Our starting point is that you are broke, by your or any definition." In the bright, clipped, supportive-but-not-mushy affirmative diction that dominates motivational business titles, Orman lays out a plan for maximizing the little that one has, focusing on ways to raise one's FICO score as a means of making more choices available. ("FICO" stands for the mysterious Fair Isaac Corporation-with whom Orman has an arrangement for her own FICOkit.) She runs through a plethora of money problems and what to do about them: credit card debt, student loans, mortgages (and advice on real estate), car payments, taxes, IRAs-almost anything one can think of that has to do with financial planning that can seem bewildering when presented by a salesperson, a direct mail solicitation or HR orientation. With its combination of specific solutions and deep knowledge of its target demographic's specific problems, this book positions itself perfectly and will see correspondingly strong sales among its coveted 18-34s. Agent, Amanda Urban at ICM. (Mar. 1) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

From an expert: money basics for beginners. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Interesting textbook: Total Detox Plan or Managing with Asperger Syndrome

The Business Style Handbook: An A-to-Z Guide for Writing on the Job with Tips from Communications Experts at the Fortune 500

Author: Helen Cunningham

In the everyday work world, most professionals are on their own when it comes to writing reports, memos, proposals, and other necessary correspondence. The Business Style Handbook is a practical and comprehensive guide that focuses specifically on the writing issues that frequently arise on the job. Insights and feedback from Fortune 500 communications executives provide tips and advice on improving writing style and effectiveness, while more than 1,200 alphabetized entries cover the essentials of style and usage, grammatical concepts, and more.

Helen Cunningham is director of corporate communications at Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation.

Brenda Greene is a freelance writer and editor.

Monster.com - Beverly West

For many of us, business writing can be a stumbling block on the road to professional success. Fortunately, you can keep a number of excellent references handy to help you become the office Hemingway. These include The Business Style Handbook.

New Zealand - Mercury Retail

An excellent read. No other book covers this topic with greater clarity and scope, presented by lively and intelligent authors of tremendous expertise.

Business Line

"When you write, your credibility is on the line. Good writing matters. Read this [book] before you write."

HR Connect

This user-friendly style guide is a must-have for every professional's library. The first section of the book offers practical advice to those of us who write on the job. Learn surprising statistics on business writing and pick up some useful pointers you can start applying today. The "A-to-Z Entries" found in the second half of the book will prove to be a useful reference for your everyday writing.

ExquisiteWriting.com

Appearances, at least in the realm of writing, do matter. Your style, professionalism and even creativeness will be judged within the first few words on the page. Unfortunately, a glaring mistake can overshadow even the most creative masterpiece following that mistake. Avoid those pitfalls and mistakes by preparing yourself ahead of time. Get this guide and learn what you need to know.

National Investor Relations Institute

We like this book because it is the first usage guide we've found that has an entry for "investor relations." We also like it because it is filled with business-focused guidance unlike any other usage guide. Written in plain English, it covers usage, grammar, punctuation, spelling and style. Even the best writers among us will appreciate its value.

Sky Magazine

The Business Style Handbook is an ambitious undertaking--an effort to create the authoritative and comprehensive guide to correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, word usage and e-etiquette for informed business writing. Five opening chapters offer tips for clear and effective writing. More than 200 pages of A-Z entries follow.

Miami Herald - Richard Pachter

This one The Business Style Handbook, in particular for business communication, is a valuable addition to any company's arsenal of business resources.

Writing that Works

It has new terms, particularly business and high-tech terms, you won't find, at least without difficulty. in your standard references.... The entries are short and clear.

Booknews

A style guide for business writing, this book contains approximately 1,200 alphabetized entries on grammar, usage, punctuation, spelling, and style. It also reports results of a survey of corporate material from Fortune 500 companies, arguing for standards, explaining the importance of style, providing advice on effective writing, and offering guidelines for email. The authors are business writers and editors. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The Future of Management or Rich Dads Prophecy

The Future of Management

Author: Gary Hamel

What fuels long-term business success? Not operational excellence, technology breakthroughs, or new business models, but management innovation-new ways of mobilizing talent, allocating resources, and formulating strategies. Through history, management innovation has enabled companies to cross new performance thresholds and build enduring advantages.

In The Future of Management, Gary Hamel argues that organizations need management innovation now more than ever. Why? The management paradigm of the last century-centered on control and efficiency-no longer suffices in a world where adaptability and creativity drive business success. To thrive in the future, companies must reinvent management.

