Jan

Facinating story

Revisado: 03-15-12

I bought this book a few months months but didn't really get into it. I returned to the book recently and was captivated. This is one of the best books i have listened to in a long time but it is not an easy book to follow since it touches on very complicated PhD level mathematical concepts. Although complicated, the author manages to take most of the concepts apart and present them in an easy to understand way. The book takes you all the way through the history that resulted in the Black Scholes formula and it includes a botanist experimenting with pollen, a drunken sailor hanging on to a lamppost and a bell. Chapter 7 includes an easy to understand but detailed explanation of the Black Scholes formula and is worth the purchase price alone. You will have to focus but it is worth the effort.

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Nothing new under the sun

Revisado: 03-13-12

It is my opinion that if you choose to write a book you should do so because you have something important and new you wish to share with your readers/listeners. This book is a very short introduction to economics. Dr. Murphy does supply some educational examples of economics in action but most of his examples is copied straight from the writings of former important and classical economists. Some of these examples are more than 80 years old and some are even wrong. While Dr. Murphy certainly knows his economic history he falls victim to the Ricardian vice, use of abstract theory with no foundation in real life. Let me give you an example of this: The county picks up garbage at no cost. A business owner would be more carefull with consumption and recycle more if he had to pay a fee to have his garbage collected and therefore a garbage fee would reduce the ammount of garbage collected and as a consequence pollution. In this example Dr. Murphy fails to consider the environmental effect when people begin to dump garbage in nature because they don't want to pay the fee.

"The bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen". Frederic Bastiat.

This book is not really politically incorrect.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Not to impressive

Revisado: 03-08-12

I was expecting something better. The research for this book was superficial and simply not good enough. Could have been a great book but the author only presents the american stereotype interpritation of the countries analyzed. The author does make a few good points and observations but not enough to save the book and i resent the author calling europe the new third world. Europe may not be perfect but a lot better than the US.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

What a waste

Revisado: 11-13-11

The offshore business world is such an interesting subject. This book could have been an important work but instead it became a worthless waste of time. he spends almost 13 hours complaining about offshore banks and juristictions and in the process shows very little understanding of the subject, the businessworld and globalization.

He believes in the unlimited power of the government. Following the law is not good enough and he considers all companies and individuals using offshore accounts to be criminals even though these companies and individuals work inside the law. Even when these offshore juristictions donate money to environmental causes or help to fight powerty they are treated with suspicion and called criminal. Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Jersey, Guernsey and others are all described as criminal states. One of the most absurd parts is about a "criminal" english bank who only fault was to reject a request for information from FBI, awaiting a court order. Of course in compliance with english (and american and international) law.

This book was written by a little person with a little mind and the result sucks.

This is a total waste of time which is a shame because we really need a good book about this subject.

The narrator was ok :-)

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esto le resultó útil a 7 personas

Horrible narrator

Revisado: 05-31-11

This is propably a great book but the narration makes it unbearable to listen to. The narrator speaks in the most horrible posh english accent with accents on almost all vowels. Like he is talking downhill in every sentence. After 15 minutes i was totally disgusted and quit the book. I don't mind english accent but this was simply too much. Just imagine latin words pronounced with heavy english accent. Listen to the sample before buying.

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esto le resultó útil a 9 personas

Polite,funny and honest.

Revisado: 05-30-11

I wasn not born until 2 years after the last episode of Jeannie was aired. I did however watch the series during the 80. and loved it. For some reason Barbara made a lasting impression on me, so when i read that she had released an autobiography, i bought it immediately. This biography is well written and very honest. She is polite and although Barbara does dish out a little bit she is, with few exeptions, very polite and always has something positive to say about everyone mentioned in the book. She narrates the book herself smiling, laughing and even crying through the pages.

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esto le resultó útil a 8 personas

Hatefull and evil

Revisado: 03-16-11

As a european i an a little interested in the american political system. Therefore i bought this book because i thought i could give me a perspective on the Republican party and the The Tea Party movement. When i started listening to the book i was shocked because already from the introduction the book was full of hate and contempt for the Obama administration. I respect the difference in political ideology but this was to extreme for me. This is a political manifest from a disfunctional political system.

The writers of this book seems to be completely clueless and blames both the war in Irac and the financial crises on Obama and his "fanatical ideologies"???.

I hope this is not the future for America :-(

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esto le resultó útil a 14 personas

Boring and to long

Revisado: 02-20-11

I bought this audiobook but until now i have not managed to get beyond the introduction, more than one hour long. Stephen Covey is really impressed with himself and the life he has created for him and his family and he doesn't mind sharing and analyzing even the most trivial events. This book may contain valuable information but it is so boring to listen to so i recommend the abridged version. Life is to short for this!

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Not very interesting

Revisado: 08-24-10

If you expect a book about criminals and mafia this is not the book for you. This book is an uninteresting memoir from a spoiled girl. A history about a family with the waguest connection to the mafia as it most be possible. This is a story about moneyproblems, abuse of creditcards and a clueless daughter. Unfortunately, the more you hear, the more you realise that this book is about a demanding mother, a spoiled girl and a father who works himself to death. For this type of history i recommend Andrea Giovino's book Divorced from the mob!

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Too many old recordings

Revisado: 08-02-10

The idea behind this book is ok. A biography in the words of MLK. The book seems honest and well researched but it feels like the author ran out of inspitation and therefore the book is filled up with soundclips of old recordings from public speeches and sermons. Some of these is moderately interesting but as the book progresses the pieces become longer and longer. Some are longer than 30 minutes and together they amount to half of this audiobook. Unless you are a big fan of the words of MLK go find an alternative.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas