Book Description
For more than 100 years, the world's leading chess players and teachers have told their students to study the endgame. Now, for the first time, a revolutionary, richly instructive endgame book has been designed for players of all levels. Silman's Complete Endgame Course, by famed writer and player Jeremy Silman, is the one and only endgame book you'll need as you move up the ladder from beginner to strong tournament player and finally to master.
Designed to "speak" to a player in a very personal way, Silman's book teaches the student everything he or she needs to know at his or her current rating level, and builds on that knowledge for each subsequent phase of the player's development. Starting at the beginner's level, all basic mates are clearly and painstakingly explained. After that, the critical building blocks that form the endgame foundation for all tournament hopefuls and experienced tournament competitors are explored in detail. Finally, advanced endgame secrets based on concepts rather than memorization are presented in a way that makes them easy to master.
The basic keys to a well-rounded endgame education--Opposition, the Lucena and Philidor Positions, Cat and Mouse, Trebuchet, Fox in the Chicken Coup, Triangulation, Building a Box, Square of a Pawn, Outflanking, the Principle of Two Weaknesses--are vital. But equally important is creating a love of the endgame, which is addressed at the end of the book with a look at chess tactics, minor piece domination, and a discussion of the five greatest endgame players of all time--all things that every fan of chess at every level can enjoy.
If you have found the endgame to be a mystery, if you have found that your confidence plummets once you reach an endgame, if you have searched for an instructive endgame book that will turn your weakest link--your endgame--into your personal field of power, your search is over. Silman's Complete Endgame Course is the key to a world of essential ideas, startling beauty, and stunning creativity.
Customer Reviews:
One of the best chess books........2007-08-23
I have been studying chess (with a coach) for eight months, and I have found that most chess books are written for players way above my current ability. This one, though, is terrific. It takes you from beginning endgame stuff steadily through more difficult material, building on itself as it goes.
Good endgame book, especially for the beginner.......2007-08-23
I have found this book to be helpful and useful, especially for the beginner. It separates each endgame "course" according to rating, so that the beginner is not trying to learn moves for a class A player, and a class A player doesn't have to slog through stuff they've known for years. I highly recommend it.
Gives you what you need and don't need to know.......2007-08-16
I'm not going to repeat what everyone else has said in their reviews.
Yes - brilliant concept, sorting endgames by playing strength. Stroke of genius. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before. Etc
I'd just like to say how liberating it is to read an instructional chess book and know that I can stop after a certain number of chapters because I already know more than enough.
There are not many chess books that explicitly state: "you already know enough about this - now go and practise some tactics and come back when you get a few games under your belt".
The hardest part about studying the endgame is knowing when to stop.
This book tells you what you DON'T need to know as well as what you DO.
Lucena position - don't worry about it just yet - get your rating up first.
Knight and Bishop versus Lone King - it ain't gonna happen.
How refreshing!
Wonderful.......2007-08-13
This is a step by step guide to the endgame. There has been a competition between two types of endgame books - those that want you to memorize thousands of positions and those who want you to understand various concepts and memorize only a couple positions. The problem becomes that the first is very time consuming but straight forward and the later is much faster but very difficult to understand.
This book gives the speed of learning concepts with the straightforwardness of memorizing positions. Silman has out done himself this time.
The only downside to this book is that it does not show how to checkmate with Knight and Bishop vs King but how many times have you actually been in this position? My guess is none and if you have been in it, odds are you never will be again.
I recommend this book for people of skill level from beginner to master.
Superb book to learn endgames.......2007-07-23
This was the second endgame book I bought. The first, "Just the Facts Winning Chess Endgames" was organized by endgame type (e.g. Rook Endgames). Silman's is truly a course, with chapters for beginners on up by rating. So rather than trying to master everything there is about rook endgames, Silman gives you what you need to know for your ability level. You revisit different endgames as you progress through the chapters.
I love all of Silman's books that I've read so far, and this one is no exception! If you're already a top-notch player, maybe any endgame book will work for you. But if you're learning, Silman's can't be beat!
