Well, Book Week has come to a close at Get Rich Slowly, and while it was an interesting experiment, it’s not likely to happen again any time soon.
For one thing, I learned that doing book reviews takes more work than doing regular posts. To do a review, you have to read the book (sometimes twice), decide how it’s relevant to readers, and then write a normal article. And while an occasional book review is a nice change of pace, a week filled with them is boring, both for me and for the readers. So, no more Book Weeks at GRS.
Before we ease back into normal personal-finance topics, though, I thought it would be fun to discuss our favorite personal-finance books and magazines. As a starting point, here’s a recent comment from Deb:
I’d love a running list of your top 10 fave finance books. You could keep it fluid; there’s no reason it can’t change. I’m always on the hunt for helpful financial books! I’m most confused about self-directed investing vs. having a financial advisor. I tried to wrap my mind around Bernstein’s books and just couldn’t do it, which makes me concerned about trying to do investing on my own!
Deb’s comment is interesting for a couple of reasons.
- First, I like the idea of a “running list” of favorite finance books. Because she’s right: The list changes with time. As I read more, and as my own finance skills develop, different books will appeal to me.
- Second, she points out that what might be a good book for one person may not be good for another. I find William Bernstein’s books perfect for my personal knowledge and philosophy. I’m sure my wife would find them tedious. We each have different tastes and needs.
So, to end Book Week, I’ve drafted a list of my current top-ten finance books. These are the books I would want in a personal finacne library if I started one today. Your list would be different (and I invite you to share it in the comments).
Here’s the list (in alphabetical order by title):
- All Your Worth. You know, I hated this book at first. And I’m still not a fan of how Elizabeth Warren allows personal responsibility off the hook. But I can’t deny that this book had a huge impact on helping me find a balanced financial life. The Balanced Money Formula has been a Big Deal for me, and that’s an idea that originated here. [My review.]
- The Complete Tightwad Gazette. This book is a monster — almost 1000 pages of ideas on how to live well for less. Amy Dacyczyn was the Queen of Cheap twenty years ago, and her legacy remains strong. If you want to know how to get the best deal on groceries, how to shop for clothes, and how to reuse anything, then pick up this book. It’s a treasure trove of ideas. [I have never reviewed this book, though I've mentioned it many times.]
- Debt is Slavery. Not many people have heard of this slim self-published book. That’s too bad. Michael Mihalik does a fantastic job of explaining a handful of basic financial concepts, and his advice is sound. This is the perfect book for a young adult who doesn’t know where to start. I wish I’d had access to this book when I was 20. [My review.]
- The Four Pillars of Investing. If I ever finish Jeremy Siegel’s Stocks for the Long Run, it may replace this book on my list. For now, though, The Four Pillars of Investing is my go-to book for reminding myself why I’ve adopted index funds as my main investment strategy. This book covers investment theory, history, and psychology, as well as the business of investing. [My review.]
- The Incredible Secret Money Machine. I know, I know: You’ve never heard of it. It may be long out of print, but The Incredible Secret Money Machine is a terrific book about building “money machines”, businesses or products that keep producing nickels year after year. I wish the author had the gumption to update this (it’s over 30 years old!) and reprint it for a new generation. [My review.]
- Work Less, Live More. Bob Clyatt’s book on early- and semi-retirement is one of my favorites. It’s sensible, comprehensive, and inspirational. He includes a big section on smart investing, and offers ideas for how to pursue your passions once you’ve stopped working full-time. [I've never reviewed this book, though I should.]
- You Can Negotiate Anything. It was a toss-up whether to include this or Negotiating Your Salary [my review]. The latter is outstanding, and I recommend it highly to anyone who is applying for a job or asking for a raise. In the end, though, I chose Herb Cohen’s book because it covers a wider range of topics. And it’s entertaining! [My review.]
- Your Money and Your Brain. I haven’t reviewed this at Get Rich Slowly yet, but it’s a great book. Jason Zweig covers the latest research into how money affects our behavior. There are a lot of interesting books out there about the psychology of personal finance, but this is the most comprehensive.
