Forecasting

Problem: Malone devotes a "chapter" (or whatever they were) to the supposed shortsighted quote attributed to Charles Duell, the Commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents in 1899. We've all heard it: "Everything that can be invented, has been invented." Unfortunately, this is a completely bogus myth (though popular), and Duell never said anything of the sort, as even the slightest research into his life would have quickly revealed. Myth passed as truth. Lazy. Disinformation.

Problem: Malone attributes the conception of the fax machine to Jules Verne in his novel Paris in the 2oth century. He offers as evidence a passage from Verne's book: "photographic telegraphy, invented in the last century by ... Giovanni Caselli of Florence, permitted transmission of the facsimile form of any writing or illustration...". Amazingly, Malone mistook Professor Caselli for a Verne-invented fictional character. In fact, a real Caselli DID invent a working fax, a model which sent pictures from Lyon to Paris from 1865-70, starting before the publication of Verne's book. Patents for faxes go back to 1843. Lazy. Disinformation.

To his credit, Goldsmith gives an accurate picture of space travel from the past, to the present, to the near future. Beyond a few decades, though, he succombs to those fantasies of far out physicists who seem more like science fiction writers than true scientists.

The chapter on mining the asteroids is a good case in point. How anyone can make money doing this is beyond me. Goldsmith is totally uncritical here. If he had written a business plan for such a venture, it would be obvious that there are serious problems.

The chapter on rocket science gets carried away with laser sails. Some math would have helped here. But the idea is preposterous even without the analysis. And, the scheme CANNOT slow the space craft down when it reaches its destination. This is a point Goldsmith misses. The book's proposal is a clear violation of Newton's action-reaction principal. Undaunted by this, Goldsmith moves onto nuclear powered spaceships. Good. But, his implementation of one is so inefficient that it barely rivals a chemical rocket.

The chapter "When time slows down" is accurate and informative. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with human space travel, a point Goldsmith chooses to overlook. There are some good reasons why even a matter-antimatter rocket can't go much faster than 1/10 the speed of light in a practical space ship. So it is pointless to talk about time dilation at 99% of the speed of light.

I felt the book is misleading because it pulls the scientifically illiterate people into a false sense that anything is possible. A "whatever you imagine can come true" sort of attitude.

There's an interesting chapter on how we may use the moon as a colony for jumping to the planets. It details the technical difficulties and advantages quite well. (I never knew the freakin' moon reached 240 degrees F during the (month long) lunar day!)

The rest of the books chapters deal with exploring further out from earth. There's good bits on terra-forming Mars and the hypothetical 'bombing' of Jupiter's moon Europa to see if there's any fish under its ice. There's also a chapter that deals with the social problems that space exploration may cause - like who 'owns' potentially valuable 'land' or asteroids. Goldsmith hides his own (Sagan-style leftish) views on these questions rather well. He also presents other (somewhat rightwing) views rather well. In other words, a damn fair presentation of a complex subject is what emerges.

Goldsmith writes well. I fault with the book (a little) in that it's not technical enough and overemphesises basic facts (like how far away other solar systems really are). As a technical guy, Goldsmith must feel frustrated that so many lobotomites in the public and the media take interstellar travel (by assorted ET's)as common as getting a six-pack at the 7-11.

He should also have taken a harder line against the use of human explorers in the near future. Taking humans into space is too costly - instruments will do quite well for the time being. Goldsmith decries (somewhat) the international space station, and I agree with him. (Of course, long term the silly thing MAY make a good investment - even if it just keeps underemployed Russian scientists employed in NOT making nukes or super-ebola for terrorists).

For those would like something deeper on this subject, I suggest Timothy Ferris' "The Whole Shebang". Goldsmith is a good beginning though.

Goldsmith tries to keep a fair balance beteween his views and those of other authors, and you will also find updated information on recent descoveries, such as water on the Moon poles, life on Mars, etc. The book main weakness is that Goldsmith lists some very interesting questions regarding the exploration and colonization of several celestial objects, but a lot of them are answer with more questions. Also, at some points he goes into too much unnecesary detail.

If you want to know about our real chances to travel, explore, and even colonize the Moon, Mars, the asteroids, or just visit Jupiter's Europa and Saturn's Titan, go ahead and buy the book. It will be a good investment.