Customer Reviews:
Step by Step my high school prep!.......2007-01-02
When I was in Elementary School studying chess from grades 3-6) I learned from "Chess For Juniors" as my text book (probably the best and most easy book to learn from for a 9 to 13 year old). However, for a higher reading level I found this book to be an equal if not a better book for an 8th or 9th grader (not to put "Chess for Juniors" down (it is certainly better for your average elementeary, and early middle school reader and has everything needed for the non-high school player), but "Learn Chess" is like what I like, A college text book, like my older brothers in college use. Simple suggesting, NO BETTER BOOK FOR AGE 16+ reading level is this one, LEARN CHESS, under that "Chess for Juniors". Get Started in Chess these books are the best!!!!
A first rate book to learn all the basics!.......2006-09-16
"Learn Chess" is a great place to start if you are either someone who doesn't know the difference between a Horse and a Knight or what the "en passant rule" is. It is also good if you know a little about chess but what formal instruction. This is not a small kiddie book! It is written as if it was like a book to be used in a high school chess class (about the right level).
"Learn Chess" is very clear and goes way beyond the starting rules by covering strategy that will take you to an intermedate player! You get a lot of material that is well organized. If you are looking for a book for an elementary school kid you might consider a lower reading level and more simple presentatiion with "chess, a complete guide for the beginner" that is written for the young reader. Once you finish "Learn Chess" you will be ready for books on tactics, traps, openings, endgames and complete game collections!
Efficient and tremendously clear.......2003-09-25
A classic: the best A-to-Z course in chess I've ever seen; ideal for teaching smart kids to play. It's very, very efficient, which means that it can cover everything from the basics to more complicated material in just 170 pages. The elegance of the presentation makes its points easy to hold in your head when you're playing.
The real glory of this book is the middle sections: the chapters on double attack, forks, pins and skewers, and the like are great. It's easy to explain the basics of chess and some of the advanced student subjects like openings; but the middle game subjects can be hard to explain logically (rather than through endless examples). This book does a great job of that.
The same text used to come in two very attractively bound slim volumes.
All the basics in one book.......2003-03-01
This is a very good book on the basics of chess. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to learn to play chess, or who already knows but would like to improve.
This book was originally published in 2 volumes. Now they have been combined into one. Volume explains the rules, and the most basic info about the opening, ending, and how one wins a chess game.
Volume 2 covers the most useful ways to win material (pins, skewers, forks). There follows a chapter on mating attacks. Then there is more info about openings and endings. The last couple of chapters give some general advice and points the reader to other sources of chess information.
Each chapter has exercises. Some of them are simple, others challenging. Don't be discouraged if you can't work them all. My advice is to do every exercise. Write down your answers before looking at the solution. If possible, work the exercises without using a set and board in order to develop the ability to look ahead. I enjoyed working the exercises. They illustrate the lessons, and some of them challenge you to think a little deeper.
The Alburt and Pelts books are also very good. Learn Chess could be used before, after, or along with the A&P books to get a couple of views of the same information.
Excelente libro introductorio.......1999-08-30
Es un grandioso libro que explica muy bien, y de forma muy sencilla, los principales topicos del juego de ajedrez. Es un libro excelente para principiantes.
Book Description
Combining eight volumes into one, the mostacomprehensive book on chess ever published. Fromaopening gambit to endgame, this home-study chess courseais the classic in theafield.
Illustrated throughout
Customer Reviews:
I FOUND THIS ONE QUITE HELPFUL.......2006-01-05
For the money, this is probably one of the better picks I have made. The language and terminology is quite usable in this large volume. The diagrams are very helpful. I can truely say that this work helped my game. Having played this wonderful game for over 52 years now, I am still what I consider a rank beginner. Having played this game competitively for a number of years, I learned first hand just how far I had to go and how far I had come (which apparently is not very far). For me, this was a good book. I found it quite helpful to stay centered. By the looks of some of the other reviewers here, I see we have some "real" experts who apparently gleaned little from this work. I feel great for them and certainly hope after another fifty or so years I will be able to reach their heights. In the meantime, I will enjoy this great game, have fun doing it, and still return to this work, if for nothing else, then a brush-up or tune-up. Sometimes the simplist things are overlooked. This work reminds you of those things. Recommend you add this one to your collection. For those beginners...you will find, after playing competitively, that there are many, many egos which sort of run amok in the world of chess, which can, if you let them, sort of ruin a very nice time. Ignore them and play on!