- Your Money or Your Life. Of course this is on my list. Your Money or Your Life has influenced thousands of people — including me. The book includes advice about getting out of debt, living frugally, and seeking financial independence. But what most of us remember is that it helped make money less abstract, helped us see how it was directly related to time. [A guest review from the first month of GRS back in 2006.]
- Your Money: The Missing Manual. Wait — I put my own book on the list? You bet. I wrote Your Money: The Missing Manual precisely to be the sort of book I needed when I was struggling with money. I think it’s a great resource, getting to the heart of a broad range of topics. Plus, I’ve done my best to point to other books and websites readers can use to get more information. If I could only have ten books in my personal-finance library, I’d want this to be one of them. (In fact, I refer to my own book almost daily. No joke. I guess that’s one of the luxuries of writing a book — you can just write the book you want!)
Are there other great books about money out there? Of course. A list of ten books can’t begin to be comprehensive. Over the past five years, I’ve read nearly 200 money manuals, and many of them contained great information. But today — on 10 September 2010 — these are the ten essential books I’d want in my personal finance library — if I could have only ten.
What are your essential personal-finance books? Which have you read and loved? Which have you read and hated? Are there books you’d recommend to people in specific circumstances?
I got home a little late tonight. Against my better judgment, I plopped down on the couch with my family to watch cable news. There was Majority Leader McConnell crowing about the Senate's passage of what's been dubbed the "Stop Taxing 'Ur Personal Income, Dude" Act. This extends the Bush tax cuts for dudes earning more than $250,000 per year while piling up the deficit over the next decade and beyond.
Some talking head from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explained to Rachel Maddow why the fine print was actually worse. Much of the true $1 trillion ten-year cost wasn't shown on the government's books, since the tax cuts were nominally slated to nominally expire in a few years. Despite such budget shenanigans, Republicans still needed to cut $300 billion to partially finance their favored tax cuts. So a Senate coalition of 53 Republicans and 8 moderate Democrats voted to reduce affordability credits designed to help people buy health insurance, while reducing funding for community health centers, nutrition and unemployment assistance, aid to states and localities.
Although Republicans lacked the votes to overtly reverse health reform, they have already chipped away at the fine print and at the infrastructure of health reform. HHS Secretary Sebelius was blocked from enforcing key provisions designed to deter large insurance rate increases. Funding was cut for the already-stressed temporary high-risk pools that serve uninsured men and women with pre-existing conditions.
Answering Democratic complaints that these policies made insurance even less affordable, Congress eliminated penalties associated with the "individual mandate," causing a significant (though at this writing imperfectly understood) challenge to measures that protect Americans with preexisting conditions buy coverage.
Although the American economy continues its anemic recovery, Republican leaders ruled out the possibility of additional stimulus, arguing: "We already spent $800 billion, and it didn't work," and that was that.
Speaker Boehner has been on TV every night trumpeting Holder-Gate. Joe Barton, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has announced lengthy hearing regarding allegations that Attorney General Eric Holder had failed to recuse himself from an investigation of the New Black Panther Party, whose former Secretary-Treasurer turned out to be one of Holders' distant relatives, Shamika Azziz-Epstein.* Ms. Azziz-Epstein has been called before the Committee for extended testimony. As one self-described Republican strategist put things: "We must know who Ms. Azziz-Epstein really is," slowly pronouncing AZZIZ-EPSTEIN with particular relish. "And What did Mr. Holder know, and when did he know it."
Yeah, it's been a lousy April, 2011.
That's a lousy scenario. It's pretty likely, too. Democrats inherited a bad economy and a series of daunting challenges at home and abroad. Now that we own these problems, voters are responding accordingly. We face an uphill battle in this year's midterms.