Net result? This book makes me wonder what has been going on between GE and the Navy with all that defense money during the author's career there.

I backtested the strategy on a daily basis (using the daily closing prices) for the last 62 years and concluded that even with no transaction costs/spreads you cannot increase your return compared to the buy and hold strategy. However you can reduce your risk by being out of stock market roughly 1/3 of the time. I also backtested the strategy for the last 14 years taking into account the opening, high, low and closing prices during the day to better account for intra-day swings. The conclusion was the same.

To sum it all up - it seems to be possible to reduce the risk of your SPY holding (i.e. the S&P 500 ETF listed on AMEX) if you are prepared to do extensive trading (i.e. at least one trade a month, which is twice as many trades as the author predicts is necessary), but do not expect any extra returns. In fact, I conclude it's more likely that you'll achieve slightly lower returns than a buy and hold investor over the long term.

Mr. Yanis uses a simple moving average to time the market but with a couple technique twists. Most moving average systems used by themselves cause excessive trades and false signals. The Y-Process system also suffers from that but to a lesser extent. The meat of this book is all in one chapter.

The book is well written and the system's weaknesses honestly reported. The actual returns are documented. He uses a hard to understand method to show buy/sell points and to calculate returns - it should have been done differently.

The timing process requires tracking a few numbers but nothing complicated and it has beaten buy and hold by avoiding major downturns. What's more, this book was published in 2000 prior to the worst of the market collapse and would have gotten you out close to the top. As of September 2002 it's still signaling to stay clear of stocks. If nothing else, this may provide a way to determine when the current bear market has spent most its energy. I'd say that's worth the price of admission, wouldn't you?

Full review: This book has the number 25 as its theme. It marks the brand consultancy Interbrand's 25th anniversary, it looks at branding 25 years from now, and 25 people are interviewed. The book starts off with a discussion of brands and branding, and looks briefly at how the phenomenon has changed over time. Differences between brand value and brand strength are mentioned. The editors claim that clarity (of vision, mission and values), consistency (in who they are, what ever they are doing), and leadership (a brand's ability to lead and exceed expectations) are the most important factors for creating successful brands in the future. This introduction also touches on what they see as the challenge for 'new' brands like Microsoft, and the challenge to branding to overcome the suspicion about its nature.

The interviewed people are asked, among other things, to define brands, name the greatest brand today, and their favourite brand. They are asked which brands, or categories of brands, they think may become powerful in the future, and which may fail.

Although the editors say that they have sought to include many different kinds of people, it is striking that only five women and one teenager are interviewed. The majority of contributors are middle-aged businessmen, be it from different sorts of businesses. One strange thing is that one of the featured women, Marieke Van der Werf, is introduced differently than all the other people in the book. The standard formula for introducing the contributors is their name, current profession, education, and former posts. However, Van der Werf is also described as 'mother of 3 young children'. Is she the only parent in this book? Are none of the men parents?

Some of the interviewed people talk mostly about their own company or industry, and it does get a bit tiresome to read about how great and special Starbucks or BMW are when you expected an analysis of the future of society and branding. However, some interviews are very interesting to read, for example Will Hutton, editor of the Observer, talks more about society and branding in general than specific companies, and several people discuss the social responsibilities of companies in the future.

Since all the people in the book were asked the same questions, the interviews get a bit repetitative. The definitions of branding are all quite similar, and Coca Cola is frequently referred to as the world's greatest brand.

In the introduction, the editors point out that the definitions of branding in the interviews are alike, and that the same company names come up again and again. They also point out frequently suggested areas for future brand development - information management, health and well-being, leisure, and education. The book's 'Conclusions' chapter talks briefly about the future for brands and predicts fewer, bigger brands and that life-editing and life-simplifying brands will be even more important. It gives short descriptions of necessary characteristics for powerful brands in the future, and repeats the clarity, consistency, leadership formula again. However, there is not really a serious attempt to sum up or discuss the findings from the interviews, which is a shame considering how much work must have gone into them.

Summary

The lack of analysis means that this book would probably not appeal to academics, or practitioners looking for answers to specific branding problems. It is more reminiscent of a a selection of 25 business magazine clippings, but it will appeal to people interested in the future of branding, and also other people's views of the phenomenon. Also perhaps a good buy for those who want an easy and interesting book to read as relaxation.