Excellent book for beginners.......2005-09-24
I stumbled across this book as a child when I ambled down the wrong aisle at the library - thus began a lifelong attachment to chess! I was astounded that so much could be written about a mere game. Reinfeld does several things which are guaranteed to get the beginner involved right off the mark:
1) No hero worship - The names of the masters who play the example games and positions are almost entirely omitted. Thus the beginning student is presented, not with unapproachable paragons of skill, rather, cold hard chess as it happens at the board.
2) Games chosen from the "golden" age - The games in the book are mostly from the 19th century, and highlight the basic themes beginners should understand in stark clarity. Many of the games are by Steinitz. You won't see the fantastically deep strategies of Alekhine, which are incomprehensible to a beginner. The book concludes with the great Pillsbury-Tarrasch game from Hastings 1895.
3) Explicit instructions on basic checkmates - Surprising how hard to find this simple material can be.
4) General tone of great enthusiasm for the game - Yes, the double exclamation points and so on are a little "homerish" now and then, but infectious for the beginning player.
5) Just enough about openings to allow the beginner to master the main lines - It would be foolish to overwhelm the beginning player with page after page of detailed opening theory. I'm convinced that only advanced players should study the openings it great detail.
6) A "break it down" approach - There may be 8 or 10 "bad moves" instead of 9 - nevertheless Reinfeld gives the beginner a "hook" to focus on and I entirely approve of this approach. In my case it made an instant and drastic improvement of my game. This part of the book might well have been titled "The Discoveries of Paul Morphy".
I could go on but I'll just say, this is a wonderful book for beginners and I wholeheartedly endorse it!
-drl
CAUTION !.......2003-10-12
This book may teach you something if you don't even know how the pieces move. I have never seen such a large book with this much "Fluff". Fluff is basic, useless, words and diagrams meant to do nothing but take up space on otherwise blank pages. I purchased this book along with many others while living in Nevada. I purchased books and awarded them to the top students in our local chess tournaments. The "winner" of this book donated it to the school library after just a few days. After taking a closer look at it I couldn't blame her. This is an overpriced hardcover book.
If you click on my name you will get my personal information and see a recommended study list. I put together this list of books and software with only one thing in mind...to improve your game without wasting your money. If you want to get better at chess this list will give you the most bang for your buck.
Match Your Books to Your Style of Play.......2002-07-18
This is an excellent book if, like me, you are seeking a single book to study AND you only aspire to be a casual chessplayer. If, on the other hand, you are looking to become a competitive tournament player, this book probably isn't for you.
I'll take the word of some other reviewers that the analysis and openings are out of date. However, in my casual circle of play, it doesn't matter. Most of us can't tell a Giuoco Piano from a Steinway Piano, and most of us don't care. We play for fun, not competition. (I'm not slamming competitive players, merely recognizing that different people play for different reasons.)
This book helped me to become a better casual player. I can now make sense out of my games, and have a better ability to plan my game. It's made chess a lot more fun, even when I lose (a not-uncommon outcome.) The analysis isn't deep, but it's understandable and to the point. It's also relevant to the level of chess at which I play.
great, great, great!.......2001-09-16
An outstanding book for beginners as well as advanced chess players. The book takes the player from beginner to the advanced stages of chess with outstanding advice on openings,middlegame and endings, all illustrated by master games. There are chapters on how to play the white and black pieces and a host of clear diagrams and easily understood explanations. All of this in a big book of over 600 pages. This book is a classic, without question. Although Reinfeld is criticized for making his books simple I dont find this to be a fault, but a virtue. This book is an excellent example of clear and easy to understand writing. Practice not knowledge makes the master. A GREAT book!
