#bookwatch

BookWatch: Why you should care about today’s new-style conspiracism, no matter your politics

President Trump’s choice to join the Federal Reserve Board, Stephen Moore, is loyal to Trump—he proved that as a campaign adviser from 2016—but does he understand banking and the economy?

His sponsor, President Trump, may not care. And Moore’s 2015 claim that “nobody believes the statistics out of Washington and often for good reasons” may commend him to Trump. Economic facts, for Trump, have no…

BookWatch: Catastrophe struck when my husband was killed. Here’s what I learned about creating a ‘what if’ plan

Sitting in the parking lot of a Marriott Express in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, swigging a drive-through drink the size my head and trying to map directions to my cousin’s memorial service was not the location I imagined trying to have “the talk” with my brother, and realizing (again!) that I was living one accident or illness away from financial catastrophe.

Turns out, most of us are.

An hour before,…

BookWatch: This couple went from saving almost nothing to 70% of their income — but it was too extreme

Scott Rieckens and his wife Taylor were living what many people might consider a dream life: renting a house across the bay from San Diego, working hard but also playing hard, whether regularly hitting up hot new restaurants, joining the local boat club or enjoying flashy weekend trips. After their daughter Jovie was born in 2015, they hired a nanny for $ 2,500 a month.

In 2016, the couple…

BookWatch: Ban the mute button if you want your next call-in meeting to work

Call-in meetings are primed for failure.

First, there are communication challenges. Without visual cues, participants are more likely to interrupt each other. Absent facial expression and other nonverbal signs, misunderstandings increase. Sarcasm and motives are harder to detect. Then poor phone connections just make it harder to truly hear what people are saying.

Meetings are also subject to…

BookWatch: This is how your neighbors are preventing you from becoming a millionaire

A book that explains how people can most easily achieve financial independence is least likely to be read by those who need it the most.

But “The NextMillionaire Next Door” (yes, “Next” is italicized in the title) can help you convey these ideas to people you care about (or to your clients if you are a financial planner or adviser), and if you give it as a present while showing how much you care,…

BookWatch: This NFL exec’s technique for assessing football players also works on stocks

When someone asks me what I do for a living, I usually say that I am in the data collection and appraisal business. And what I learned in more than 30 years of evaluating NFL talent applies equally to picking stocks.

Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh always believed his leadership skills were universally applicable, not limited to just football. He claimed he could show up at Apple and successfully…