Reviwed by Dr Jessica Backlund (MA, PhD) and Shaun Powell (Btech, AIMgt, BAhons), from the International Corporate Branding and Identity Centre.

I completely agree with the Finnish reviewer regarding the lack of depth in any subject and example discussed. Rescher's books on Idealism are much better -- my guess is because he is an Idealist and enjoys writing on the subject. Reading this book however I felt that the author just had to finish writing it as a business duty to his publisher.

The good news is that this is a serious book. It looks at the fundamental questions about what can be firmly said about the future. Rescher deals with philosophical concepts in epistemology and ontology, and discusses underlying principles at length.

The bad news is that Rescher never discusses any concrete examples at any length; as soon as discussion starts to get interesting, it is time to take a new viewpoint. There are plenty of interesting topics which could have been discussed at more length, weather or the stock market, but one page is maximum Rescher dwells on any one topic. John Casti's book "Searching for certainty" is much better in this respect (but the book is on prediction in science only). Business predictions are much better discussed by Schnaars in "Megamistakes".

Rescher is one the co-inventors of the Delphi-method (with Olaf Helmer and Norman Dalkey) but his discussion of the method is a dissapointment. It is very cursory, and their is a strong pet-theory bias: a 1960 Delphi study about the world in year 2000 includes, among others, predictions such as: -world population 5.1 billion -ocean farming -fusion energy -minerals extracted from oceans -regional weather control -manufacturing in the Moon -men will have landed on Mars -global ballistic transport on Earth -effective anti-missile defence -correction of hereditary defects by molecular engineering

Rescher's analysis is that "the accuracy and utility of that particular study still looks quite respectable".

Rescher has the annoying habit of using overly simplistic examples which diminish the value of his otherwise interesting discussions on fundamental principles (a philosphical educational method ?) e.g. Who will the president of the United States in 2100 ? Will there be more than three letters "e" on the front page of the Wall Street Journal tomorrow ?

An example of what I mean is the following sentence taken from the book: "Firms that have built substantial sources of competitive advantage often enjoy high levels of profitability." Really? The text continues to state obvious points such as this.

This book contains about 10 % of material and 90 % filler. It could probably have been condensed to about 20 pages of bullet points without losing any of the content. Many textbooks have a problem with lack of brevity, however this book is the worst that I can remember since my days in high school.

As a business professional who values his time, I do not have time to waste reading filler. This book is so poor that if it wasn't being used to teach the final course in my program I would have dropped the course.

The book includes cases (suitable for classroom discussion) and review questions in each chapter. Each chapter also has an excellent set of references. The ancillaries are complete with the exception that no test bank is provided for an instructor's use. I recommend this text to anyone teaching undergraduate strategic management and also to any reader interested in learning what strategic management is all about.

This book compares quite favorably to several of the much more expensive strategy texts like David, Thompson and Strickland and Pearce and Robinson. The book is good value for the money.

But "Megatrends for Women" does not appear to employ the content analysis methodology that made "Megatrends" so right on the money. Instead, this is made up almost entirely of anecdotes and quotes from various activists/advocates. In short, it's not an objective sociological study, it's personal politics.

As a woman who often writes on women's issues, I was hoping this book would provide substantiated evidence of social trends. It doesn't--and, unless you happen to agree with the authors' feminist point of view, it's a bit of a bore.

I think that recent history boasts of women whose vision and leadership is enriched by the values and ethics of their religious traditions. Dorothy Day is an outstanding example of this trend.

It is an exciting time in history as women are continuing to emerge as compelling leaders in global society. Religious intolerance aside, Megatrends for Women is an interesting look at the remarkable trends shaping our world.

I found this book very harsh and full of thoughts and ideas that, to me, seem very rash and extreme. Although he does quip that Farrakhan, Sharpton and Jackson are part of the problems blacks now face he reserves his harshest criticism for whites. Whites in power and white men in gerneral. He launches scathing attacks on former President's Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush. Be blasts Pat Buchannon and Oliver North. He calls G. Gordon Liddy a "troglodyte". He says Newt Gingrich is full of "self righteous hypocrisy". He accuses the federal court system of having "surrendered to racist mob psychology" for rulling against affirmative action in University's.