Customer Reviews:
Good, but Silman may be overkilling it.......2007-07-12
The principles this book teaches are indeed invaluable and may be eye-opening for the intermediate and even good player. Some are well-known and some would never be thought of by the amateur. However, it's quite time-consuming, and I'm still ambivalent about whether or not the massive amounts of annotated games and examples do more harm than good. I find the majority of the games Silman lists are only slightly and/or temporarily relevant to the themes he teaches at any moment.
Some more detailed complaints:
The biggest problem to me is that the book fails as an instructional guide in that I feel it's incomplete in many of its teachings. For example, Silman emphasizes the importance of controlling or occupying weak squares, putting your Rooks on open files and applying pressure to the kingside pawns. However, he could've done a much better job of teaching what to do once that's accomplished. "Okay, my Knight's on the e5 support point. Now what?" "Okay, I have an Alekhine's Gun pointed at the g7 pawn in front of the enemy King. Now what? That pawn's defended by four other pieces!"
The second problem is the aforementioned verbosity. Related to this is that Silman lists a huge collection of examples for all the themes he teaches. However, going through them is too time-consuming for their own good, especially because the point he stresses is only temporarily or peripherally touched by them. The majority of these examples are from real games, and I feel he could've been more straight and to the point by using hypothetical positions and playing only a few moves per game to demonstrate that point instead of making the reader play a couple of 30 to 40-move games.
A final complaint is about one of the most important features of this book: Silman's Thinking Technique. He devotes a few pages describing it and hardly touches it again. He should have made the rest of the themes he teaches more relevant to the thinking technique.
With all that said, I believe it's a good, solid book; probably one of the most quintessential for the 1200-1700 level player. If you're really serious about chess study, also purchase his 'Reassess Your Chess Workbook' to get a complete education of what Silman teaches in this one. You'll have a better idea of how to use imbalances to your advantage after working through the exercises listed therein.
Great middle-game book.......2007-03-18
This book has helped me improve my game more than any other I have ever read. It is not the proper book for the novice and it requires a lot of work from the reader.
I can't claim that I worked as hard as J.Silman requires but the time I spent reading and thinking certainly took place.
Some reviewers say that there are weaknesses in the positions and that computer analysis proves that there are better solutions than those proposed in the book. I didn't check anything with a program and don't really care to do so.
This book has given me new ways to think during the middle game.
It doesn't refer at all on the opening (although all middle games derive from openings!) and occupies only few pages on the endgame.
Overall... five stars. It's worthy.
The Best Yet.......2007-01-26
This is the best chess book I have read so far. I have read a handful or two in my life. After using this book my rating jump 400 points. Next, I am getting Reassess Your Chess Handbook and Amateurs Mind also by Jeremy Silman. I am sure they will be just as good. This is a must have book for all levels.
Important Concepts explained for the Intermediate Player.......2006-11-28
This is an overall good book covering various concepts that the author feels are important. There are a lot of good lessons in this book. Perhaps a little bit of grammer improvement and a little more clarity could be used in a few cases. I liked the part about if you have a bad Bishop to try and get the Bishop on the other side of the Pawns. The author's "How to Reasses your chess workbook" is good and I think the game analysis books, "Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors" and "Logical Chess, Move by Move" also go well with this one.
This is a book for an intermediate player.
BEWARE the "average review".......2006-11-26
Alright alright, it averages 4.5 stars in Amazon. But take a closer look -- how many 5 star reviews are more then three or four lines long? How many include references to material included in the book, or, heaven forbid, citations? This book has a reputation that far precedes it, and while there are certainly useful ideas in it, the book presents a very one-sided, hard-to-learn approach to chess.
When I first started using this book as a 1400, I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread; finally a book on how to play chess positionally, presented with an easy structure and presentation! Silman offers a very easy, "scientific" approach to the game by listing seven imbalances and subsequently devoting a substantial amount of time to each. As soon as I'd finished the book (or was partway through) I started to try this same thing in my games. And suprise of all surprises...it didn't work. Why not?
The book ALWAYS presents the critical position of a game, lists the imbalances, then plays a tactical sequence that is "winning" (not always, as in the Silman-Federowicz game, where black's dragon should win). There is a complete lack of holism in the examples given, and so the question of *when* to use Silman's scheme doesn't really work. Chess is more dynamic that Silman's rigid structural evaluations can hope to accomplish. There are many openings, middlegames, and even endgames that require much more sophisticated planning than seven imbalances can hope to achieve.
