2 comments about A. P. Giannini: Banker of America.

1. Most people today never heard of A.P. Giannini. Yet, they can probably thank him for most of the banking services that they take for granted: consumer loans, mortgages, interstate and branch banking. Giannini brought banking to the masses. Bonadio's book chronicles the life and struggles of this man who helped build California and modernized the whole business of banking.



2. When people say "You have a one track mind" they mean it as an insult.After reading this book about A. P. Giannini, you'll be able to take it as a compliment. What he did for banking in America we now take for granted. It wasn't always so. He had a single minded purpose, "To give the little guy a bank who will do business with him." He was going to do that no matter what! And he did.The man was a bull dog in his accomplishments! This an excellent book about a unique man who has largely been forgotten in our day.He created the modern bank.

3 comments about The Wal-Mart Triumph: Inside the World's #1 Company.

1. Okay so here goes.
   Hey i just finished reading this book and it was amazing!
   "The Wal-Mart Triumph" by Robert Slater was an amazing book. It's so soaked with facts on how and why Wal-Mart is the way it is if it had anymore facts the book would drown in a puddle of facts. The first chapter is basically about how Wal-Mart started and how Sam Walton started his business empire. Then it goes on to tell about how Walmart got it's roots implanted into the south and then took over certain chain stores in the south and so on and so forth unti they get to today and it talks about the lawsuits and so on and so forth.
   Great book good read.



2. Wal-Mart has become a controversial company because it has grown immensely powerful - by revenue the biggest company in the world and the largest private employer. From its origins as a southern mid-western company going for neglected rural markets, its story is one of remarkable success.
   
   This book offers a succinct history and some explanation of how Wal-Mart succeeded: it went to markets that its big competitors ignored, made everyday low prices an essential part of its brand image, cultivated a conscientious service mentality in workers, and pursued efficiency through both scale and operations. That is its business model in a nutshell. Slater presents this matter of factly, as a natural evolution that carried the seeds of genius in the personality of earthy founder Sam Walton. The bulk of the story is how Walton's successors expanded the company far beyond what the founder achieved, making it truly global and putting a bureaucratic system into place. This was a bit useful for me as I start to investigate the company for a writing project.
   
   Unfortunately, this book felt to me like Slater was happy to propogate the myth that Wal-Mart wishes observers to believe about the company. He recounts how employees are taught to cheerlead, and acts like they want to, like they feel it sincerely rather than do it because they have to! I can say that I found it hard to believe: big companies are rarely happy and enthusiastic places. Is that conclusion surprising to anyone? It would be for Slater, who himself is a cheerleader.
   
   Even worse, he only perfunctorily asks himself any of the hard questions - such as the company's treatment of labor, its transforming impact on local communities, its use of sweatshops, etc. etc. - and then quickly implies that they are largely superfluous or silly exaggerations. This is nothing short of a simple white wash, and reads like PR that is trying to pose as thoughtful. This is really mediocre and shallow, almost like a company brochure. Slater failed to get inside the company, though he did do some interviews with prepped top officials, or so it appeared to me.
   
   Oddly, as a relatively conservative business writer, I would give Wal-Mart the benefit of the doubt, pending my own investigation as a reporter. But Slater seems to be openly endorsing the company as if it lived up to its own PR. It is appalling to me, and I am no leftie or automatic critic of big companies, but I am a skeptic as a reporter.
   
   Indeed, where he did address issues, they were never detailed enough, but instead were the most simplistic and narrow-minded generalizations. For example, he writes: "A new attitude was beginning to surface...Rather than show disdain for the negativism, the feeling was growing that there was virtue in having the media and community activists monitoring Wal-Mart." That pap is emblematic of the tone of this book and perfectly reflects how superficial it is. It also flatly contradicts what I have heard through the corporate grapevine with only the most simple of inquiries among my contacts.
   
   Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this book. Reading it is like getting a huge vanilla milkshake for dinner rather than a steak. I will have to look elsewhere for more balanced treatments of the many thorny issues that this huge company has helped to create.