Hamel explains how to turn your company into a serial management innovator, revealing:

•The make-or-break challenges that will determine competitive success in an age of relentless, head-snapping change.
•The toxic effects of traditional management beliefs.
•The unconventional management practices generating breakthrough results in "modern management pioneers."
•The radical principles that will need to become part of every company's "management DNA."
•The steps your company can take now to build your "management advantage."

Practical and profound, The Future of Management features examples from Google, W.L. Gore, Whole Foods, IBM, Samsung, Best Buy, and other blue-ribbon management innovators.

Fortune

Like many great inventions, management practices have a shelf life...Gary Hamel explains how to jettison the weak ones and embrace the ones that work.

USA Today

His casual and frank writing style makes this akin to a one-on-one management master-class he is holding for you every morning for a week at Starbucks. No decaf allowed.

The New York Times

If companies now innovate by creating new products or new business models . . . why can't they do the same in how they manage organizations?

Fast Company

Among the prescriptions . . . more incentives for employees at all levels, and clearer ties between results and recognition.

BusinessWeek

There's much here that will resonate with forward-thinking managers.

The Financial Times

...he offers an intriguing account of what managing in the future is going to look like.

Forbes.com

Here's a great idea from Gary Hamel . . .

Publishers Weekly

Though this authoritative examination of today's static corporate management systems reads like a business school treatise, it isn't the same-old thing. Hamel, a well-known business thinker and author (Leading the Revolution), advocates that dogma be rooted out and a new future be imagined and invented. To aid managers and leaders on this mission, Hamel offers case studies and measured analysis of "management innovators" like Google and W.L. Gore (makers of Gore-Tex), then lists lessons that can be drawn from them. He doesn't gloss over how difficult it will be to reinvent management, comparing the new and needed shift in thinking to Darwin's "abandoning creationist traditions" and physicists who had to "look beyond Newton's clockwork laws" to discover quantum mechanics. But the steps needed to make such a profound shift aren't clearly outlined here either. The book serves primarily as an invitation to shed age-old systems and processes and think differently. There's little humor and few punchy catchphrases-the book has less sparkle than Jeffrey Pfeffer's What Were They Thinking?-but its content will likely appeal to managers accustomed to b-school textbooks and tired of gimmicky business evangelism. (Oct.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

New interesting book: Good Fat or The Best Is Yet To Be

Rich Dad's Prophecy: Why the Biggest Stock Market Crash in History Is Still Coming...and How You Can Prepare Yourself and Profit from It!

Author: Robert T Kiyosaki

and/or stickers showing their discounted price. More about bargain books

Table of Contents:

	Introduction	1
Section 1	Is the Fairy Tale Over?
Chapter 1	A Change in the Law ... A Change in the Future	11
Chapter 2	The Law Change That Changed the World	21
Chapter 3	Are You Ready to Face the Real World?	31
Chapter 4	The Nightmare Begins	51
Chapter 5	What Are Your Financial Assumptions?	65
Chapter 6	Just Because You Invest Does Not Mean You Are An Investor	83
Chapter 7	Everyone Needs to Become an Investor	95
Chapter 8	The Cause of the Problem	105
Chapter 9	The Perfect Storm	115
Section 2	Building the Ark
Chapter 10	How Do You Build an Ark?	133
Chapter 11	Taking Control of the Ark	145
Chapter 12	Control #1: Control over Yourself	155
Chapter 13	Control #2: Control over Your Emotions	187
Chapter 14	How I Built My Ark	197
Chapter 15	Control #3: Control over Your Excuses	207
Chapter 16	Control #4: Control over Your Vision	217
Chapter 17	Control #5: Control over the Rules	229
Chapter 18	Control #6: Control over Your Advisors	249
Chapter 19	Control #7: Control over Your Time	255
Chapter 20	Control #8: Control over Your Destiny	269
	Conclusion: A Prophet's Hope Is to Be Wrong	275
Appendix 1	ERISA and 401(k) Plans	281
Appendix 2	About Dave Stephens's Program in Schools	285

Marketing or A Random Walk Down Wall Street

Marketing

Author: Roger A Kerin

This market leading Principles of Marketing text is sold in two-year,four-year and graduate programs. This book is the students' first look into the world of Marketing. Using the active learning approach,the authors are preparing the students for the extraordinary marketplace they will be entering and learning about. The Fifth Edition focuses on creating customer value by providing exceptional knowledge,understanding,skills,decision-making tools,and support materials for both major and non-majors. From its introduction in 1985,Marketing has helped over 350,000 students and 2,100 instructors study and teach one of the most dynamic and challenging areas. Their innovative pedagogical approach,making the student the decision-maker,involves the student in the study of marketing and encourages them to think about their personal experiences as a consumer and by asking them to assume the role of marketing decision maker. Icons alert the reader to special topics including: customer value,global topics,technology,cross-functional,and ethical and social responsibility alerts.

