Fund-of-funds Books

Incredible book about the beginnings of the Cocaine Cartel, Wall Street raids - can't put it down

I have been active in electoral politics for 12 years now--and, let it never be said that anything that the League of Women Voters puts out--is ever bad. This jewel of a book provides a non-partisan look at the whole process of selecting presidential candidates, on through to the individual campaign trails that follow said selection. The League of Women Voters has been providing this service (unknowingly, by many people) for as long as I can remember. I have always gone to their (non-partisan) informative "voter's guides" for as long as I have been voting for the candidates of my choice (in both local and national elections). A free (but, much more condensed obviously) version is put out by them, at the onset of the beginning of "spin season" (when campaigning begins, for all of the chosen candidates) that has become the traditional prelude to every election day--which, is usually widely available at locations such as libraries and post offices across America. What I like about this (expanded) book version--is that they expand their coverage of the individual candidates (and their respective viewpoints and public record, in regards to current political issues) to a much broader, more detailed scale. This book is a must-read, in terms of being able to lay out (for the average, usually unaware or unknowing citizen) the proven political stance of all of the major players in this year's presidential elections. And, even though this year's election day has since passed--be sure to look for future non-partisan "voter-education" guidebooks--that will inevitably be put out by the League of Women Voters, in the years to come.

This is a splendid book. Not only does it give an easy-to-read history of Mercury Asset Management of the UK up to its acquisition by Merrill Lynch, it also gives additional insights into the life of Siegmund Warburg (detailed in Ron Chernow's "The Warburgs") and represents a vivid insider's account of any business, told by Peter Stormonth Darling, chairman of Mercury from 1979 to 1992.

If you have read other investment management company histories such as Diana Henriques's "Fidelity's World" or Robert Slater's "The Vanguard Experiment", this book should be on your reading list as yet another view. Mercury, though not well known in the US, had something like US$180 billion under management at the time of its acquisition by Merrill Lynch, certainly not a small amount in the asset management league tables worldwide. Though Mr. Stormonth Darling is admittedly not an investment practitioner himself, he does appear to have a keen insight into people and the view from the top of the organization.

The book lays bare the importance of personnel (and their happiness) to the success of companies such as Mercury and Warburgs, and discusses at some length possible reasons why Warburgs was sold at very little premium to Swiss Bank in 1995, while Mercury was sold to Merrill Lynch at twice its prevailing market value in 1997.

It's also interesting to reflect that Mercury was at the top of its game in 1997, as a leading fund manager in Britain, yet it still sold out to a large foreign firm, as many leading British financial firms have done in recent years. I hope that the individual British personnel of these foreign masters, whether Continental European, American, or Asian, strive to maintain their intellectual independence as time goes on. The investing public continues to need alternative viewpoints on investments, such as that expressed by Andrew Smithers (also once part of Mercury) and Stephen Wright in their 2000 book "Valuing Wall Street".

Please do give "City Cinderella" a read, and enjoy Mr. Stormonth Darling's delicious follow-up details such as (p. 89) "...at last report [said person] was living in Panama with his fourth wife and their poodle, Chanel."

Author Kurt Hohenstein (Assistant Professor of History, Winona State University) has served as a Research Assisstant on the National Commission on Election Reform. In Coining Corruption: The Making of the American Campaign Finance System, Hohenstein reveals the untold story about the triumphs and pitfalls of political reform. The landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo (1976) defined "corruption" as quid pro quo ("get for giving"), meaning that Congress only had authority over corruption that involved a campaign contributor receiving political favors from the candidate. This limited definition has since curtailed efforts at campaign finance reform, with harsh and unintended consequences - the Buckley decision turned a blind eye to massive differences in funding between individual candidates, and the ability that some candidates have to control communication channels. Coining Corruption follows the evolution of the campaign finance system through the end of the 20th and into the 21st century, with an especial eye toward the ramifications of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001 and the Supreme Court's decisions in McConnel v. FEC (2001) and Landell v. Sorrell (2006). An eye-opening examination of the history, flaws, and bright points of America's modern political system.

It is very good news indeed for students of the early national period that Liberty Fund has published a new edition of James Wilson's papers that is both inexpensive (particularly in the paper edition) and more comprehensive than any other collection. The previous most useful edition, edited by Robert G. McCloskey and published by Harvard in 1967, is extremely hard to find and quite expensive to purchase in any regard. Wilson himself is an extremely interesting figure that seemingly has fallen out of the historical conscience beginning in the last century. He is the only individual who signed both the Declaration and the Constitution; his influence on the Constitution was substantial; he played key roles in the ratification debates and the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, and served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1789 until 1798 (writing amongst other key decisions "Chisholm v. Georgia"). Of particular note are his "Lectures on Law" which served as a template for many law students and others during the 19th century.

