Books 02 (Nov 08 - Nov 09)

[durio]

Dale Carnegie Golden Book - GREAT SUMMARY!
http://www.dalecarnegie.com/pdfs/gbflash_English.pdf

Powerful Principles from: How To Win Friends and Influence People written by Dale Carnegie
Become a Friendlier Person
1. Do not criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest, sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.
4. Become genuinely interested in other people.
5. Smile.
6. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
7. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
8. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
9. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

Win People to Your Way of Thinking
10. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
11. Show respect for the other person's opinion. Never say, "you are wrong."
12. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and empathetically.
13. Begin in a friendly way.
14. Get the other person saying, "yes, yes" immediately.
15. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
16. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
17. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
18. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
19. Appeal to the nobler motives.
20. Dramatize your ideas.
21. Throw down a challenge.

Be a Leader
22. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
23. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
24. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
25. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
26. Let the other person save face.
27. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. "Be hearty in you approbation and lavish in your praise."
28. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
29. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
30. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

Principles from: How To Start Worrying and Start Living
Fundamental Principles for Overcoming Worry
1. Live in “day-tight compartments.”
2. How to face trouble:
A. Ask yourself, “What is the worst that can possibly happen?”
B. Prepare to accept the worst.
C. Try to improve on the worst.

3. Remind yourself of the exorbitant price you can pay for worrying in terms of your health.
Basic Techniques in Analyzing Worry
1. Get all the facts.
2. Weigh all the facts - then come to a decision.
3. Once a decision is reached, act!
4. Write out and answer the following questions:
A. What is the problem?
B. What are the causes of the problem?
C. What are the possible solutions?
D. What is the best possible solution?

Break the Worry Habit Before It Breaks You
1. Keep busy.
2. Do not fuss about trifles.
3. Use the law of averages to outlaw your worries.

4. Co-operate with the inevitable.
5. Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth and refuse to give it more.
6. Don’t worry about the past.

Cultivate a Mental Attitude that will Bring You Peace and Happiness
1. Fill your mind with thoughts of peace, courage, health, and hope.
2. Never try to get even with your enemies.
3. Expect ingratitude.

4. Count your blessings - not your troubles.
5. Do not imitate others.
6. Try to profit from your losses.
7. Create happiness for others.

The Perfect Way to Conquer Worry
1. Pray.

Do not Worry About Criticism
1. Remember that unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment.
2. Do the very best you can.
3. Analyze your own mistakes and criticize yourself.

Prevent Fatigue and Worry and Keep Your Energy and Spirits High
1. Rest before you get tired.
2. Learn to relax at your work.
3. Protect your health and appearance by relaxing at home.
4. Apply these four good working habits:
A. Clear your desk of all papers except those relating to the immediate problem at hand.
B. Do things in the order of their importance.
C. When you face a problem, solve it then and there if you have the facts necessary to make a decision.
D. Learn to organize, deputize and supervise.

5. Put enthusiasm into your work.
6. Don’t worry about insomnia.

[millionairemind]

This was a lazy weekend that allowed me to finish a book by Steve Landsburg called More Sex is Safer Sex - The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics.

Landsburg writes in pretty much the same way as Steve Levitt (Of Freakconomics fame) and Tim Hartford (The Logic of Life and The Undercover Economist) by trying to use economics to explain "everyday enigmas".

The book is divided into 16 chapters, each trying to tackle a specific topic. Here is a summary of one of the chapters - More Sex is Safer Sex that he wrote in the Slate.

http://www.slate.com/id/2033/

There is also a chapter that touched on the phenomenon of taller men making more money than shorter men and beautiful women making more money. This one I read about many years back and it has been consistently proven worldwide.

The book is available at the NLB.

If you are interested, books from Steve Levitt and Tim Hartford also make great reads

[helios]

I really need to "borrow" books from our MM Ge Ge on his Economics readings ... he is simply amazing!