Table of Contents:

Pt. I	Initiating the Marketing Process
1	Marketing: A Focus on the Consumer	4
2	Marketing in the Organization: An Overview	30
3	The Changing Marketing Environment	56
4	Ethics and Social Responsibility in Marketing	88
Pt. II	Understanding Buyers and Markets
5	Consumer Behavior	110
6	Organizational Markets and Buyer Behavior	138
Pt. III	Targeting Marketing Opportunities
7	Collecting and Using Marketing Information	166
8	Market Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning	194
9	Micromarketing, Information Technology, and Forecasting	222
Pt. IV	Satisfying Marketing Opportunities
10	Developing New Products	252
11	Managing the Product	282
12	Pricing: Relating Objectives to Revenues and Costs	312
13	Pricing: Arriving at the Final Price	336
	Appendix A: Financial Aspects of Marketing	366
14	Marketing Channels and Wholesaling	374
15	Physical Distribution and Logistics Management	402
16	Retailing	430
17	Promotional Process, Sales Promotion, and Publicity	462
18	Advertising	490
19	Personal Selling and Sales Management	516
Pt. V	Managing the Marketing Process
20	The Strategic Marketing Process: The Planning Phase	546
21	The Strategic Marketing Process: Implementation and Control Phases	574
Pt. VI	Expanding Marketing Settings
22	International Marketing	602
23	Marketing of Services	632
	Appendix B: Career Planning in Marketing	656
	Cases	676
	Glossary	717
	Notes	733
	Author Index	759
	Company and Product Index	767
	Subject Index	775
	Credits	789

Interesting textbook: Where the Sidewalk Ends or Million Dollar Throw

A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing

Author: Burton G Malkiel

The million-copy bestseller, revised and updated with new investment strategies for retirement and the insights of behavioral finance.

Updated with a new chapter that draws on behavioral finance, the field that studies the psychology of investment decisions, here is the best-selling, authoritative, and gimmick-free guide to investing. Burton G. Malkiel evaluates the full range of investment opportunities from stocks, bonds, and money markets to real estate investment trusts and insurance, home ownership, and tangible assets such as gold and collectibles. This edition includes new strategies for rearranging your portfolio for retirement along with the book's classic life-cycle guide to investing, which matches the needs of investors in any age bracket. A Random Walk Down Wall Street long ago established itself as a must-read, the first book to purchase before starting a portfolio, and it remains the best investing guide money can buy.

Publishers Weekly

The eternal truth of this updated investment classic, originally published in 1973, is simple: you can't beat the market. Well, technically, you can beat the market, but not profitably, because the transaction costs of your brilliant trading will eat up the extra returns. You can also beat the market by pure luck-but you can't deliberately beat the market, because you can't predict future stock prices. You can't predict them by divining Wall Street's crowd psychology; or by charting trends in stock prices; or by doing lots of research on companies' business prospects. You can't predict them from hemlines (though there's been "some evidence" for correlation between skirt length and market prices in the past, Malkiel poo-poos future possibilities) or Super Bowl winners (this, he says, makes "no sense"). In fact, according to the efficient market theory, which states that all knowable information about a stock's value is already reflected in its share price, you can't predict them at all. Malkiel, a Princeton economist and professional investor, backs it all up with statistics, charts and studies, and gives an entertaining review of the sorry history of market bubbles, panics and delusions of omniscience, from the Dutch tulip craze to the Beardstown Ladies. This edition looks at new wrinkles (it seems you can't beat the market by buying companies with ".com" in the name), and provides a lucid overview of novel investment vehicles. Standing by his notorious claim that "a blindfolded chimpanzee throwing darts" at the NYSE listings could pick stocks as well as the Wall Street pros, Malkiel advises investors to "buy and hold" a diversified portfolio heavy on index funds that passively mirror the market, which usually out-perform actively managed funds. His witty, acerbic style and persuasive arguments will delight readers but, alas, leave Wall Street unmoved. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Updating a classic to keep your investing fresh. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Purple Cow or Suze Ormans Will and Trust Kit

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

Author: Seth Godin

You're either a Purple Cow or you're not. You're either remarkable or invisible. Make your choice.