3. Very interesting book! I also liked the book, which is similar to this, "The Wal-Mart Way" which describes the man who had a clear purpose and vision and his greatness of achieving success in forming the World's #1 company.

5 comments about Art Czar: The Rise and Fall of Clement Greenberg.

1. A amateurish and useless read. Reads like a undergraduate paper and has the tone of a rank outsider peering into the grown up intellectual world. Pass on it.



2. While Marquis seems to cover all the surface facts, she fails to give us a look into the theories that made Greenberg so important. And her concern with Greenberg's reputation appears slanted; for example, the controversy surrounding Greenberg's stripping the paint off the late David Smith's sculpture is defended and his detractors are summarily dismissed. It made me curious to read Rubenfeld's biography, though better yet would be to get Greenberg's Art and Culture and read what the man himself had to say.



3. Award-winning journalist and historian Alice Marquis presents Art Czar: The Rise and Fall of Clement Greenberg, a balanced biography of the man who was arguably the most influential American art critic of the twentieth century. Drawing from unpublished and previously unavailable documents, interviews, and archives, Art Czar portrays the tangled elements of Greenberg's life, including his relationship with family, friends, lovers, and rivals. Art Czar also reveals how Greenberg's tastes and gift for rhetoric spoke to the American art scene from 1940 to the 1980s. A painstakingly accurate evaluation of the nuances of Greenberg's lasting influence as surely as it is a chronicle of the events of his life.



4. This is another biography letting us know what a thoroughly bad person Clement Greenberg was with little evaluation of what the man accomplished, how he accomplished it or why he is acknowledged as perhaps the greatest art critic who ever lived. Where Rubenfeld went after him with hammer and tongs, Marquis does it with innuendo, spin and an incessant stream of disparaging adjectival phrases. Every paragraph, every account, every anecdote is worked over to make him look cruel, thoughtless, short-sighted, careless, nasty, pathetic, dogmatic, passive, neurotic and on and on. She gets facts wrong, talks constantly about his "theories" (he was not a theorist), leaps into supposition and speculation at every opportunity, lards the text with quotes from bitter associates, and demonstrates in several places that she does not understand anything about art or the simple esthetic approach he used unwaveringly during his whole career.
   
   How and why Clement Greenberg continuously draws this kind of pathologically virulent hostility is something for a social psychologist to figure out. He himself said "I have an argument with my reputation". I knew the man for 35 years, saw him often, ate with him, drank with him, argued with him, looked at at art with him - the man in this book and the man in the Rubenfeld book is not the man I knew. We need a book that sets the record straight. But then I guess the question would be, who would read it?
   
   If one could rinse out all the arbitrary negativity in this book there would be a residue of simple biographical history. There is certainly some value in that.



5. This book may be enjoyed by those deeply interested in modern art as practiced in New York in the 1940s through 60s. However, if you have only time to read one recent book on this era, buy Jed Perl's New Art City.
   
   Art Czar is about Clement Greenberg's life. Which in sum was a pathetic mess from childhood to death. He is not a noble person to read about and the fact he was a noted art critic fifty years ago does not vault him into the status of being interesting. At least not for me, and I would wager most people.
   
   The writing style of the author is basic. It certainly does not save the book from its subject.

1 comments about Two for Tonight: Pure Romance from L'Auberge Chez Francois.

1. While this book has some really fancy-pants ideas, unless you are a real foodie, you're not going to like this.
   
   There are some really amazing, really inspired, really... french dishes in here that I'd love to make, but really don't feel like roaming the store trying to find. I go through the book and it's really a plan-ahead thing to use. Unless you have stuff like quail, rack of lamb, 3 kinds of mushroom and shallots in your fridge, making anything out of here is gonna take some planning.
   
   That being said, they're not difficult dishes per se... just really imposing. If you can get past how intimidating they look you CAN make some amazing things, but really consider yourself... are you going to use it more than once, or is it going to sit on the shelf collecting dust like the other stuff.
   
   If you're a foodie, or at least a wanna-be foodie, go for it.

5 comments about The Farmer From Merna:.

