This book is all about what have gone wrong for the United States and what needs to be done.

The author cited Ronald Reagan’s presidency as the beginning of the downfall due to his anti-tax stand. Reagan cut domestic spending using an example like “welfare queen” to portray the big government’s waste in spending. The Prop 13 ushered in the anti-taxation era. But the real culprit is not over taxation but globalization, the author argued, which allows corporations to race the taxation to the bottom as countries and states pays or offer tax rebates to be in the game.

The author also pointed out that U.S.’s two parties are two “right-of-center” parties – more or less the same; Republicans are supported by Big Oils and the Democrats are supported by the Wall Street. Ultimately, the lobbyists of the four big industries, military industry, wall-street, big oil, and health cares, pull the strings of the politicians – the “corporatacracy” wins big.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the society is distracted by “conspicuous consumption” or a race to keep up with the Jones, influenced by TV, and hyper-commercialism (mass persuasion). The author established by data the correlation of corruption to TV viewing and negative correlation to social trust to TV viewing.

To remedy the “big crash,” The author argued for Buddha’s “middle path” concept. Be mindful of self, work, knowledge, others (compassion/cooperation), nature, the future, politics, and the world. The author offer a path and 8 goals to achieve from now to 2020 to address the ills of the country. The goals cover unemployment, quality of access to education, reduce poverty, avoid environmental catastrophe, balance the federal budget, improve governance, national security, raise America’s happiness and life satisfaction.

The author outlined the math in paying for civilization (government). Of course, getting higher tax revenue is the critically difficult step. Taxing the rich sufficiently (from top rate of 35% to 39.6%) seems to be the key ingredient. Other tax raising avenues are raising taxes on oil, gas, coal, and curbing tax evasion, and taxing financial transaction and introducing VAT (value-added sales tax).

The author also offers the 7 habits of highly effective government: 1. set clear goals and benchmarks, 2. mobilize expertise, 3. make multiyear plan, 4. be mindful of the far future, 5. end the corporatocracy, 6. restore public management, 7 de-centralize. Sachs counted on the young (aged 18 to 29 now) generation to lead and push for changes. Of course, we all have to pitch in if we intend to continue our “civilization” and the way of our life.

Overall, I think the book was well written. Sachs used his tremendous international economic experience to analyze our current situation and offer some methods to remedy it. I think his attribution of the anti-tax movement to globalization is probably right. Unfortunately, blaming the foreigners doesn’t sell votes and comes away more like victim blaming. Blaming the government is easier. Sachs’s blaming our excessive TV watching and hyper-commercialism for our shirking the duty of watching the government is right on. Raising taxes on the people who pay the lobbyists to influence the politician won’t be easy. Just hope there are more gutsy politicians willing to stand up against the tide of legalized corruption. I found the book well researched and author’s views very insightful. I wish the same outcome of “reawakening American virtue and prosperity.”

This book is basically a re-do of Phil Town’s Rule #1, to encourage folks to pick up some bargains during 2008 down turn. It came with some extra bonus materials that I picked up as follows:

1. Use of the payback time (hence the book name) to gauge the soundness of the investment. A payback time of 10 years, based on the earning generated, would be good for a public company. It’s normally smaller for a private company due to lack of liquidity. This is a good concept.

2. Use of pre-tax money such as IRA, 529 and etc., called “Burkie,” were discussed. Nothing earth shaking here. He recommends paying taxes and direct one’s own “stockpiling” instead of paying the fund manager to do it for you.

3. Refresh of the stock value assessment technique was welcomed. I particularly like the way he appraised the value of Burlington Northern Railroad and explain why Warren Buffet liked this particular stock. This was good.

The audiobook was vocalized by the author himself, who came across as casual and sincere – well done.

Listened to the audiobook version of the book.