What do Starbucks and JetBlue and KrispyKreme and Apple and DutchBoy and Kensington and Zespri and Hard Candy have that you don't? How do they continue to confound critics and achieve spectacular growth, leaving behind former tried-and true brands to gasp their last?

Face it, the checklist of tired 'P's marketers have used for decades to get their product noticed -Pricing, Promotion, Publicity, to name a few-aren't working anymore. There's an exceptionally important 'P' that has to be added to the list. It's Purple Cow.

Cows, after you've seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though...now that would be something. Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat out unbelievable. Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff-a lot of brown cows-but you can bet they won't forget a Purple Cow. And it's not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service. Purple Cow is inherent. It's built right in, or it's not there. Period.

In Purple Cow, Seth Godin urges you to put a Purple Cow into everything you build, and everything you do, to create something truly noticeable. It's a manifesto for marketers who want to help create products that are worth marketing in the first place.


About the Author

Seth Godin is the worldwide bestselling author of Permission Marketing, Unleashing the Ideavirus, and Survival is not Enough. He is a renowned public speaker, has started several successful companies, and is a contributing editor at Fast Company Magazine.

Publishers Weekly

The world is changing ever more rapidly, and the rules of marketing are no different, writes Godin, the field's reigning guru. The old ways-run-of-the-mill TV commercials, ads in the Wall Street Journal and so on-don't work like they used to, because such messages are so plentiful that consumers have tuned them out. This means you have to toss out everything you know and do something "remarkable" (the way a purple cow in a field of Guernseys would be remarkable) to have any effect at all, writes Godin (Permission Marketing; Unleashing the Ideavirus). He cites companies like HBO, Starbucks and JetBlue, all of which created new ways of doing old businesses and saw their brands sizzle as a result. Godin's style is punchy and irreverent, using short, sharp messages to drive his points home. As a result the book is fiery, but not entirely cohesive; at times it resembles a stream-of-consciousness monologue. Still, his wide-ranging advice-be outrageous, tell the truth, test the limits and never settle for just "very good"-is solid and timely. (May 12) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Following the traditional rules of marketing just isn't enough anymore. In today's competitive economy, companies that want to create a successful new product must create a remarkable new product. According to bestselling author and marketing guru Seth Godin, such a product is a Purple Cow, a product or service that is worth making a remark about.

The impact of advertising in newspapers and magazines is fading — people are overwhelmed with information and have stopped paying attention to most media messages. To create Purple Cow products, Godin advises companies to stop advertising and start innovating. Godin recommends that marketers target a niche, and he describes effective ways to spread your idea to the consumers who are most likely to buy your product.

Godin claims there isn't a shortage of remarkable ideas — every business has opportunities to do great things — there's a shortage of the will to execute those ideas.

For many years, marketers have used the five (or more) Ps as guidelines for selling their product and achieving their company's goals. Some of the Ps include: Product, Pricing, Promotion, Positioning, Publicity, Packaging, Permission, and Pass-along. According to the popular theory, if these elements aren't all in place, the marketing message is unclear and ineffective. Making the right marketing moves does not guarantee success, but the prevailing wisdom used to be that if your Ps were right, you had a better chance of succeeding in the marketplace.

But at a certain point in the evolution of marketing, it became clear that following the Ps just isn't enough. This book tells about a new P — Purple Cow — that is extremely important to marketers in today's fast-paced, highly competitive business environment.

Purple Cow refers to a product or service that is different from the rest and somehow remarkable.Purple Cow tells about the why, the what, and the how of remarkable. Remarkable marketing is the process of building things into your product or service that are worth noticing. Not adding marketing to your product or service at the last minute, but understanding that if what you're offering isn't remarkable, it is invisible in the marketplace.

Whether you are marketing a product or service to consumers or corporations, the sad truths about marketing are that:

• Most people can't buy your product — they don't have the money, don't have the time, or simply don't want it.
• If consumers don't have enough money to buy what you are selling at the price you are selling it for, you don't have a market for your product or service.
• If consumers don't have time to listen to and understand your marketing pitch, your product or service is invisible to them.
• If consumers take the time to hear your pitch but decide they don't want what you are selling, you are not going to be successful.