1. I am a current employee in a zone operations center of State Farm. I know they have in the past given this book to new employees. I was never given this book as a required read. However, it is highly encouraged for employees to read this. I read the first chapter and put it down 8 years ago and have never picked it up again. I REFUSE TO BE BRAINWASHED BY STATE FARM. I encourage everyone I know to get rid of their insurance with State Farm and go with 1 of 3 different companies. I have been personally responsible for at least 20 people cancelling multi-line policies for letting these ex-policyholders know what kinds of crummy things this company does to claimants, policyholders, agents, and employees. I explain a lot of the underhanded things I know State Farm does. I also have been personally responsible for several people either not applying at State Farm for a job or withdrawing their applications after finding out how much of a crummy company this really is. I haven't left as I need the pay. That is the only reason I work there. I'm in the process of getting my own business up and running so I can get out of this crummy, mafia-type, Republican run company. They continually want us to contact our legislators to get them to vote the way State Farm wants -- those issues would go against the policyholders and only help State Farm's bottom line. I will not do anything to help them in their quest to be the only insurance company and the only bank in the U.S. as they have stated.



2. This is a good biography written in the late 50's to chronicle the first 30 years of State Farm. It is a good story if you are interested in success stories and the insurance industry.

   The language and insurance terminology (even if you are familiar with it) can get dull at times but I think that anyone who works or is interested in learning about the development of the insurance industry would find this an interesting read.

   I do not see the references to propoganda that other reviews refer to. It really seems to be more of a story and a fairly good retelling of someone's life and their development of such a major organization. While of course it is going to lean towards shedding the best light possible it also discusses some of the problems and personality issues of it's founder.

   Take a read. It didn't take long!




3. Do you really want to read a book about State Farm, written by State Farm? This book is handed out to all employees when they are hired, as part of the brainwashing process. The company was founded on a tradition of not bribing politicians and not influencing legislation. That doesn't apply anymore, as we're asked to call our legislators to support corporate legal initiatives.

   Don't get me wrong, 99% of companies do worse, giving money directly to candidates and lobbyists. But that's just a sad comment about the state of our current political and corporate environment.




4. I'm sorry that one of it's readers tends to think it is for nothing more than insomnia and making coffee jokes. It's obvious they never understood it's meaning and that is why they no longer work for State Farm (A great company to work for)! This book is rather incredible if you take it for what it is worth and look at where State Farm is today. A great inspiration for any entrepeneaur.



5. "State Farm was launched in 1922, by a 45-year-old, semi-retired Illinois farmer, to compete with long-established insurers ¾ haughty institutions in New York, Philadelphia and Hartford ¾ that possessed overwhelming advantages in capital, reputation, and distribution. Because State Farm is a mutual company, its board members and managers could not be owners, and it had no access to capital markets during its years of fast growth. Similarly, the business never had the stock options or lavish salaries that many people think vital if an American enterprise is to attract able managers and thrive.

   In the end, however, State Farm eclipsed all its competitors. In fact, by 1999 the company had amassed a tangible net worth exceeding that of all but four American businesses. If you want to read how this happened, get a copy of The Farmer from Merna."

   -Warren Buffet, Year 2000 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report

   Instant gratification it is not. But America has had too much instant gratification, and now it is time to get back to work.

5 comments about John Maynard Keynes: Volume 2: The Economist as Savior, 1920-1937.

1. John Maynard Keynes apparently had a life full of brilliant ideas, and the evolution from one idea to another is a brilliant story. I'm not quite sure how I know this, because the second volume of Robert Skidelsky's Keynes biography doesn't really convey it. But I do know it, somehow.
   
   The main thing I've learned from this book is that I should go and read Keynes himself. Whenever Skidelsky quotes Keynes at any length, I breathe fresh air and I'm reminded that life can, indeed, be a wonderful place. For the remaining 95% of the book, I'm plodding through perfectly serviceable but unengaging prose. Skidelsky doesn't explain Keynes's economics well enough for intelligent non-specialists to really get the point. He explains Keynes's social life decently well, but one can consume only so much about country vacations and "Bloomsberries" before mentally consigning the lot of them to an eternity of bad food and cattiness.
   
