● The 25 Habits of Highly Successful Investors: How to Invest for Profit in Today’s Changing Markets
By Peter Sander
Summary via publisher, Adams Media
Especially after the wild ride that began in the fall of 2008, individual stock investing has become far more challenging. Think of a golf swing – hit it right and it goes long and straight, hit it wrong and you’ll end up far off in the weeds. But – like much else in life – golf swings become habits when done right. Investing should be no different. What works should become habit, and each and every investor should develop his or her own set of habits for success. Peter Sander in this book reveals a set of twenty five habits that lie behind his own personal investing success, habits loyal to the value investing principles of Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett and others. These 25 habits – or your own version thereof – will help you hit your investments long and straight.
● The Squeezed Middle: The Pressure on Ordinary Workers in America and Britain
Edited by Sophia Parker
Summary via US distributor, University of Chicago Press
The issue of living standards is arguably the biggest challenge facing economists and politicians in the United States and the United Kingdom today. The product of a year-long fellowship at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, The Squeezed Middle brings together leading experts from both sides of the Atlantic to ask what the UK can learn from the US experience of stagnating wages and rising living costs. American workers have not benefited from growth for an entire generation: adjusting for inflation, the average American worker today earns as much as the average American worker did in 1975.
● Societies beyond Oil: Oil Dregs and Social Futures
By John Urry
Summary via publisher, Zed Books
What would a de-carbonised society be like? What are the implications of a general de-globalisation for our social futures? How will our high-carbon patterns of life be restructured in a de-energized world? As global society gradually wakes up to the new reality of peak oil, these questions remain unanswered. For the last hundred years oil made the world go round, and as we move into the century of ‘tough oil’ this book examines some profound consequences. It considers what societies would be like that are powering down; what lessons can be learned from the past about de-energized societies; will there be rationing systems or just the market to allocate scarce energy? Can virtual worlds solve energy problems? What levels of income and wellbeing would be likely?
● Ultimate Ponzi, The: The Scott Rothstein Story
By Chuck Malkus
Review via Forbes
It was a bizarre research assignment, sent out in an emergency email on October 17, 2009 to lawyers at Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler (“RRA”). Founding partner Scott Rothstein needed to know for “a very powerful client”, and quick, which countries did not have extradition treaties with the United States or Israel. This ‘client’ – an Israeli citizen who had renounced his United States citizenship – was about to be indicted for fraud, money laundering, and embezzlement. Time was off the essence, urged Rothstein, who ended the email with his customary (and odd) signoff: “Love ya, Scott”. RRA lawyers responded, informing Rothstein that Morocco was the only country fitting that criteria. Less than two weeks later, that ‘client’ boarded a chartered plane to Morocco with several million dollars in a duffel bag and his $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme collapsing. That ‘client’ was Scott Rothstein.
The revelation is one of many in Chuck Malkus’s upcoming book, The Ultimate Ponzi: The Scott Rothstein Story.
● Reconsidering Funds of Hedge Funds: The Financial Crisis and Best Practices in UCITS, Tail Risk, Performance, and Due Diligence
Edited by Greg Gregoriou
Summary via publisher, Academic Press/Elsevier
The only Funds of Hedge Funds handbook that addresses UCITS, due diligence, risk management, and tail risk for finance researchers and professionals.
● Financial Fresh Start: Your Five-Step Plan for Adapting and Prospering in the New Economy
By Shari Olefson
Review via Publishers Weekly
Befuddled by the new economy? Attorney-mediator and journalist Olefson (Foreclosure Nation: Mortgaging the American Dream) brings readers a refreshingly simple rundown of how we got into our current economic situation—the bubble, the bailouts, the Great Recession, and decades of unsustainable economic trends—and thankfully refrains from any political potshots in either direction. Olefson urges readers to get a “fresh start” on their financial situation and future, and take responsibility for understanding what’s happening in the economy. Olefson coaches readers through subjects that include fixing their credit and debt; protecting savings, investments, and retirement; weighing the pros and cons of home ownership; managing budgets and spending; asking for help when it’s needed; and seeking further education on financial literacy.
● A Prelude to the Foundation of Political Economy: Oil, War, and Global Polity
By Cyrus Bina
Excerpt via publisher, Palgrave Macmillan
At the intersection of two important questions of our time, namely global peace and sustainability of the planet Earth, stands a commodity beyond all commodities that has wreaked havoc with the material and mind of humanity in recent times. This commodity is none other than oil, whose realities as well as its fictional impression have both made a consequential impact upon public opinion today. In this book, we hope to demonstrate what is right and what is wrong with learned opinion across the board, before showing what is amiss with popular perception.