TV commercials are the most effective selling tool ever devised. A large part of America's economic success in this century is due to the fact that our companies have perfected this medium and used it extensively. Cars, cigarettes, clothing, food — anything that was advertised well on television was changed by the medium. Marketers not only used television to promote products, but television changed the way products were created and marketed. Because of this, the marketing Ps changed to take advantage of the dynamic between creating products and capturing consumers' attention on television.

The impact of advertising on television and in newspapers and magazines is fading too, just like any form of media that interrupts any form of consumer activity. Individuals and businesses have just stopped paying attention.

The old rule was: CREATE SAFE, ORDINARY PRODUCTS AND COMBINE THEM WITH GREAT MARKETING.

The new rule is: CREATE REMARKABLE PRODUCTS THAT THE RIGHT PEOPLE SEEK OUT.

There isn't a shortage of remarkable ideas — every business has opportunities to do great things — there's a shortage of the will to execute them. Since the old ways of doing things have become obsolete, it's actually safer to take the risk inherent in trying to create remarkable things. Your best bet is to take the steps necessary to create Purple Cows.

Until an actual product or service is created, a brand or new product is nothing more than an idea. Ideas that spread rapidly — "ideaviruses" — are more likely to succeed than ideas that don't.

"Sneezers" are the people who launch and spread an ideavirus. These people are the experts who tell all their colleagues and friends about a new product or service that they are knowledgeable about. Every market has a few sneezers — finding and seducing these sneezers is essential to creating an ideavirus.

To create an idea (and a product or service) that spreads, don't try to make a product for everybody, because that is a product for nobody. Since the sneezers in today's huge marketplace have too many choices and are fairly satisfied, an "everybody" product probably won't capture their interest.

To connect with the mainstream, you must target a niche instead of a huge market. In targeting a niche, you approach a segment of the mainstream and create an ideavirus so focused that it overwhelms that small section of the market and those people will respond. The sneezers in this niche are more likely to talk about your product, and best of all, the market is small enough that just a few sneezers can spread the word to the number of people you need to create an ideavirus. Copyright © 2003 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

New interesting textbook: Notes on the State of Virginia or Barack Obama

Suze Orman's Will and Trust Kit: The Ultimate Protection Portfolio

Author: Suze Orman

NEW, ONLINE VERSION!
This is an easy-to-use and fast way for you and other members of your household to create your own will, living revocable trust, and all the other must-have documents you need to protect you and your family. It’s as easy as 1-2-3—simply personalize, print, and protect.
Suze Orman and her own estate trust attorney have created the most state-of-the-art documents found anywhere. There are more than $2,500 worth of estate documents in this kit. Why pay thousands of dollars when you can get the same documents in this kit for $19.95!
This kit includes:
• More than 50 state-of-the-art documents
• Free automatic on-line updates
• Verbal and written instructions taking you step by step through the four must-have documents
• Password protection securing multiple users’ information
• A tutorial that shows you everything you need to know
• 10 electronic books

PC and Macintosh Compatible . . . and good in all 50 states!

Scratch Beginnings or Winning

Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream

Author: Adam W Shepard

IS the American Dream still alive or has it, in fact, been drowned out by a clashing of the classes? Is the upper class destined to rule forever while the lower classes are forced to live in the same cyclical misery?

Millions of Americans fight for the answers to these questions every day, and here, in Scratch Beginnings, one man makes the attempt at discovering the answers for himself. Carrying only a sleeping bag, the clothes on his back, and $25 cash, and restricted from using previous contacts or his education, Adam Shepard sets out for a randomly selected city with one goal on his mind: work his way out of the realities of homelessness and into a life that will offer him the opportunity for success.

Scratch Beginnings is Shepard's response to the now-famous books Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, where Barbara Ehrenreich has written on the hopeless pursuit of the American Dream. This book offers his observation of what it is like for so many people on the lower end of the spectrum, the crappy end of the stick. In this poignant account, Shepard goes on a search for the vitality of the American Dream, and, in turn, discovers so much more.

Scratch Beginnings is unquestionably one of the most engaging works of the social science genre. No matter your reading interest, Shepard's facile writing style is sure to keep you turning the pages.

