Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Now is the time..., 02 Jun 2008
There's an old saying: always buy when there's there's blood on the streets. The theory is that if you go into an area after there's been a war or a disaster, you can pick up huge bargains. Anyone who invested in Croatia in the mid 90s will vouch for how effective this tactic csn be. So this book by Gary McCausland is a timely reminder that there is still plenty of opportunity to make money from the UK property market. The rapid decline in prices will lead to nervousness and panic selling, or at least to the presence of many juicy bargains for the astute investor with the skill to pick and choose the right flats/houses/land. This book gives a pretty comprehensive run down of the skills you'll need to do well, and - more importantly - the expensive mistakes to avoid. I recommend it.

An Essential No Nonsense Guide - highly recommended!, 21 Apr 2008
I picked this book up at the airport and was drawn in immediately. Really down to earth and inspirational. Even with the present day 'credit crunch' Gary has packed it full of practical no nonsense steps to get up the property ladder. Excellent!

At last, a useful book telling you how to really do it..., 07 Apr 2008
An honest account of how to make money out of property. Using his own personal exerience - the good times and bad, Gary shares the secrets to success in property whatever the econmic climate. I would recommend this book to any would-be inspired property developer.

How to Make a Million From Property, 07 Apr 2008
Not a bad read but you will only get a very basic understanding of property most of it is just common sense stuff but then you are not going to get chapter and verse for the price of a paperback .

Highly recommended!, 07 Apr 2008
A great book for anyone thinking of buying and selling property. Gary uses examples of his own experiences; both good and bad, to show us how to avoid the pitfalls and be successful. Now I can't drive down a road without seeing things differently! ;-)

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Now is the time..., 02 Jun 2008
There's an old saying: always buy when there's there's blood on the streets. The theory is that if you go into an area after there's been a war or a disaster, you can pick up huge bargains. Anyone who invested in Croatia in the mid 90s will vouch for how effective this tactic csn be. So this book by Gary McCausland is a timely reminder that there is still plenty of opportunity to make money from the UK property market. The rapid decline in prices will lead to nervousness and panic selling, or at least to the presence of many juicy bargains for the astute investor with the skill to pick and choose the right flats/houses/land. This book gives a pretty comprehensive run down of the skills you'll need to do well, and - more importantly - the expensive mistakes to avoid. I recommend it.

An Essential No Nonsense Guide - highly recommended!, 21 Apr 2008
I picked this book up at the airport and was drawn in immediately. Really down to earth and inspirational. Even with the present day 'credit crunch' Gary has packed it full of practical no nonsense steps to get up the property ladder. Excellent!

At last, a useful book telling you how to really do it..., 07 Apr 2008
An honest account of how to make money out of property. Using his own personal exerience - the good times and bad, Gary shares the secrets to success in property whatever the econmic climate. I would recommend this book to any would-be inspired property developer.

How to Make a Million From Property, 07 Apr 2008
Not a bad read but you will only get a very basic understanding of property most of it is just common sense stuff but then you are not going to get chapter and verse for the price of a paperback .

Highly recommended!, 07 Apr 2008
A great book for anyone thinking of buying and selling property. Gary uses examples of his own experiences; both good and bad, to show us how to avoid the pitfalls and be successful. Now I can't drive down a road without seeing things differently! ;-)

Essential reading for everybody, 29 Jul 2008
Almost all of us are victims of the economic system. How this system functions is for most of us veiled in mystery, giving the system even more power over us. In this book Michael Rowbotham unveils these mysteries in a style which is clear, straight-talking and free of any academic jargon: in fact any concept, institution or practice which might be unknown to the non-specialist is thoughtfully explained by the author without even a hint of condescension.
This book describes the iniquity of a worldwide economic system based on the power of banks to create money by "lending" what they don't have. Both the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of this practice are explored in depth together with the multitude of ramifications. The book's range is remarkable: although much of the data is UK-centred, the author opens up a world-wide vision, from the exploitation of third world countries to the destruction of the environment to the pernicious waste of human life and energy under a system which - unveiled - amounts to institutionalised theft and debt-slavery.
Finally, the author provides suggestions as to how economic reform might be achieved, opening up vistas of millions of human lives being much more usefully and happily lived.
Read this book.