The author also makes the statement that blacks do commit a disproportionate number of the violent crimes in America. Most of the crimes committed by blacks are committed against blacks. He then goes on to talk about the fact that over 50% of prisoners in the penal system are black and that shows we still live in a racist society. I don't follow the logic. If more blacks are committing violent crimes, wouldn't it follow that more blacks would be in jail? I don't see how that is racist.

He points to Susan Smith who killed her children by drowning them in the car by driving into a lake. Her initial police report said that a black man had hijacked her Mazda and driven off with her two young sons in it. He points to the fact that these incidents add to racial polarization and hatred and are bitter reminders of the stereotyping of all black males as potential kidnappers, rapists and killers and warps the minds of white people. I don't know Susan Smith but obviously she is not a typical well thinking person. And I don't think her statement went toward warping any white folks minds. If you would approach the average person on the street they would probably remember the case. How many of them, do you think, would remember the initial report accusing an unidentified black man? The percentage would be very very small I am sure.

He tries to defend inner city cime in a way. First, when Jesse Jackson stated "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then to look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." While I would not agree with this statement and the author obviously does not I would not say that Jackson surely must have been embarrassed by his statement, as the author did. Maybe Jackson truly feels this way, why would he be embarrassed? And why would the author of this book feel he can speak on another person feelings? The aurthor says that the poor black teenagers do covet the $150 sneakers and the $400 boom box but when they lack any honorable recourse to get it, who's surprised that blacks maim and murder for big bucks? Is the author serious here? Is he defending murdering someone if you can't afford what you want? Is he not adding to the black sterotype himself with statements like these?

With in the pages of this book the author continually tells me that he knows, as a black man, how white men feel. How could he? Just as I'm sure he would agree no white men can truly understand many of the feelings of black men in society. For instance he states on page 104, "I know how painful it is for a white man to get a female supervisor, and how a 'twofer' - a black woman boss - puts a strain on his manhood." What is he talking about? Why is it painful for a white man to have a women boss, of any color? Who is he to speak for me? I have a women boss and it is not a strain on my manhood. Is it different if a black man has a white woman boss? He certainly did not address this situation at all.

In my opinion the author is constantly trashing the white male and defending the black race without looking objectively. I believe that this book serves no purpose except to fan the flames of racism. From all sides. Don't waste your money on this one.

The author laments the lack of civility in civic discourse, but I don't understand why. For instance, he quotes a speech given by Newt Gingrich about responsibility and then complains that Gingrich is being uncivil even though I thought Gingrich used mild-mannered, even bland, words. I guess he thought he was using so-called 'coded' racial slurs. The author doesn't seem to understand that free speech will often be offensive to someone or some group if people are allowed to criticize freely. We should all be rejoicing that we're offended because that means free speech lives and democracy is not dead. The moment nothing offensive will allowed to be said is when oppression will reign.

To his credit, he mentions how blacks like Farrakan are racist hatemongers, as he sees it, along with gentile and jewish whites. He warns that a race war might break out because of increasing racism, but other than that, the book does not deal specifically with how a race war will play out. The sensational title of the book was created to sell more copies in the apocalyptic nineties, I suppose. The book has the breezy, entertaining, somewhat superficial style that one would expect from a columnist.

He mocks the seemingly well-researched findings that blacks have lower IQs mostly fixed by genetic heredity. He looks askance at the institution that funded the research and suggests research that says low IQs are due to poor nutrition. I thought that The Bell Curve which argues for lower IQ of blacks in one its sections was much more carefully and thoroughly argued, despite its unpleasant conclusions, than the superficial and questionable arguments (or just ridicule and suspicion) that Rowan brings up. He would need a well-researched book of his own to argue against such findings point by point, not just a chapter.

To him, the high crime rate among blacks, is not due to their own irresponsible behavior, but because white racist cops go after blacks more than whites. He has the typical liberal view that no one is responsible for their own effort, behavior, success, or failure; every outcome is due to an good or adverse environment: namely, whether it is "racist" or "minority-friendly".

He gives an interesting account of the O.J. Simpson case and why he thinks Simpson is innocent. I lost interest in the matter a couple of days after it happened, so I'm not expert enough to know whether he's wrong or not.

