This is a pretty awful guide to early retirement and financial independence. He talks about the subject only tengentially, while the main content of tThis is a pretty awful guide to early retirement and financial independence. He talks about the subject only tengentially, while the main content of the book is his philosophies about living, working, spending, and education. For example, he spends a chapter on the differences between the renaissance man, businessman, working man, and salary man, complete with a graph broken into four quandrants. In another chapter, he talks about how some expertise is "modularized" or "strongly connected."
In the second section, he gives a list of ways to save money that will probably make you feel very badass and all, but won't save you much money (taking cold showers, seriously?). He goes on at length about not-very-useful information such as the optimal design of an efficient house being rectangular. When discussing whether it's best to rent or own, he gives you the NAV equation and capitalization rate. When discussing health, rather than talking about things like, oh I don't know, how to save on health care?, he gives a tutorial on functional fitness and high-intensity interval training.
The very end of the book is about finances. Only in passing does he mention vital information like withdrawal rate and how to invest for income, only to focus on pages of mathematical equations with no explanation.
When it was over, I felt like I just watched a physicist mentally masturbate for hours. I got nothing from this book, and if I were the target audience, it would have only served to discourage me from financial independence. Luckily, I'm already financially independent, and I know it does not need to be nearly this complex or "extreme." But even if it did, this book contributes nothing to the subject. I know his idea was to give "strategies and tactics" not a game plan, but the details are kinda important. It's not like a thorough bibliography was supplied, either. 1984 and The Fountainhead don't count....more
This is a pretty well done photographic journal of average families around the world, along with their material possessions. It's mostly a picture booThis is a pretty well done photographic journal of average families around the world, along with their material possessions. It's mostly a picture book, with large, beautiful photographs of one family per country. The main photo is of the family with nearly all its possessions, taken outside. Then there are several pictures of the family as they go through their day, cooking, working, shopping, even bathing. There are some statistics to accompany each country, and each family, to give a sense for how they compare with others.
Obviously, the creators of this project thought of it as a peace mission, that the best way to foster peace is to foster understanding of each other. I knew what to expect going in, and yet I did find myself surprised to see some of these photos. The discrepancy in material wealth is pretty drastic. I expected the richest to be the USA, but it was actually Kuwait. Something else that was interesting was that their facial expressions tended to match the political atmosphere more than the economic situations. It was also interesting to see just how much influence religion has on people's lives.
It was neat to take a photographic tour of the world, visiting with average families, and vicariously getting a taste for their lives....more
The premise of this book is that Christmas is not being secularized, but rather shifting from Christianity to the postmodern religion that is overtakiThe premise of this book is that Christmas is not being secularized, but rather shifting from Christianity to the postmodern religion that is overtaking it as the dominant religion: the economy. I've often seen this comparison made, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, but this book is quite serious about it, and considers it more than just an analogy. In fact, the economy displays all of the characteristics of cosmological religions of old. We don't recognize it as a religion because it doesn't resemble the transcendental religions we've come to equate with religion itself. Cosmological religions are folk religions, without formal institutions. Those who subscribe to these religions don't think of them as religions, but just life, the way things are, much like we consider the economy.
Religion is devoted to helping people get in touch with the sacred. People devote themselves to material wealth in a truly religions fashion, and treat this form of success as sacred, and will embrace opportunities to be in better touch with this, which our modern priests facilitate. We treat celebrities exactly like the old cosmological religions treated saints and heros of their myths. And what is our god? Santa. He symbolizes everything sacred in our economic religion.
This book goes through the aspects of the economy and compares them to cosmological religion. It's pretty hard to deny the parallels. It does show all the signs. It can seem a bit cheesy at times though, as he acts like an anthropologist visiting our modern culture, treating things we see all the time as strange artifacts of a bizarre culture. This feels pretty funny, since we're so much a part of this culture, but I do understand why he wrote it that way.
This book isn't just about Christmas, though it focuses on it. It goes through all the holidays, some of which can be pretty surprising. For example, did you know that, after Christmas, Easter is the most commercial holiday? Third is Valentine's Day, which isn't quite so surprising.
This book helped me make my peace with Christmas and the rampant commercialism in our culture, by helping me see just how much our culture is built on it. No doubt, I'm a product of this culture, and I subscribe to this religion too, though not quite to the same degree. I might as well admit it, and own up to it. Seeing it all in this new religious framework helps me make sense of it. I know its just people's religious impulses coming out. It's certainly no worse than any other religion in history....more
This book helps you be more intentional about what kind of Christmas you create, focusing on what truly matters. It's a much-needed re-evaluation now This book helps you be more intentional about what kind of Christmas you create, focusing on what truly matters. It's a much-needed re-evaluation now that the holiday has become so obscenely commercialized. It includes a lot of tips for families to spend less time and money on Christmas so they can focus on what really matters to them. Unfortunately, I didn't get much from this book. It was mostly aimed at families, for one thing. Most of what it offers aren't all that insightful, but it is good to skim to get you on the right track....more
This book describes the Ecological Footprint analysis technique, written by its creators. This is the most promising approach to sustainability I've fThis book describes the Ecological Footprint analysis technique, written by its creators. This is the most promising approach to sustainability I've found thus far. It advocates replacing sustainability-as-sacrifice and sustainability-as-moralizing with an empirical approach in which "sustainability" is actually defined and quantified, and our impact on the Earth and environment is measured. This is just a model, and estimates must be used, as it's impossible to know exactly what the human carrying capacity is or what exactly is our impact on the Earth. But it's sufficient to redirect environmental rhetoric toward more useful dialogue, and to help us know exactly what needs to change, and what priority to place on these changes.
I really love the way this book words things. It never says, "environmentally-friendly," for example (as if we're somehow hurting the environment's feelings). It constantly reminds the reader that there is no such thing as an "environment," as something "out there." We ARE the "environment." However, the actual details of this book made my eyes glaze over. Numbers with units like "cubic meter/ha/yr" were bandied about indiscrimately while not going into much detail about how the numbers are arrived at, let alone how we can calculate an ecological footprint ourselves, which is why I read this book in the first place. Then, I guess in an attempt to make this book more accessible, there are useless figures featuring really bad cartoons of a character shaped out of a footprint, with the big toe as his head....more
This is a short book about Voluntary Simplicity. It covers all the basics and gives some good ideas for the reader to explore, and it purposely limitsThis is a short book about Voluntary Simplicity. It covers all the basics and gives some good ideas for the reader to explore, and it purposely limits its scope to that. Some of the ideas were really insightful, but some were awful, like the recommendation of using a 10% withdrawal rate. The one positive thing about this book that I can say without hesitation is that, with less than 100 pages of large letters, this book is not a waste of time....more
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