A surprise all around, 31 May 2008
I wasn't expecting this book to be quite so good. First of all, there have been so many written on this subject and I had NO idea who Michael Rowbotham was or is. But reading the reviews intrigued me and so I bought it with a lot of other fiction and non-fiction books. From the get-go I was drawn into the book by Rowbotham's writing ability and hard economic truths. You should be warned though, that this is a depressing book as it explains just how things work and if you're not prepared to have your eyes opened, you might be in for a shock. I can't imagine the banking world is happy about this book as it exposes the corporate greed and fraud that have been going on for years. The book also explains how we've come to think of money and gives you some real insight into how YOU are reacting to the world of money and how you use it. Couple this with his take on countries with the largest national debts and what that means and how they got there, and you have a great book that will stop you in your tracks. This should be required reading in all schools, regardless of nationality. The End.

Engaging book but needed better data and references, 10 Dec 2006
Thought provoking book for those not intimately involved in the financial and banking industries. I suspect that most people outside of these industries are unaware of the basic functioning of the money supply and money creation. Noticed a lot of generalisations that weren't correct, although the main thrust of many arguments was valid. Engaging book, but needed more factual data and references to lift it to a book with authority.

Paradigm Shift, 26 Sep 2004
This book has fundamentally affected the way I view the world, questioning why and how we work, what governments say - and then what they actually do. If you've ever thought that something wasn't quite right with the economic certainties that blare from PR ladened print and TV media then your time will be well spent reading this book.

For an idea of what this book contains here's the first chapter:
http://tinyurl.com/565k8

Believe me it's powerful stuff and is relevant whatever political persuasion you belong to.

The reviewer from Helsinki seems to have missed one of the chapters in the book dealing with the value of loans in an ever deflating system as this is well covered.

Get this book.

Brilliant, 30 Aug 2002
This is a must-read text. Get it, buy it, read it. It will reveal the subtle workings of the money economy and the heart of true power in the modern world. The writer rips off the veil of secrecy surrounding how money circulates in the modern economy and lays bare the cold enslavement that the vast majority must face in modern economic life.

If we are to provide our children a world worth living in, making real the recommendations of this book is essential. Nothing can be acheived without monetary reform. With it, everything can be.

The writer does not refer to eariler works of distinguished (but fringe) Austrian economists such as James Buchanan and Prof Rothbard. These are but minor criticisms. This is not a work by a academic economist and is perhaps a better work because of this. He speaks the truth.

Please read this important work.

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Now is the time..., 02 Jun 2008
There's an old saying: always buy when there's there's blood on the streets. The theory is that if you go into an area after there's been a war or a disaster, you can pick up huge bargains. Anyone who invested in Croatia in the mid 90s will vouch for how effective this tactic csn be. So this book by Gary McCausland is a timely reminder that there is still plenty of opportunity to make money from the UK property market. The rapid decline in prices will lead to nervousness and panic selling, or at least to the presence of many juicy bargains for the astute investor with the skill to pick and choose the right flats/houses/land. This book gives a pretty comprehensive run down of the skills you'll need to do well, and - more importantly - the expensive mistakes to avoid. I recommend it.

An Essential No Nonsense Guide - highly recommended!, 21 Apr 2008
I picked this book up at the airport and was drawn in immediately. Really down to earth and inspirational. Even with the present day 'credit crunch' Gary has packed it full of practical no nonsense steps to get up the property ladder. Excellent!

At last, a useful book telling you how to really do it..., 07 Apr 2008
An honest account of how to make money out of property. Using his own personal exerience - the good times and bad, Gary shares the secrets to success in property whatever the econmic climate. I would recommend this book to any would-be inspired property developer.

How to Make a Million From Property, 07 Apr 2008
Not a bad read but you will only get a very basic understanding of property most of it is just common sense stuff but then you are not going to get chapter and verse for the price of a paperback .