Two years back when I was in Beijing, I recalled flipping through this book KEEPING MY MANDARIN ALIVE by Lee Kuan Yew.

When you are surrounded by mainland chinese, media reporters, you know your Mandarin standards sucks ... ... at that point of time, we literally gave 100 books away to the VIPs who came for the launch ... it is a good book, and i will want to read it again ...

An excerpt by Chua Chee Lay (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore):

For the first time, this towering figure of the island-state's politics gives a first-hand account of How he has learnt Mandarin over the last 50 years and kept it alive. He also tells When and Why he decided to learn the language, Where he got hold of the learning materials from, Whom he practises his Mandarin with and What spurs him on.

MM Lee goes beyond these 5Ws and 1H in Keeping My Mandarin Alive, to share the agony of a mature Chinese language student and how he has overcome the difficulties — he strove to learn Mandarin only at age 32 (from 1955) and Hokkien at age 38 (from 1961).

[millionairemind]

Just wrapped up on this book SUPERCLASS by David Rothkopf. The original cover of the book was disturbing enough..



In it, the author details of a power elites class of ppe about 6000 strong world wide who runs basically the whole world, from our religious organization, elite businesses, goverment policies and directions. These ppe. basically control almost everything in this world, short of your free will

He also details who's who in the Bush administration when they declared war on terror. Apparently a small group within the group of the Bush administration who are directors or former CEO of oil companies as well as Defense companies stands to benefit greatly from the war.

LKY is the only person from Singapore mentioned in this book. I am sure in Singapore we have a similar closely knit group of ppe. who sits on each other boards and runs our largest gahmen linked companies, or our SWF

Being rich does not put you in the Superclass. One has to be both RICH and POWERFUL, or in the case of Osama, terror inspiring

Reading this book is disturbing to me at times due to the nature of the book - that a small group of 6000ppe. worldwide bascially runs the whole world.

It is available at NLB. I highly recommend it if you have time to plough thro' a 320page book.

Book Summary

Hidden Content:

In Superclass, Rothkopf, a former managing director of Kissinger Associates and an international trade official in the Clinton Administration, has identified roughly 6,000 individuals who have "the ability to regularly influence the lives of millions of people in multiple countries worldwide." They are the "superclass" of the 21st century, spreading across borders in an ever thickening web, with a growing allegiance, Rothkopf argues, to each other rather than to any particular nation.

Rothkopf's archetypal member of the superclass is Blackstone Group executive Stephen Schwarzman, who is not only fabulously wealthy, but also chairman of the Kennedy Center, a board member of the New York Public Library, the New York City Ballet, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the New York City Partnership. These boards, along with the over 100 businesses Blackstone has invested in, the other business councils and advisory boards he sits on, and his Yale and Harvard education, mean that Schwarzman is only one or two affiliations away from any center of power in the world. Rothkopf actually traces the "daisy chain" of Schwarzman's connections through his board memberships -- linking him to Ratan Tata, one of India's richest men, former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo and many others. It is these links that create access that translates to influence and determines how the levers of power are pulled.

Fame alone doesn't get you into the global power elite: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are out while Angelina Jolie and Bono are in. High office is generally enough for politicians and even their spouses, but membership in the superclass can be fleeting -- Mikhail Gorbachev and Cherie Blair are now out, while Henry Kissinger and Bill Clinton are still in. Rothkopf harps on the Pareto principle of distribution, or the "80/20 rule," whereby 20 percent of the causes of anything are responsible for 80 percent of the consequences. That means 20 percent of the money-makers make 80 percent of the money and 20 percent of the politicians make 80 percent of the important decisions. That 20 percent belongs to the superclass.