Elizabeth L. Winter - Library Journal

Recent college graduate Shepard is tired of hearing people complain about what they don't have. In this rebuttal to Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, he sets off to see how far he can get by starting in Charleston, SC, with $25 and the clothes on his back. His goal is to finish 365 days later with a functioning car, a furnished apartment, and $2500 and be in a position to continue improving his circumstances. Along the way, he lives in a homeless shelter, befriends some interesting characters, and learns things the hard way. Shepard is wise to acknowledge the factors that play to his advantage in his experiment (e.g., he's healthy and does not have a dependent family). This story may inspire young people to realize how one's attitudes and foundational beliefs about society can influence where one goes in life. Shepard's conclusions and recommendations seem a bit simplistic but do not significantly detract from the book's overall impact. Recommended for public, high school, and undergraduate libraries.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: July 24–Setting Up

Chapter One: Welcome to Crisis Ministries

Chapter Two: EasyLabor

Chapter Three: Another Day, Another Dollar

Chapter Four: Big Babies

Chapter Five: Sundays with George

Chapter Six: Hustle Time

Chapter Seven: Job Hunting 101 with Professor Phil Coleman

Chapter Eight: Put Up or Shut Up

Chapter Nine: "First and Last Day"

Chapter Ten: Adventure in Moving

Chapter Eleven: Movin' On Up

Chapter Twelve: Workers' Consternation

Chapter Thirteen: Winter with Bubble Gum

Chapter Fourteen: Culture Shocked

Chapter Fifteen: Fighting for Respect

Chapter Sixteen: One Last Move

Epilogue: A Year later: A Didactic Look at What I Learned and Where We Go from Here

Read also SQL in a Nutshell or Cinema 4D 10 Workshop

Winning

Author: Jack Welch

Winning is destined to become the bible of business for generations to come. It clearly and succinctly lays out the answers to the most difficult, important questions people face both on and off the job. Welch's objective is to speak to people at every level of the organization, in companies large and small. His audience is everyone from line workers to college students and MBAs, from project managers to senior executives. He describes his core business principles and devotes most of Winning to the real "stuff" of work--how to lead, hire, get ahead, even write a budget. Welch's optimistic, no excuses, get-it-done mind set is riveting. His goal is to help anyone and everyone who has a passion for success.

USA Today

"Welch dispense the sharp-edged business acumen...He is giving back what he learned, and not just to fellow CEO's. He is able to write a book that might just reach the rest of us."

Newsweek

"..smart, practical and not afraid to address tough subjects"

The Wall Street Journal

"The right stuff -- Mr. Welch offers knowing descriptions of dilemmas and problems that are all too common in American business life, and he proposes a few ideas for solving them.."

BusinessWeek

"...candid and accessible...insights and wisdom to share."

Library Journal

Welch (Jack: Straight from the Gut) follows up his successful and frank autobiography with his equally straight-shooting insights on winning that focuses more on business and management. The now legendary retired CEO of General Electric presents management wisdom he learned in his 40 years with GE that culminated with growing the company from a market capitalization of $4 billion to nearly half a trillion dollars. Since his retirement in 2001, Welch has been on a whirlwind tour of speaking engagements tied to his first book and Q&A sessions with managers from all levels, and this work summarizes his beliefs that were covered in these appearances. Written with his wife, a former editor of the Harvard Business Review, the book is organized into four parts, including management principles and concepts; managing people, processes, and culture; and managing the art and quality of a professional life. Welch's personality and ideas are soundly evident, although his distinctly New England accent and raspy narration may send some listeners to the hard copy. Highly recommended for larger public libraries and university libraries supporting a business curriculum.-Dale Farris, Groves, TX Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Soundview Summary</p> - Soundview Executive Book Summaries

What does it take to win? According to Jack Welch, winning in business is great because when companies win, people thrive and grow. There are more jobs and more opportunities everywhere and for everyone. But even the most talented businessperson with the best intentions will get nowhere unless he or she knows HOW to win in today's complex business world. Business is a game, and winning that game is a total blast!

Mission and Values
Mission and values are two terms that have got to be among the most abstract, overused, misunderstood words in business. By contrast, a good mission statement and a good set of values are so real they smack you in the face with their concreteness. The mission announces exactly where you are going, and the values describe the behaviors that will get you there.

Effective mission statements balance the possible and the impossible. They give people a clear sense of the direction to profitability and the inspiration to feel they are part of something big and important. A mission cannot, and must not, be delegated to anyone except the people ultimately held accountable for it.