Libery Fund has chosen superb editors for the collection. The late Kermit L. Hall, one of our foremost legal and constitutional scholars, is assisted by Mark David Hall, who has written one of the leading intellectual biographies on Wilson, "The Political and Legal Philosophy of James Wilson" (Missouri, 1997). There are several important differences between this edition and that of McCloskey, as superior as it is. First, the Halls have included four additional documents by Wilson: "An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies" (1776); "Remarks of James Wilson in the Federal Convention of 1787"; "State House Yard Speech" (1787); and "On the Improvement and Settlement of Lands in the United States" (mid-1790's). Particularly helpful is the inclusion of all of Wilson's remarks at the Constitutional Convention (via Max Farrand). There is also a helpful introduction by Kermit Hall, though not as extensive as the 48 page one by McCloskey. The Halls have also included McCloskey's Bibliographic Glossary, and some additional annotations to the documents supplementing those added by McCloskey. Mark David Hall has made no changes to the version of the "Lectures on Law" published by McCloskey, which is really a reprint of the original published edition in 1804. However, Hall as included a very helpful essay on his researches into the originals of the lectures and why he did not feel it necessary to make any corrections or additions to this edition.

The outstanding quality and comprehensiveness of this edition, coupled with its inexpensive price, make it a hard combination to beat.

David Speck's "Investment Prescriptions for a Healthy College Fund" is packed with sound advice--and not just for anxious parents and grandparents trying to plan for the college education of children and grandchildren--but for any investor seeking to reach a long-term goal.

For example, Mr. Speck's introductory advice to "buy good stuff and leave it alone" along with his admonition against gambling with one or two stocks, rather than investing in stock mutual funds (e.g. ". . . do not buy individual stocks until you are ready to invest enough money to create your own 'mutual fund' . . .) ring especially true in today's "Internet-Crazed" market.

His book is well written and offers excellent tools for calculating what one must do today to meet the objectives of tomorrow. Yet he manages to take this otherwise dull topic and lighten it with just enough humor to keep the reader's interest flowing.

If you are a "day trader" you probably will not appreciate the sound advice and assistance offered by Mr. Speck. But, then if you are a day trader you most likely are not interested in a college fund for your child or grandchild, and this book is not really written for you in the first place. In short, this is an excellent addition to the series of college planning guides from the publisher, Octameron. If you are neither day trader not concerned parent or grand parent, you may still find this book useful as an excellent primer and compact source on investing and many of the confusing terms found in the world of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.

Every American lawyer ought to read Blackstone.

Not that the law he contains is still reliable, although much of it is. But for the big picture, the history of the development of the English common law, he remains an indispensible source.

The American founding fathers grew up with this stuff, and these four volumes were indispensible for a Colonial gentleman's education. In viewing them, you will gain a new understanding of the meaning of the Constitution of the United States. As Blackstone develops the law, he sets it against the backdrop of the British struggle against arbitrary rule by the King, the seventeenth century wars of religious fanaticism, and England's long battle to win free from the power of the papacy. To read Blackstone is to learn what the founding fathers thought and feared, and what they wrote the Constitution to guard against.

Deftly compiled and edited for contemporary readers by Henry C. Clark, Commerce, Culture, & Liberty: Readings On Capitalism Before Adam Smith is an amalgamation of significant writings published before Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" (1776) impacted the world's perceptions on economics. A wide variety of authors ranging from Voltaire, to Ferdinando Galiani, to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, contribute to this absorbing source of pre-Adam Smith perceptions and judgements about economic matters prior to the birth of the American nation as a capitalist beacon to the nations of the world.

Managing a Portfolio of Mutual Funds is a well written, entertaining, book that will help anyone better understand money management using Mutual Funds. The book starts with an excellent section on goals and planning, in which Rutherford makes a compelling argument about why this is a critical step towards effective financial management and explains how to best complete and document the plan. He follows this with a discussion of Asset Class Portfolio Design, which is the foundation for the rest of the book. Once this introductory material is finished, Rutherford discusses various investment strategies and how to implement and monitor each of them, starting from the more basic ideas of Passive Investing and Index Funds and moving to the more complex areas of Active Investing and Manager Style Analysis. Although the amount of detail gets a bit thin once he begins the chapter on Passive Investing and the book never regains the tight, lucid arguments and explanations of the first sections, it's a first-rate book on investing with Mutual Funds and should be read by every serious investor AND portfolio manager.

The grandfather of our very own American constitution, "The Constitution of England" is one of the most vital political treatises to come out of Enlightenment Era England, and the subject of "The Constitution of England", important book on political liberty. Although originally written in French (and published in Amsterdam) by Jean Louis De Lolme, it has been edited and enhanced with an introduction by David Lieberman in this new edition for modern American history. Sure to be fuel for many, many debates and discussion, "The Constitution of England" is enthusiastically recommended to politics and American history library shelves, and any non-specialist general interest reader who simply wants a greater understanding of our own constitution.