How to Build Long-Term Value and Take Back Our Financial Future This is a great book. I got a lot out of the sections that bring to the surface a lot of the issues that we’ve been seeing in our economy. These issues have been written about in countless places, but author Alfred Rappaport also proposes workable options that could be put into place to resolve these issues, a step that has been lacking in other places I’ve seen these issues discussed. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The issues I’ve referenced above are the sort of systemic issues we’re seeing in economy in general and specifically the financial services industry. Included in these issues are the wild short-term fluctuations we have been seeing in the markets, in part due to the ways that CEOs are compensated, how investment managers are compensated, and how those compensation systems influence behaviors and […]
Book review
Book Review: Uncertainty is a Certainty
This was a surprising and refreshing book. The full title is Uncertainty is a Certainty, Fables for Fiduciaries. The author, Guerdon T. Ely, has done the near impossible: the very topic of fiduciary duty has been known to induce a near coma-like status in even the most devout financial professional, but Ely has distilled the critical concepts into a very easy-reading tome that keeps the reader interested, even engaged, in his explanation of what is required of the fiduciary. For the uninitiated, a fiduciary is a financial professional who has the responsibility of handling financial affairs for another entity – it could be a trust, a pension plan, or an individual or family. There is a set of rules that explain the duties of a fiduciary, known as the Uniform Prudent Investor Act, or UPIA for short (we certainly love our acronyms in this industry, don’t we?). This bit of […]
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Book Review: The Old Rules of Marketing Are Dead
The complete title of this book is: The Old Rules of Marketing Are Dead – 6 New Rules to Reinvent Your Brand & Reignite Your Business, and it’s written by Timothy R. Pearson. Mr. Pearson is the former Vice Chair, Global Managing Partner, Marketing and Communications (and first Chief Marketing Officer) for KPMG, along with numerous other positions in management consulting, boards and societies. It’s from the perspective that he gained in the position at KPMG that much of the book is written, so it is understandable that the viewpoint is primarily about large corporations. That’s not to say that there is nothing in this book for the small business – you simply need to adjust the language to meet your situation. For example, when the book refers to your marketing team, for the small business person that probably just means “you” – the same as your accounting team, management […]
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Book Review: Investing and the Irrational Mind
This was an interesting book for me. I found that the research that author Robert Koppel has compiled from various sources throughout academia lends a great deal of insight into the “why?” of activities by individuals, professional traders, and others that take part in the great game of investing. Even though the majority of the discussion and analysis that Koppel brings forth deals with professional traders, the behavioral psychology applies to individual, non-professional investors as well. An example of a particularly interesting passage is one where Koppel quotes Nassim Taleb from his book, The Black Swan – effective responses to Black Swan Events (such as the 2008 economic crisis or the 9/11 crisis): What is fragile should break early, while it is still small. Nothing should ever become too big to fail. There should be no socialization of losses and privatization of gains. People who were driving a school bus […]
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Book Review: The Last Economic Superpower
Have you found yourself wondering over the past couple of years just how the Great Recession came about? What sorts of things led up to this meltdown, and how far in advance did it all start? What might we do in the future to keep something similar from happening again? In his book, The Last Economic Superpower, Joseph P. Quinlan does a wonderful job of answering those questions and many, many, more. While the text does get long on statistics and therefore a bit technical to comprehend, I think Quinlan has done an excellent job overall of walking the reader through the precursors to the crisis, the crisis itself, and what our present situation looks like as a result. The first section of the book covers all the events leading up to the late-2008 global economic crisis, tracing issues back to the very roots of the rise of globalization after […]
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Book Review: Small Business Taxes Made Easy
This book was a surprise to me – I did not expect to find such a thorough guidebook on the process of starting up a small business, but that’s what Small Business Taxes Made Easy is. Author Eva Rosenberg, (“TaxMama” to her devotees) has not only the experience, but also the in-depth understanding of both the small business and the small business-person to lead you through this process and help you to succeed, quite possibly in spite of yourself. The title of the book is misleading, as the first several chapters of the book have little to do with taxes and much to do with all of the administrivia that you need to go through when setting up a small business. In fact, you really don’t get to tax matters at all until about page 70 (of 261) in the book. The first few chapters take you through the concepts […]
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New Book: “Can I Retire?”
My friend Mike Piper at Oblivious Investor recently published a new book Can I Retire? Managing a Retirement Portfolio Explained in 100 Pages or Less. The book is available for sale on Amazon. As the latest addition to Mike’s “…in 100 Pages or Less” series, this book answers two questions: How much money will you need to retire? How should you manage your retirement portfolio to minimize the risk of outliving your money? What Makes This Book Unique? How does this book hope to be better than, for example, The Bogleheads’ Guide to Retirement Planning or Jim Otar’s Unveiling the Retirement Myth? It doesn’t. It’s not better. It’s shorter. Can I Retire? is written for the person who might not be able to find the time to read Otar’s entire 525-page book or the 370-page Bogleheads’ Guide. If you’re considering reading a more in-depth guide to retirement planning, I wholeheartedly […]
Sterling Raskie, MSFS, CFP®, ChFC®
The latest in our Owner’s Manual series, A 401(k) Owner’s Manual, was published in January 2020 and is available on 
A Medicare Owner’s Manual, is updated with 2020 facts and figures. This manual is available on 
Social Security for the Suddenly Single can be found on Amazon at 
Sterling’s first book, Lose Weight Save Money, can be 
An IRA Owner’s Manual, 2nd Edition is available for purchase on Amazon. Click the link to choose the 
Jim’s book – A Social Security Owner’s Manual, is now available on Amazon. Click this link for the 
And if you’ve come here to learn about queuing waterfowl, I apologize for the confusion. You may want to discuss your question with Lester, my loyal watchduck and self-proclaimed “advisor’s advisor”.