A personal pet peeve that I and others have about this book is how Silman almost always uses himself for examples. Once at a tournament a friend came back from his round and told us he played "just like Silman". We took a look at his score card and saw that next to every one of his moves was "!!" and his opponent had earned "??" for her moves. Jeremy Silman loves to heap his moves with "!" even when it isn't earned. It wouldn't be problematic to be an egoist, but for a developing chessplayer, all the "!" and "?" give a very false impression of how chess really is played.
Jeremy Silman is a guy that gets a lot of credit for this book because it's favored by lazier teachers and students; it tries to give an easy fix to an incommensurable puzzle. Positional chess is not always about the imbalances, and not every move gets an "!". Your opponents will not always play "?" moves and many times the imbalances will shift every single move. It is a much more amorphous entity than this book presents.
The book does deserve credit for putting together -somewhat- useful examples. You get an idea, albeit a very compartmentalized one, of how to plan in chess. It's not all bad, but PLEASE read the reviews of the book that don't focus on "this book made me into a succhess story!" Think twice about taking the easy road in chess, and replan a purchase to an annotated full-game collection by a higher-caliber player.
Average customer rating:
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How to win at chess;: A complete course
I. A Horowitz
Manufacturer: MacKay
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Binding: Unknown Binding
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Product Description
Adapted from "A Crash Course in Chess" by Lin; "A Step-by-Step Program to Chess Mastery" by Saitek; and "Russian Handbook of Chess Openings" by Gufeld.
Amazon.com
Many Americans have resisted the notion that their country is an imperial power. The idea seems to contradict the values of the Republic and its Founding Fathers. But in Empire of Debt, prominent financial analysts Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin argue passionately that not only is the United States an empire, but it is also one whose end is coming soon. Bonner and Wiggin are the brains behind www.dailyreckoning.com, an iconoclastic and irreverent market advisory service that has long raised concerns about American indebtedness and warned of a looming dollar crisis. In Empire of Debt, a sequel to their earlier doom-and-gloom book Financial Reckoning Day, they elaborate on their argument that the U.S. economy is about to implode.
Bonner and Wiggin enumerate a long list of chronic ailments that imperil the American financial system--a massive trade deficit, soaring personal and government debt, a housing bubble, runaway military expenditures. These problems "hardly disturb the sleep of the imperial race," the authors write. "[But] all empires must pass away." Bonner and Wiggin argue that American imperial delusions are similar to the fantasies that fueled the dot-com market mania. They recommend readers buy gold as insurance in the event of a financial crisis. Empire of Debt flounders when discussing how America indebted itself; the authors blame the Federal Reserve Board's low interest rates but gloss over the fact that rates were slashed because the U.S. teetered on the brink of deflation in 2002 and 2003 (a topic they give more attention to in Financial Reckoning Day). As hardcore free-marketeers, Bonner and Wiggin also seem to long for the pre-welfare days of the 1920s but forget how that period's policies led to the Great Depression. That said, Empire of Debt contains many revelations that will open eyes. --Alex Roslin
Book Description
In Empire of Debt, maverick financial writers Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin provide you with the first in-depth look at how the American character has shifted to accommodate its new imperial role; how we have abandoned the private virtues of personal liberty, economic freedom, and fiscal restraint; and how the government has gained control of public life and the economy.
Customer Reviews:
Caustic & Straightforward, But..........2007-07-31
Darkly humourous--unlike assessments written at dailyreckoning.com; however, I disagree with the authors' view on the Second World War. I don't think that America, "empire" or not, Depression or not, would have sat back and allowed Germany and Japan to conquer the world.
It was Germany's ambition to conquer America, but to leave that to the next generation. It was Japan's ambition to conquer the world, too, which deliberately gave the West the false impression that by establishing its Diet (parliament) that it had embraced democracy. We would have been left with a world run by Germany and Japan that possibly would have resulted in the end of everything once each acquired nuclear weapons and used them to challenge each other in a showdown for world dominance.