What makes this especially frustrating is the lack of intensity and focus among so many people who were so central to the 2008 victory. Political pros across the ideological spectrum expect low midterm turnout. They expect the electorate to be older, whiter, and more conservative than the group that was so fired up and ready to go only two years ago. Younger voters, Latinos, African-Americans, and many progressives are expected to stay home without Barack Obama's name on the ballot. Many of those who fought hard for health reform are expected to stay home, too. Some are complacent now that the bill passed. Others are jaded and alienated because valuable provisions, principally the public option, didn't make it to final passage.
Again, this is maddening. If Republicans win the House, the most likely outcome, they will capture the committee chairs required to harass the Obama administration with crazy or trivial investigations. They will capture critical leverage over the budget that will allow them to undermine valuable legislation passed over the next two years. They will have an elevated platform to identify every unpopular change in the American health care system with health care reform.
Just this week, I received an email describing a proposed bill that would gut health reform's public health and prevention investments to finance some small-business thing. In dollar terms, that's one of the tiniest items one can expect to see.
From a tactical perspective, you've got to hand it to Republicans. With some exceptions such as the stimulus and health reform, they have profited from their lockstep discipline and their efforts to run out the clock on every Democratic initiative. The need for 60 Senate votes, along with the outsized influence of sparsely populated states, provided the essential tool for Republican resurgence. On issue after issue, working to assemble a wafer-thin supermajority, Democrats were forced to cut unseemly public deals with the most parochial and conservative members of their coalition.
The process didn't look right. It also led Democrats to bicker with each other while Republicans escape much of the blame. Progressives blame the President for missteps. The administration blames progressive legislators for being naively over-optimistic. Both sides of the argument blame apathetic progressive voters for lending too little help. Core Democratic voters became bored and dispirited with the whole thing. Many uninformed voters who gave President Obama the benefit of their doubts to enact better policies and to change the culture of Washington, became even more alienated.
Then there are the many drops of poison that Sarah Palin and company inject to exploit Americans' cultural anxieties about various frightening others. In my adult years, the list of negative icons extends from Willy Horton to undocumented immigrants to Will and Grace and gay people who want to marry, and most recently to an Islamic community center near Ground Zero. As Michael Cohen observes, the Bush years provided a certain welcome and honorable break from this sort of thing. That break is over.
Most recently, Newt Gingrich compared building an Islamic community center to waving a Nazi sign near the Holocaust museum. Jews who find such comments appealing might remember Gingrich's cracks to Georgia voters that Democrats favored Woody Allen family values. It's hard to know what to gasp at first: the ugly regional and religious overtones or Gingrich's monumental chutzpah given his own disgraceful personal life. In the long-run, exclusionist rhetoric risks driving the GOP down to its most conservative base in a relative handful of states. Without a doubt, though, the GOP is deriving some immediate political benefits from anything that makes President Barack Hussein Obama identify publicly with things Islamic.
If you are still reading, you are probably a progressive activist or potential activist. I can't tell you what to do. I would suggest: Find some cause you are passionate about that is helping in the midterm fight. If you are a core Obama supporter, maybe that cause is Organizing for America. If you are in the netroots, maybe MoveOn is your cause. Maybe you support Speaker Pelosi after her leadership in enacting progressive legislation. Maybe you are drawn to nonpartisan advocacy groups concerned with the environment or with health care reform. Whatever the vehicle, get involved.
Your time, money, energy, and talent are really needed. Right now, many progressives are passive. Much of the energy, passion, and organization seem to be on the other side. President Obama's name is not on the ballot. We're all pretty jaded, for good reasons and bad, about the United States Congress. Right now, the prospects of a Republican majority are pretty abstract. Yet I promise you: Progressives will find new energy and enthusiasm at the sight of Republicans assuming House or Senate majorities. If this happens, six months from now we'll be livid with Republicans. We'll be wondering how to undo or minimize the damage.
I hope we won't have to ask ourselves why we were so lazy, complacent, or disorganized this Fall, and, by failing to do our best, made a tough midterm election avoidably worse.
*Yeah, I made up this name.
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