Highly recommended!, 07 Apr 2008
A great book for anyone thinking of buying and selling property. Gary uses examples of his own experiences; both good and bad, to show us how to avoid the pitfalls and be successful. Now I can't drive down a road without seeing things differently! ;-)

Essential reading for everybody, 29 Jul 2008
Almost all of us are victims of the economic system. How this system functions is for most of us veiled in mystery, giving the system even more power over us. In this book Michael Rowbotham unveils these mysteries in a style which is clear, straight-talking and free of any academic jargon: in fact any concept, institution or practice which might be unknown to the non-specialist is thoughtfully explained by the author without even a hint of condescension.
This book describes the iniquity of a worldwide economic system based on the power of banks to create money by "lending" what they don't have. Both the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of this practice are explored in depth together with the multitude of ramifications. The book's range is remarkable: although much of the data is UK-centred, the author opens up a world-wide vision, from the exploitation of third world countries to the destruction of the environment to the pernicious waste of human life and energy under a system which - unveiled - amounts to institutionalised theft and debt-slavery.
Finally, the author provides suggestions as to how economic reform might be achieved, opening up vistas of millions of human lives being much more usefully and happily lived.
Read this book.

A surprise all around, 31 May 2008
I wasn't expecting this book to be quite so good. First of all, there have been so many written on this subject and I had NO idea who Michael Rowbotham was or is. But reading the reviews intrigued me and so I bought it with a lot of other fiction and non-fiction books. From the get-go I was drawn into the book by Rowbotham's writing ability and hard economic truths. You should be warned though, that this is a depressing book as it explains just how things work and if you're not prepared to have your eyes opened, you might be in for a shock. I can't imagine the banking world is happy about this book as it exposes the corporate greed and fraud that have been going on for years. The book also explains how we've come to think of money and gives you some real insight into how YOU are reacting to the world of money and how you use it. Couple this with his take on countries with the largest national debts and what that means and how they got there, and you have a great book that will stop you in your tracks. This should be required reading in all schools, regardless of nationality. The End.

Engaging book but needed better data and references, 10 Dec 2006
Thought provoking book for those not intimately involved in the financial and banking industries. I suspect that most people outside of these industries are unaware of the basic functioning of the money supply and money creation. Noticed a lot of generalisations that weren't correct, although the main thrust of many arguments was valid. Engaging book, but needed more factual data and references to lift it to a book with authority.

Paradigm Shift, 26 Sep 2004
This book has fundamentally affected the way I view the world, questioning why and how we work, what governments say - and then what they actually do. If you've ever thought that something wasn't quite right with the economic certainties that blare from PR ladened print and TV media then your time will be well spent reading this book.

For an idea of what this book contains here's the first chapter:
http://tinyurl.com/565k8

Believe me it's powerful stuff and is relevant whatever political persuasion you belong to.

The reviewer from Helsinki seems to have missed one of the chapters in the book dealing with the value of loans in an ever deflating system as this is well covered.

Get this book.

Brilliant, 30 Aug 2002
This is a must-read text. Get it, buy it, read it. It will reveal the subtle workings of the money economy and the heart of true power in the modern world. The writer rips off the veil of secrecy surrounding how money circulates in the modern economy and lays bare the cold enslavement that the vast majority must face in modern economic life.

If we are to provide our children a world worth living in, making real the recommendations of this book is essential. Nothing can be acheived without monetary reform. With it, everything can be.

The writer does not refer to eariler works of distinguished (but fringe) Austrian economists such as James Buchanan and Prof Rothbard. These are but minor criticisms. This is not a work by a academic economist and is perhaps a better work because of this. He speaks the truth.

Please read this important work.

A Fantastic Book, 04 Nov 2008
This is a very easy-to-read book, that will get you up to speed on the credit quake in one easy sitting. It's so well written that it's impossible to put down - or is that just me ;-)? Covers everything but ends pre Lehmans collapse in summer 2008.

An economic review of the current mortgage crisis, 15 Sep 2008
This is an excellent review of the current economic mortgage crisis that led to financial disaster. The author lays out all facts leading to this fiasco in an easy to understand language. No information is ignored in this fact finding mission; unscrupulous lenders, irresponsible borrowers, greedy speculators, developers, real estate agents, investment bankers/investors and last but not least the inept regulatory agencies destroyed the economic order and passed on the burden to unsuspecting tax payers.