On closer inspection, however, Rothkopf has no actual methodology for determining who is in and who is out. Each chapter identifies individuals who are said to count in a field, conclusions backed up by trendspotting and anecdotes about Rothkopf's encounters at Davos and New York dinner parties that make the reader feel vaguely voyeuristic. When Rothkopf ventures away from his core expertise in politics and finance, and into such subjects as asymmetrical warfare, mega-churches and freemasonry, the pastiche-like quality of his research becomes evident.

Still, Superclass is often thought-provoking. For one thing, it is as much about who is not part of the superclass as who is. As I read Rothkopf's chronicles of elite gatherings -- Davos, Bilderberg, the Bohemian Grove (all male), Fathers and Sons (all male) -- I was repeatedly struck by the near absence of women. Fortune magazine's annual Most Powerful Women Summit, the only elite gathering I know of that is restricted to women, didn't even rate a mention. And indeed, when Rothkopf summarizes "how to become a member of the superclass," his first rule is "be born a man." Only 6 percent of the superclass is female.

Superclass is written in part as a consciousness-raising exercise for members of the superclass themselves. Rothkopf worries that "the world they are making" is deeply unequal and ultimately unstable. He hopes that the current global elite will use their power to do more than egg each other on to high-profile philanthropy. Elites in radically unequal countries such as Chile, for instance, might decide to open their cozy circles of power to allow the emergence of a genuine middle class. New York bankers might realize that they can no longer peddle loans to developing countries in good times but then pressure the U.S. Treasury and the International Monetary Fund to bail out those same governments when they suddenly default on their debts (ensuring, of course, that the bankers get paid). The agribusinesses that reap billions from domestic subsidies in developed countries might consider the longer-term value of trade rather than aid for countries at the bottom of the global food chain.

Perhaps. But it's likely to take more than exhortation. In the words of former Navy Secretary John Lehman, "Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat." Why would the superclass want to give it up?·

[la papillion]

Sounds like the books I wish to read. Which section is it under, mm?

[millionairemind]

Sounds like the books I wish to read. Which section is it under, mm?

Call Number Status
English 305.5209045 ROT

http://catalogue.nlb.gov.sg/cgi-bin/cw_ ... 946239+1+0

Enjoy

[durio]

Mary Roach - BONK! - The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Now finally someone done a writeup about "the science on sex!"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=89498532
Her previous writing are very interesting reads as well too!
Embedded videos have been disabled.
Click to view video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpDI-lAllBw

Available from any good NLB branch near you!

[millionairemind]

Just finished up on the book Stocks For The Long Run by Jeremy Siegel. Here is a review of the book by the author of The Four Pillars of Investing, which I have read several months ago and found to be quite average.

http://www.four-pillars.ca/2008/11/11/b ... -long-run/

Personally, I wouldn't call it one of the Top 10 books on investing

The author did a credible job on dissecting the differences between stocks and bonds, investing, a section of Technical analysis, Dow Strategy etc, just like any academic does. It kind of reads like an academic book. I wonder what he has to say about the current meltdown and how he is doing himself.

Repeated references have been made to The Intelligent Investor by Graham and Dodd.

It is a good read for beginners. However, I suggest beginners to open their mind to other forms of investing, other than buy and hold, as evident from the pain of this super bear market so far this year.

[kennynah]

it;s school holidays...and since 1stNov08, ordinary citizens can borrow up to 8 books from NLB for 3 weeks and renewable for another 3 weeks. This is until 31Jan08...

so....go borrow books and read...enrich the brain....and trade with knowledge...

[millionairemind]

Mary Roach - BONK! - The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Now finally someone done a writeup about "the science on sex!"

Available from any good NLB branch near you!

Thanks to Durio, I reserved this book last week and finished it over the weekend.

It is not Laugh a page kind of funny but there are parts of this book that is quite humorously done as the author details on all the laboratory experiements that has been done on sex in the name of sex, including one hilarious penis camera, starting from the 16th century.

After reading this book, I know that Guys, you can all add another 4" to your count , cos' 4" of it is below the surface and there are men out there who will undergo surgery to get that additional 4"..haha...