He discusses the wooing of Colin Powell for president by the Republicans. He indicates that blacks who are conservative or Republican are sell-outs, not people that have differing views from his own. He insinuates that Republicans will only consider blacks that will follow along with what he considers to be their racist agenda.

When he discusses a time when a white teacher writes him a letter about her black students who don't do their homework and get involved in drugs, he does not take her at her word, but rather accuses her of having a prejudiced, stereotypical view of blacks. This old tired white racism argument is not convincing many whites anymore. We're tired of it. It is also bigoted against whites and ignites the coming race war because it tells blacks to hate us for their own failures. Rowan himself contributes to the race war, which is always going on in some form or another.

But it goes to show that a government or country cannot serve but once race at a time or risk favoring one over another. Race wars may be a way of races grabbing their own geopolitical territory where they can live out their own destiny without the hindrances and entanglements of multicultural societies.

And to answer tired argument with tired (but sometimes forgotten) argument, Rowan lives in a white civilization where he is able to have rights, freedom of speech, wealth, and the institutions to speak his mind about white racism. But if he lived in black-ruled Africa where tyranny and chaos and extreme poverty are the norm he would have no such rights or privileges. I don't buy his arguments that blacks are equal because blacks have never had a civilization as great as our own, unless you believe in Afro-centric pseudo-history.

The information in this book doesn't appear to be very thoroughly researched (e.g. I am German and a lot of what Mr Laqueur write about what he calls the Baader-Meinhoff gang - which is actually only the first generation of the RAF - is simply wrong). What's more, it is amazingly superficial. How can you for instance reject the claim that terrorist are "unremarkable people" (Maxwell Taylor and Ethel Quayle in "Terrorist Lives") by quoting Joseph Conrad, a novelist? Mr Laqueur only needs to look at studies on e.g. Nazi death squads to see how those people who killed thousands of Jews in fact were what you'd call unremarkable people. On and on goes the list of shortcomings.

On top of that, to make a political statement, Mr Laqueur's definition of what terrorism is excludes states like Israel (with a long history of state-sponsored terrorism) and the US itself (ditto - take for instance the US war against Nicaragua which, according to the international Court of Law, was pretty much state-sponsored terrorism). One could at least expect that an author who examines terrorism would look at all the different meanings the word "terrorism" has - as the ruler of Syria said the other day those Palestinian terrorists are freedom fighters for him. One might reject that but it has to be mentioned in a book which claims it is dealing with terrorism.

I admit to being baffled by one other review in particular. Being fairly well versed in Baader-Meinhoff lore, and I couldn't find a single un-superficial problem with Laqueur's account of them, although I did like Laqueur's 1987 book "The Age of Terrorism" better than this book as far as the Red Army Faction goes. But these are small potato problems, and don't lead me at all to the conclusion our German friend had. I think it very significant that he did not bother to note a single "innacuracy".

The other criticisms are either utterly beside the point or approaching the absurd. The worst were the spurious definitional demands. Until it was taken up by dogmatists, terrorism clearly meant non-state, irregular violence. It was only the needs of left-rhetoric that expanded the view of terrorism to include what states do, which intelligent people might think is called "war" and "repression". I can think of no reason to include The US and Isreal except for dogmatic purposes: if we were to include Isreal, why would our German friend not include Cuba? The clear answer is this is an ideological agenda and not a serious rejoinder for an expansive notion of terrorism. Essentially, the other reviewer doesn't like the US or Isreal from political contacts and is saddened from a lack of political agenda on the part of Mr. Laqueur.

And if by some possibility our other reviewer friend does not mean some simple anti-American or anti-Isreali bias, then his main problem is that this book is an American writer writing from an American perspective on terrorism. Contrary to what mister Colberg believes, it is not a crime to have an American perspective.

The last point is most substantive, and wqhere Mr. Laqueur is most right and his other rewviewer is most wrong- the vast majority of terrorists throughout ages have clearly been unremarkable people. This is what makes the phenomenon so interesting- the notion that terrorism is part of some corner in human nature. I give to you the 19 unremarkable folks who took down the World Trade Center as an example. I don't think our other reviewer friend realizes quite how well Joseph Conrad defined the standard terrorist or why his characterization has survived so long in the minds of people who think about terrorism.

This was a fine book. Please buy it.