   The jacket insists that Skidelsky has told an amazing love story, presumably the one between Keynes and Lydia Lopokova. I don't know quite which biography that reviewer was reading. Certainly not this one.
   
   I'm told there's a condensed version of the Keynes bio: one volume instead of three. That may be worth your time. It depends on what you want. The life of Keynes doesn't actually seem all that interesting on its own -- no more interesting than any other smart person's life, and substantially less interesting than Bertrand Russell's (with whose life Keynes's overlaps). As for the content of Keynes's ideas, those certainly are worth the time, but I just can't see that Skidelsky -- condensed or otherwise -- is the man to teach these to us.
   
   Probably the best route is to read Keynes's own Economic Consequences of the Peace, Tract on Monetary Reform, Essays in Persuasion, and General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. I'm told that Alvin Hansen's Guide To Keynes is how economists normally approach the General Theory, and my initial glance at Hansen's book suggests that it's a good start.
   
   If we believe Skidelsky, Keynes's Treatise on Money is overlong, impenetrable, and notationally confused. I trust bad writers to spot their kin, so I believe him on this score.



2. I highly recommend the second volume of Skidelsky's three volume study of the life of John Maynard Keynes for the general reader.The general reader will be rewarded with a 5 star performance.Skidelsky masterfully weaves an incredible amount of material about the private and public life of Keynes in a manner that will provide the nonspecialist,general reader with many hours of reading pleasure.Unfortunately,the same cannot be said for the specialist seeking a technical analysis and evaluation of Keynes's scientific contributions to philosophy,applied probability,applied statistics,decision science and economics.It is in this area that Skidelsky fumbles the ball just as it appeared that he was going to go all the way and score a touchdown.This is most likely due to the fact that he is a historian with little or no training in philosophy,mathematics,statistics,probability and economics.Let me catalog the technical problems .First,Skidelsky confuses the 12th-13th century debate between the nominalists and the realists(Platonists) with the realist versus idealist debate of the 19th-20th century between,among others,G.E.Moore and Bertrand Russell(the realists of the 20th century who would be supporting the nominalists in the 12th century),on the one hand and J.M.E.McTaggart and F.H.Bradley,on the other hand,who would be supporting,in general,the realists of the 12th century.(See Skidelsky's extremely confusing discussion on pp.74-77).Second,Skidelsky is completely confused about the nature and construction of Keynesian probabilities.Keynesian probabilities,in general,are intervals.They require the use of two numbers ,not one.The first number is called a lower bound.The second number is called an upper bound.Keynes's approximation method has absolutely nothing to do with ordinal rankings. In fact,the general case occurring among decision makers in the real world would be of overlapping intervals.Consider the following simple example.Let probability one be estimated by the interval[.4,.6].Let probability two be estimated by the interval[.5,.7].The probabilities have very specific numeric bounds,but they are ,in fact,nonrankable,noncomparable and nonadditive.It is not possible to say that one of the two probabilities is greater than,less than or equal to the other probability.Skidelsky has accepted at face value the extremely poor analysis of Keynes's TP done by F.Ramsey in two book reviews published in 1922 and 1926.Ramsey committed the fatal error of misinterpreting Keynes's chapter 3 terms in the TP,nonnumerical and nonmeasurable,as meaning that no numbers could in general be used to estimate the probability relation.Ramsey never read chapters 15 and 17 of the TP where Keynes made it clear that most probabilities could be represented as intervals.(The reader will find literally one dozen errors of omission or commission committed on pp.58-61 and 67-73 of Skidelsky with regard to the issue of the use of numbers in Keynes's logical theory of probability).Skidelsky ignores Keynes's creation of an index to measure the weight of the evidence,w,where w is defined on the unit interval[0,1]and measures the completeness of the relevant potential evidence available upon which to make an estimate of a probability.Skidelsky overlooks Keynes's conventional coefficient of risk and weight,c,that solves all of the paradoxes of subjective expected utility theory.Keynes was the first scholar in history to devise a decision rule incorporating nonlinear probabilities and weight of the evidence(later called ambiguity of the evidence by D.Ellsberg in 1961).Lastly,Skidelsky has overlooked the mathematical specification of Keynes's theory of effective demand that Keynes derived from his Y model of chapter 10 and from his D-Z model of chapters 3,20-21 of the General Theory in 1936.Let us define w to equal a constant money wage,p to equal the price level,w/p to equal the real wage,MPL to equal the marginal product of labor in the aggregate,MPC to equal the marginal propensity to spend on consumption goods, and MPI to equal the marginal propensity to spend on copital goods.Keynes then arrives at the following general result:w/p=MPL/(MPC+MPI).The classical and neoclassical(monetarism,rational expectations,real business cycle theory,etc.)theories are all special cases which require that MPC+MPI=1.Skidelsky's claim that Keynes did not provide a mathematical model of his theory of effective demand in the GT (see pp.537-542,especially p.540)is an error in magnitude equal to the errors made by Frank Ramsey about the meaning of the terms "nonnumerical" and"non measurable".The specialist will be disappointed with this volume of Skidelsky's biography of J.M.Keynes.