In contrast to the creation of a mission, everyone in a company should have something to say about values. You can use company-wide meetings, training sessions, and the like, for as much personal discussion as possible, and the intranet for broader input. The executive team has to go out of their way to be sure they've created an atmosphere where people feel it is their obligation to contribute.

Candor: The Biggest Dirty Little Secret in Business
Lack of candor blocks smart ideas, fast action and good people contributing all the stuff they've got. It's a killer. When you've got candor, everything just operates faster and better.

First you get idea-rich. Second, candor generates speed. Third, candor cuts costs. Put all of its benefits and efficiencies together and you realize you just can't afford not to have candor. Given the advantages of candor, you have to wonder why we don't have more of it.

To get candor, you reward it, praise it and talk about it. You make public heroes out of people who demonstrate it. Most of all, you yourself demonstrate it in an exuberant and even exaggerated way - even when you're not the boss.

Differentiation: Cruel and Darwinian? Try Fair and Effective
Companies win when their managers make a clear and meaningful distinction between top- and bottom-performing businesses and people, when they cultivate the strong and cull the weak. Companies suffer when every business and person is treated equally.

Differentiation is just resource allocation. Along with being the most efficient and most effective way to run your company, differentiation also happens to be the fairest and the kindest. Ultimately, it makes winners out of everyone. However, differentiation cannot - and must not - be implemented quickly. At GE, it took about a decade to install the kind of candor and trust that makes differentiation possible.

Hiring: What Winners Are Made Of
Hiring good people is hard. Hiring great people is brutally hard. Nothing matters more in winning than getting the right people on the field. However, before you think about assessing people for a job, they have to pass through three screens.

The first test is for integrity. People with integrity tell the truth, and they keep their word. They take responsibility for past actions, admit mistakes, and fix them. The second test is for intelligence. The candidate has a strong dose of intellectual curiosity, with a breadth of knowledge to work with or lead other smart people in today's complex world. The third ticket to the game is maturity. Mature individuals can withstand heat, handle stress and setbacks, and alternatively - when those moments arise - enjoy success with equal parts of joy and humility.

Change: Mountains Do Move
Change is a critical part of business. You need to change, preferably before you have to. Most people hate it; they love familiarity and patterns, and cling to them. But attributing a behavior to human nature doesn't mean you have to be controlled by it. Instead, it comes down to embracing four practices:

1. Attach every change initiative to a clear purpose or goal. Change for change's sake is stupid and enervating.
2. Hire and promote only true believers and get-on-with-it types.
3. Remove the resisters, even if their performance is satisfactory.
4. Look at car wrecks.

Crisis Management
As long as companies are made up of human beings, there will be mistakes, controversies and blowups. The cold truth is that some degree of unwanted and unacceptable behavior is inevitable.

You can be proactive in preventing some crisis in three main ways: tight controls, good internal processes and a culture of integrity.

Strategy: It's All in the Sauce
In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell. Strategy means making clear-cut choices about how to compete. You cannot be everything to everybody.

Six Sigma: Better than a Trip to the Dentist
Nothing compares to the effectiveness of Six Sigma when it comes to improving a company's operational efficiency, raising its productivity and lowering its costs. Six Sigma has two primary applications. First, it can be used to remove the variation in routine, relatively simple, repetitive tasks. And second, it can be used to make sure large, complex projects go right the first time.

Six Sigma is meant for and has its most meaningful impact on repetitive internal processes and complex product designs. Once you understand the simple maxim "variation is evil," you're 60 percent of the way to becoming a Six Sigma expert. The other 40 percent is getting the evil out. Copyright © 2006 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

What People Are Saying

Bill Gates
"A candid and comprehensive look at how to succeed in business-for everyone from college graduates to CEOs."
—chairman, Microsoft Corporation

Tom Brokaw
"Reading Jack Welch's plain-language, high-energy book Winning is like getting the playbook of the Super Bowl champions before the game. It's a big head start on how to master the corporate game from the entry level to the corporate suites. He is the master."
—former anchor and managing editor, NBC Nightly News

Warren E. Buffett
"When you talk with Jack about management, his energy and passion fill the room. You get a similar experience with this book-the same qualities jump at you from every page."
—chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

Rudy Guilliani
"Jack Welch lays out a readable, detailed, step-by-step plan that anyone can use to become a true winner. Using real-life examples and the same tell-it-like-it-is style that helped reinvigorate General Electric, Welch describes how Americans can succeed in both their careers and in their personal lives."
—former mayor of New York City