
Title : Rich Dad's Prophecy
Author : Sharon L. Lechter
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Employed or Self Employed? - Financial Future SHOCKER!
This book has made me sit up and think! I'm shocked!
Millions of people depend on their plans for retirement income.
Yet, when programmes first became popular over two decades ago, Robert Kyosaki's rich dad WARNED that these plans would cause one of the BIGGEST stock market crashes in history... a crash that would financially destroy the unprepared. Now rich dad's prophecy is coming true.
* How the fears, dreams, and actions of millions of 'baby boomers' will control the economic future...
I understood from the book that although we had the NASDAQ exchange record its biggest ever one-day fall, back in April, 2000, - the worst is still yet to come!
Read it NOW, or you'll regret it!

Title : Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well
Author : Ralph E. Warner
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : This is the best retirement planning book I've ever read!
This is the first retirement planning book I've ever read that realistically addresses how much money you really need to save for the lifestyle you want. I now realize that I don't need to save millions, that my current saving plan is perfectly adequate for the lifestyle I want. I can relax, enjoy my life and family, and work on retaining my health.

Title : Social Security, Medicare and Pensions (Social Security, Medicare Government Pensions)
Author : J. L. Matthews
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Great summary of the Social Security system!
This happens to be the best all-around book concerning the difficult subject of Social Security that I have read. Understandable and very well written. The sections regarding disability are filled with just the info I needed to know.

Title : How to Retire Rich
Author : James O'Shaughnessy
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : A Nobel Prize for O'Shaughnessy!
The main message of _How to Retire Rich_ is that if you want to retire rich, or retire at all for that matter (ever!), you must invest in the stock market. You just don't have a choice in the matter. Sit down and let James O'Shaughnessy take you through the math---you'll quickly see that that is just the financial reality. The good news, however, is that investing in the stock market, when done properly, is not what you think it is. It's not about outsmarting all the other investors out there. It's not about trying to get a 'ten-bagger' so you can buy a cool car and brag at parties. It's not even about shrewd business savvy and scanning financial reports. It's about picking an effective strategy and sticking with it year in, year out until the day you retire, never pulling your money out of the market.
But if that sounds hard, don't worry. One of HTRR's strongest points is the wealth of wisdom it provides on the mental aspects of investing over the long term. What do you do if your portfolio tanks? What do you do if it soars? This is a problem? You'd be surprised! O'Shaughnessy is probably the only author with a completely rounded, mature outlook on the emotional aspects of investing. Reading HTRR will give you the confidence you need to invest and stay in the market through good times and bad.
So how do you invest? O'Shaughnessy breaks it all down for you, telling you exactly what to do. We're not talking the usual vague, feelgood accepted wisdom here such as 'buy market leaders' or 'buy on weakness, sell on strength'. Throw all those books in the trash! HTRR will tell you how to quickly find the precise stocks you should buy. You'll finish the book at 2 o'clock and have a list of the stocks to buy in your hand at 2:30. Yes, it's just that easy. You'll also know exactly when to buy them (now) and when to sell them (a year from now), and what do after that (repeat the process until you retire). What could be simpler?
O'Shaughnessy should be nominated for a Nobel Prize. He is a modern-day Charles Darwin with a theory that has all the hallmarks of a revolution in scientific thought. The theory is simple, but deceptively so. Many readers come away thinking they have understood it, only to later demonstrate that they clearly haven't. Even Motley Fool was apparently unable to grasp Reasonable Runaways (one of the strategies in HTRR). They tried to test it with a universe of stocks picked from Value Line (!). When it wasn't performing well after six months (!), they wondered how they could tweak it (!) to "make it dance" (their words). You'll understand just how ridiculous all of this is when you read HTRR.
Perhaps the reason for this widespread misunderstanding is that while the theory itself is simple, its ramifications are not---and without understanding its ramifications, it is impossible to truly understand the theory. Like Darwin, O'Shaughnessy has taken 'God'---the human element---completely out of the picture. That's what readers find so hard to grasp. O'Shaughnessy has shown that not only is human intervention in portfolio management not necessary, it's downright harmful. Given enough time, any human intervention will only lower a portfolio's returns from the optimum returns that could be obtained using a simple model.
I hesitate to include the returns I have earned over the past four years using the Reasonable Runaways strategy in this review, because I don't think they're typical. I have earned 93.15% (CARR of 17.88%) versus 1.17% (CARR of 0.29%) for the SP during the same period (July 15, 2001 to July 15, 2005). And this is during a time period that includes 9/11. But as you'll discover from reading HTRR, four years is a meaninglessly short amount of time over which to gauge performance. Also, giving out exciting returns numbers shifts the discussion away from the real message of the book---get in the stock market and stay there (investing properly of course). It's the only way you'll ever be able to retire, rich or otherwise.
For UK readers, Ifd also like to point out that if you invest in the US stock market and live outside the UK (as I do), itfs tax-free. How can you go wrong?