3. The second part of Prof. Skidelsky's magnificent biography of J.M. Keynes is nearly totally concentrated on economic issues. Keynes' personal life was perfectly settled after his marriage with a Russian ballerina. He continued to be in contact with the Bloomsbury group, which 'remained subversive by habit, but was anxious to retain their dividends and beauftiful houses'.
   In fact, this book centres on the question how Keynes came to write the 'General Theory' and its defense of governmental intervention (public investments) in the economic cycle in order to break the capitalistic slump. He proved that in a laisser-faire system an equilibrium could be formed at a far lesser level than 'natural' unemployment: 'There is work to do, there are men to do it. Why not bring them together!'
   We discover that Malthus was a real influential precursor with his proposition to prop up insufficient demand by public works and that Richard Kahn made a decisive contribution with his multiplyer effect.
   Prof. Skidelsky characterizes perfectly the 'General Theory' as a complex psychological drama with as main characters the life-denying rentier, the businessman and his fantasies and the victimized working class.
   Keynes' ultimate nightmare was a world were making money triumphed over making things, which is actually happening. Financial transactions are dwarfing the industrial ones and there are many more investment trusts than industrial companies in the US.
   The discussions after the publication of the 'General Theory' are fascinating. In fact, the debate is still red hot: inflation/deflation, the influence of the (inter)national banks, savings and (un)employment.
   This book is not an easy read. I recommend readers to (re)read some parts of the 'General Theory'. But this work is a fascinating tale about the (r)evolution of the ideas of the greatest economist of all times.
   I have only one minor remark: Ibsen is a Norwegian, not a Swede.



4. Keynes activities, both as an active participant of the economic life of his country and continent, and as an icon to the cultural life of his epoch and to his many friends and groups of interest, is impressive. To define him is an elusive task: philosopher?, economist?, historian?, linguist?. He was all this and much more, but he was above all a man of a very practical mind and, notwhidstanding his immense philosophical background, deeply attached to the theories of his contemporary G.E.Moore and others, he had the feeling of having a mission to accomplish, given the immense superiority his intellect had over the rest of the mortals.

   What was to become of Europe after the end of the First World War was foreseen by him in many essays and primarily in his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace. The task which lays ahead for him, and only him, was to warn politicians and thinkers of the impending dangers of the years to come, specially in regard to a lack of theoretical analisys to support the transition from the old economy (classicist in his jargon), which ended with the death of the great Alfred Marshall, and a new one, which he purpoted himself to establish and then save the world. And save the world he did!!! Keynes is one of this towering figures who had the opportunity to mingle himself with daily facts and change them for the better. Amid a lot of controversy and polemic regarding the originality of his ideas, he published his major opus in 1937, which was to be used against the vagaries of rampant unemployment and inflation. His General Theory of Interest , Employment and Money is a sort of tribute he pays to his father , Malthus and G.E.Moore.
   In the personnal side of his life, if this can be said of Keynes for his personal life was eminently devoted to cultural interests i many areas, the book portrays some important changes in his personal atitudes towards homosexuality (he abandoned) and his new life marrying the russian ballerina Ludmila.