Agassi’s hatred toward tennis seems to resonate throughout the book. I could tell that he really hated tennis at his early life practicing many rounds of tennis against the “dragon,” automatic tennis machine. But after his success, he was able to redirect the purse toward his charity, his new purpose of life. This made tennis a bit more “fun” to him. Of course, Agassi is a winner. He hates to lose more than he loves to win. The game turn on that part of him. It’s funny that when one is faced with one choice because of his eight-grade education, he had no other avenue to succeed in. It made his choice simple. Based on his writing of this book. I think he’s quite talented in English composition, probably inherited his mother gene.

Use of his team is his strength. Surrounded by people who love him and he can trust. Gil, his trainer, is like a father to him. I don’t think Agassi could go far with Gil’s watching his back, literally. Gil’s Da Vinci notebook, full of his special training recipes and his Gil water makes a huge competitive advantage for Agassi. Brad, his coach taught him to play his odds rather than being perfect in playing his game.

From his description of his relationship with Brook Sheilds appeared to be a disaster from the start. He didn’t appear to related to actors in general. But Agassi’s pursuit of Stephanie Graph was no less than magical. It all started out as a fascination and after his breakup with Brook Shield, he turned his focus on her and eventually won her heart. It took some persistence just like his game.

There were many matches that Agassi described in great details including all of the thoughts and emotions during the game. It’s fascinating to see how much of the emotion and conviction play in winning or losing the tennis game.

Agassi’s story is nothing short of rags to riches. An naive Las Vegas boy who played a mean tennis game, eventually turned into one of the enduring tennis star and ironically a respectful philanthropist.

The book reads like a hero’s journey. A very interesting read. Highly recommended.

Enjoyed the first half of book before the it’s due back at the library. Will try to borrow it again.
The book I read was the first edition from 1997. The disk drive industry case study was especially interesting because I lived through those days of evolution from 14″ down to 8″, 3.5″, and then 2.5″ and now 1.8″.

The author blames the customers for keeping the good company at the incremental improvement pace and not having the resources to invest in the up and coming disruptive cheap technology, that eventually become good enough and cheap enough to meet the new set of requirements. It’s not because of bad management. Instead, it’s the good management and the rigid supply chain that makes diversions from the existing course of action difficult.

It would take a different, smaller organization facing a different set of customers to make it possible, as recommended by the author. The author offers other possible avenues to be innovative.

Noted the phases of product competition: Performance, reliability, convenience and then price. The key principles of disruptive technology: 1. companies depend on customers and investors for resources, 2. small markets don’t solve the growth needs of large companies, 3. markets that don’t exist cannot be analyzed, 4. technology supply may not equal market demand,

Characteristics of disruptive technologies:
1. Weakness of disruptive technologies are their strengths.
2. Typically simpler, cheaper, and more reliable and convenient than established technologies, e.g. Quickbook vs. traditional bookkeeping software.

The case study of the electric car as an disruptive technology is still relevant and makes a strong point.

Lots of case studies and an interesting read and a must read for high-tech executives.

This book is all about Libertarian Paternalism or Nudges designed to steer people’s choices toward a desired outcome that’s good for the individuals. Certainly the same methods can be applied to commercial purposes.

The authors offer many ways to design the choice architecture such that people may end up choosing to save more for IRA (default to x%), donate to more organs upon deaths (default to donate organs and need to opt out), and etc.

An interesting solution proposed by the authors to the perennial conflict of same-sex marriage is to make marriages private contracts instead of the recognized statues by states, which are only required to issue Civil Union license. I think this is a great idea. It’s time to separate the religion from the state.

Another interesting idea is to make the high-school students fill out an application to colleges before graduation. This did increase the college enrollment by leaps and bounds for one state.

All these nudge schemes play into several of human natures: inertia (status quo bias, rules of thumb), anchoring (residual/subconscious thought from previous conversation), representativeness (bias), optimism and overconfidence, fear of loss more than the joy of gain, fear of unknowns, ignorance of underlying issues (solution: quick feedback like SmartMeter), following the herds, framing of the questions, spotlight effect (people are not paying attention to you as you think), and etc.

And all of the natures have to do with our reflective system (rational) vs. automatic system (fast and instinctive). This is an interesting read.