I agree with their point too that America has ceded more and more states'rights to the federal government. To this can be added the "line-item veto" (since ruled unconstitutional) and a desire to give "fast-track" authority to the president to negotiate under GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) thereby bypassing Congress.
Buy Gold!.......2007-07-24
The book is exactly about what the title says it is:
1. The United States has become an empire. And like all the empires that have come before (Page 49 has a list of them), there will come a time, sooner or later, when it will no longer be an empire.
2. Unlike empires of the past, which were financed by resources (tribute, human, mineral, etc.) of the places colonized or taken over by the empire, the United States empire is financed by debt. The US government is over $36 trillion in debt, largely to foreign debtors, while individual Americans are burdened with consumer debt such as credit cards and mortgages--without any sign of letting up.
The first section of the book talks about empires, describing those of Genghis Khan, Ancient Greece and Rome, and Austria-Hungary. According to the authors, the United States first started to become an empire with Theodore Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders". But it was really Woodrow Wilson's adventures in Mexico, and later World War I, that really established the idea of the United States as an empire. From then on, whether it was FDR in World War II, Johnson's Vietnam...all the way to Reagan's Cold War and Bush's Iraq...we have spent much blood and treasure trying to make the world a better place for democracy, or fight commies, or terrorism, or whatever. All financed by increasing debt, of course. Domestic welfare programs such as FDR's New Deal, Johnson's Great Society, etc. also got financed similarly. At some point all this debt must be paid, and it would not be a pretty thing if all our debtors, one day, demanded all their money at once!
Meanwhile, while America (and Americans) are running up all this debt, the rest of the world (read China and India primarily, but Russia and Brazil as well) has been actually making things, building up their factories and selling products, all for lower wages than America (and the developed West, for that matter). Inflation is also eating into the (meager) savings of Americans.
The last section discusses investing in stocks, real estate, etc. Most Americans invest to get something for nothing, and end up getting poor results. The smarter way to invest, according to the authors, is to buy stock in companies that the investor, using what they call "insider" information--private information and personal experience. (Unfortunately, the authors don't seem to clearly distinguish this from "insider trading", which is illegal!)
The theme running through the book is "Buy Gold". This comes to the forefront in the last few pages, where the authors compare gold to paper currency. While governments can print as much paper money as they think they need, it's harder for them to do that with gold. Gold will always be worth something, while paper currency can (and has) lost value.
This is a good read. I especially liked the history of all of the empires in the past, and how the United States compares to them. What will happen at the end of the American Empire is (necessarily) an open question, but we can all be prepared.....
Bill Bonner king of "doom & gloom".......2007-07-07
His solution is to buy gold/silver & dig
yourself a hole in a ground to live in.
Show Your Love for Your Kin and Yourself -- Read Empire of Debt.......2007-07-01
Through your life, few books are worth trading your time to read them for your time expressing your love for others, making others laugh and helping your neighbors.
Empire of Debt is one of those books you should read.
Like most books, the story does not begin until several chapters ahead and like most books, Empire of Debt suffers from the wrong chapter sequence.
Here's a better chapter sequence to get you to the story faster:
Part 1
[should read -- sets the stage of how the U.S. overthrew the American Republic]
The Road to Hell (5)
The Revolution of 1913 and the Great Depression (6)
How Empires Work (3)
Part 2
[optional read -- yet helpful if you do not know this history]
Nixon's the One (8)
Reagan's Legacy (9)
The U.S.'s (America's) Glorious Empire of Debt (10)
Still Turning Japanese (14)
Part 3
[must read -- the real story]
Modern Imperial Finance (11)
Welcome to Squanderville (13)
The Wall Street Fandango (15)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (12)
Subversive Investing (16)
Part 4
[optional read -- coda commentary about past empires]
Empires of Dirt (2)
Dead Men Talking (1)
Slouching Toward Empire (Introduction)
Part 5
[optional read -- for history buffs only]
MacNamara's War (7)
As We Go Marching (2)
High Finace, Low Finance.......2007-06-28
Usually a book of this sort, about financial matters, is not easy to get through because of the nature of the subject. In this case, the authors have overcome the boredom and tedium by the lighthearted and airy presentation they give to the matters at hand. It really is easy reading, and enjoyable for the most part. The downside is that it tends to make one think they are not so very serious about what they are saying, and I count that as a disadvantage.