5. A great book about a great man. The development of Keynes' thought is handled well, although some more discussion around possible sources of some of his ideas would have been welcome. Several books about his Bloomsbury freinds have emerged recently, and it is interesting to compare perceptions. I'm uncomfortable with Skidelsky's analysis of Keynesian theory which strikes me as too much of a shoe-horning of Keynes into a classical framework, but I'm hardly an expert. All in all a book to be savoured, and an essential item in one's library.

No comments about Prescription for Success: The Life and Values of Ewing Marion Kauffman.

3 comments about Turn Your Talents into Profits.

1. I should be more disappointed with this book than I am. It's helpful in its own way, but suggestions to seek out further details using suggested Prodigy & CompuServe keywords seem, to be polite, a little quaint, & the publication date of 1998 makes it fairly clear that this is an "updated" version of an older (self-published?) book. One suggested business, for instance, is to start a BBS, a phenomenon that pretty much had gone the way of the mastodon by then.

   The book is also lacking in serious instruction on how to run a business. Since this book is aimed at people who are enough adrift to need these ideas in the first place, the target audience probably needs more than a whirlwind 9-page overview of practical & critical business skills.

   If that's all there is, I would've struggled to give this book a bare 3 stars. However, the majority of the suggested 100+ microbusinesses aren't too bad. Keep in mind that many of them require some sort of preexisting skills; you probably don't want to leap into a mural-painting business if you have absolutely no sense of form or color, for instance.

   More important than the ideas themselves, though, is their range. If you read this book cover-to-cover, or even just flip through it & glean a few ideas that appeal to you, you will definitely be motivated to start concocting your own small-small business. It might be a variant of an idea from the authors, or wholly your own creation, but you'll have been bitten by the bug -- I guarantee it.

   And if you already have an idea, read it anyway! One of the most crushing weights to the entrepreneurial spirit is the feeling that you're the only one crazy enough to try. Reading this book will make you feel a little less lonely. With that to brace you, you'll be a little more encouraged to follow your dream in a sensible & ultimately rewarding manner.




2. If you've been dabbling in a home business or dreaming about starting one, this is a book you've got to have. Turn Your Talents Into Profits will inspire you and encourage you. It's easy to read, gives you lots of great ideas, and has an amazingly complete bibliography.



3. Turn Your Talents into Profits has been in the news quite a bit lately. It was featured on the Montel Williams show in late March, in the March issue of American Baby, and in the May 11th issue of Woman's Day. I think this book has been getting so much attention because it focuses on microbusinesses (very small, part-time, home-based businesses), and microbusinesses are the fastest-growing type of small business in America.

1 comments about Out of the Middle East: The Emergence of an Arab Global Business.

1. One would have expected the Author to reflect, in more detail, on the emergence and thereafter the undisputable success of an Arab business enterprise, as the title implies.
   
   Instead, one encounters prolonged political views over lengthy political narrative of the Middle East history (19th - 20th centuries) - an arguable approach for a development business entrepreneur that is rather much fit for a political historian.
   
   An ardent reader would have also expected more reflections on the founding team (partners) of the company and the collaborative contribution of each. The Author was silent on the same and the book was hence, to a great extent, absorbed within the "self".
   
   The story-line therefor defies the purpose and certainly does to the title and the impression of unwary readers.

1 comments about Lives of the Laureates, Fourth Edition: Eighteen Nobel Economists.

1. The book's whole idea (having a lot of Nobel laureates write about themselves) might have worked well for, say, six to eight such laureates, but it just doesn't scale to the 18 that are now writing -- a kind of dull repetitiousness falls upon the whole work by about the halfway mark or earlier. If you do get this book, and that may be worthwhile since each individual essay is useful and readable, by all means read it in small snippets (1-2 autobiographies at a time) with long waits in-between: trying to just read it cover to cover is a mistake.