Bookstore

In Association with Amazon.com

Stanley and Danko have summarized the results of countless studies and research projects as political science professors and management consultants to the financial services industry. The results they come up with are surprising because the characteristics of millionaires are surprisingly straightforward and familiar, just hard to implement.

The book is easy to read as the authors have developed composite characters whose qualities are based on their research into not only millionaires but people who accumulate money and people who tend to squander. The Millionaire Next Door is full of little rules of thumb and reference points including what most millionaire wives are like, how to train children to handle money, what Millionaires spend freely on and what they don't.

One revelation is that most millionaires have accumulated their own wealth and, surprise, surprise, are very focused on business and the accumulation of wealth. The authors occasionally imbue the attitudes of "Prodigious Accumulators of Wealth (PAW's)" with perhaps higher virtue than they deserve. But never the less, it also becomes clear that the wisest millionaires are very hip to the limits of what cash can bring. Interestingly, most millionaires don't want their kids to take over the family dry cleaning business but rather to become like the professionals that they keep shelling out the company doe to.

Since we could all use a little extra cash around the house, reading The Millionaire Next Door is a great way to re-examine your habits on the cash accumulation front. If you aren't able to change much overnight, at least you'll have more informed priorities to dictate to your loved ones.

This great little book belongs in both Personal Life and Inherent Wealth categories. It is a compilation of timeless principles for economic living and generally having a decent time on earth. Practical and spiritual advice for daily living and very refreshing. Sorry, no picture.

Put your money where your mouth is! so to speak. This is a grrrreat book for people who occasionally speak in front of a group. Dale Carnegie helps out on this front as well but Bender has put together a book of straightforward and amusing guidelines. You'll be amazed and delighted. It's easy to read!

Andrew Hacker's book is the political economic version of The Millionaire Next Door, which is reviewed above. Based in part on analysis of the 1995 US Census data, Money provides a great overview of the distribution of wealth in American society and weaves in a kind of reconciliation of it with the original principles and intentions of the authors of the US Constitution. Moderns America is the richest country in the world says Hacker but only if you measure wealth strictly in terms of the raw consumption power of the population.

In recent years America has been producing millionaires at a spectacular rate. The bad news is the rich are getting richer and the poor.... The share of national income going to the bottom 20% of the households fell from 4.4% in 1975 to 3.7% in 1995. The top 20% of households account for 48% of the income. Hacker posits some whimsical but interesting speculations on redistribution of wealth like figuring out what the lowest 20% of the population would all have as minimum incomes if all income above $100,00 or so was taxed away and redistributed. Of course that would never work for a variety of reasons, but it is cool to consider. I recommend this book highly for those who want the big picture on how money moves around in the US. It is very easy to read.

More to come about this book and in this section. For now just click the picture and check out the reviews at amazon.com

• Inherent Wealth: the spiritual path of economic life

More to come in this section of the bookstore.