I don't think there are any new ideas in this book, but they have been able to synthesize the connections between existing ideas very well. I especially liked the first chapter, "Dead Men Talking", in which they suggest,"Gaze on the dead, and learn their secrets". All of which is to say that we ought to look at history for ideas and clues, but are reluctant to do so because we seek the novelty of something new. And this is what has gotten us into trouble. Without question, we produce little, spend too much (especially for things we don't really need), and import much more than we export, leaving us with a trade imbalance decidedly not in our favor. When not too long ago we were creditors to the rest of the world, we are now the biggest debtor nation on earth. The Dead Men Talking are just itching to turn over in their graves (if only they could) when they see us spending more than we take in. We all, government and private individuals, are spending beyond our means, and we want still more. This is THE main theme of the book, though there are plenty of related factors which go to explain this state of affairs. Certainly the political arena plays a huge part, for the policies resulting from political decisions have an enormous effect on financial stability and success. But at the bottom of it all, it is overspending in one way or another that is the problem. Politically speaking, it is almost unthinkable that we would balance the budget, either in government or privately.
It is too simplistic to focus only on overspending, and the authors certainly do not do that. There is a lot of detail about many of the factors that influence our indebtedness, such as outsourcing the labor pool, failure to save instead of spend, and the effects of wars as a financial drain. Consumer spending is especially egregious because we spend money to buy goods made in other countries, and the money we spend finds its way to those other countries. This leaves us with less money (a whole lot less) to invest in capital inprovement. We have changed from a manufacturing and exporting country to a consumer and importing country, resulting in a trade deficit (a debt, a huge debt !). Sooner or later we will have to pay this debt, or declare bankruptcy.
But the authors do not treat the moral aspect, at least not explicitly.
It's as if we never heard of envy (keeping up with the Joneses) or gluttony (insatiable desire). We need to control our appetites in order to balance outgo (spending) against income. William F. Buckley,Jr. once said "The trouble with capitalism is Capitalists, the trouble with communism is Communism". I have always thought that capitalism is a good system which enabled anyone who had money to invest, to gain an honest return, but any system can be subverted and abused. It appears that this is what has happened to capitalism, and it is regrettable.
All in all, it is good reading, and something to be gained by doing so.
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- Tango : The Structure of the Dance level 1/ Multimedia Extended Version
- Tarot: The Complete Kit (Miniature Editions)
- Tatters of the King: Hastur's Gaze Gains Brief Focus Upon the Earth (Call of Cthulhu Horror Roleplaying)
- Texas Hold'em On The Net: How to Maximize Your Winnings
- The Big Book of Presentation Games: Wake-Em-Up Tricks, Icebreakers, and Other Fun Stuff
- The "Daily Telegraph" Big Book of Cryptic Crosswords (Crossword)
- The Draconomicon (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Event Planning : The Ultimate Guide to Successful Meetings, Corporate Events, Fundraising Galas, Con
- Yellow Eyes
- Schaum's Outline of Financial Management
- Standing at the Crossroads: Next Steps for High-Achieving Women
- The Master Swing Trader: Tools and Techniques to Profit from Outstanding Short-Term Trading Opportun
- Y: The Last Man Vol. 7: Paper Dolls
- Who's Who in Spain 2003 Edition
- Unlock Behavior, Unleash Profits
- The Microfinance Revolution: Sustainable Finance for the Poor
- Biosynthesis of Indole Alkaloyds
Mastering the Chess Openings: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Modern Chess Openings, Volume 1
Mastering the Chess Openings: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Modern Chess Openings, Volume 2
Understanding Chess Tactics
Chess Openings for White, Explained: Winning with 1. E4 (Alburt's Opening Guide, Book 1)
Practical Chess Exercises: 600 Lessons from Tactics to Strategy