Subprime mortgage is a loan made on the basis of a weak or troubled credit history. Historically it was a peripheral financial phenomenon; a marginal market with few borrowers and lenders, but that changed in 1990s. Mortgage lending companies were not setup as traditional depositories or brokers, but as real estate investment trusts (REITs). It is a corporate form for developers to avoid corporate income taxes. REIT pays out the earnings to shareholders who pay personal income taxes on them. Since they are publicly traded, it avoids regulators. But it comes under SEC which focuses mainly on insider trading, and corporate transparency, and not on mortgage lending. This helped REITs financial mismanagement streak through regulatory cracks. By the time subprime financial shock hit, 35% of the after-tax income was spent on debt obligation (Fig 13.5). The financial benefits of outsized asset price gains have gone almost entirely to higher income households (Table 13.1).

The ripple effect is observed all over economy: The government sold U.S. Treasury bonds to raise cash for the economic stimulus package but the consumers spent the entire check on raising gasoline costs. Saudi Arabia which bought most of these bonds essentially financed the purchase of their own oil! A sharp drop in dollar value in the international market did more damage than good, because this downfall helped the surge in oil prices, and consequently raised food and other commodity prices. Given the higher dollar value of Euro and Yen, Europeans and Asians were consuming more throwing the demand and supply curves off balance.

This book is very well researched, and organized with useful economic data, and this is not for the investors who are looking for juicy financial secrets: Highly recommended.

1. Real Estate Lending in the New Millennium: The Sub-prime Market
2. Lending to Higher Risk Borrowers: Sub Prime Credit and Sustainable Home Ownership
3. Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis
4. The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do About It
5. House Poor : Pumped Up Prices, Rising Rates, and Mortgages on Steroids: How to Survive the Coming Housing Crisis
6. Living in a Bubble: Credit, Debt and Crisis

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Now is the time..., 02 Jun 2008
There's an old saying: always buy when there's there's blood on the streets. The theory is that if you go into an area after there's been a war or a disaster, you can pick up huge bargains. Anyone who invested in Croatia in the mid 90s will vouch for how effective this tactic csn be. So this book by Gary McCausland is a timely reminder that there is still plenty of opportunity to make money from the UK property market. The rapid decline in prices will lead to nervousness and panic selling, or at least to the presence of many juicy bargains for the astute investor with the skill to pick and choose the right flats/houses/land. This book gives a pretty comprehensive run down of the skills you'll need to do well, and - more importantly - the expensive mistakes to avoid. I recommend it.

An Essential No Nonsense Guide - highly recommended!, 21 Apr 2008
I picked this book up at the airport and was drawn in immediately. Really down to earth and inspirational. Even with the present day 'credit crunch' Gary has packed it full of practical no nonsense steps to get up the property ladder. Excellent!

At last, a useful book telling you how to really do it..., 07 Apr 2008
An honest account of how to make money out of property. Using his own personal exerience - the good times and bad, Gary shares the secrets to success in property whatever the econmic climate. I would recommend this book to any would-be inspired property developer.

How to Make a Million From Property, 07 Apr 2008
Not a bad read but you will only get a very basic understanding of property most of it is just common sense stuff but then you are not going to get chapter and verse for the price of a paperback .

Highly recommended!, 07 Apr 2008
A great book for anyone thinking of buying and selling property. Gary uses examples of his own experiences; both good and bad, to show us how to avoid the pitfalls and be successful. Now I can't drive down a road without seeing things differently! ;-)

Essential reading for everybody, 29 Jul 2008
Almost all of us are victims of the economic system. How this system functions is for most of us veiled in mystery, giving the system even more power over us. In this book Michael Rowbotham unveils these mysteries in a style which is clear, straight-talking and free of any academic jargon: in fact any concept, institution or practice which might be unknown to the non-specialist is thoughtfully explained by the author without even a hint of condescension.
This book describes the iniquity of a worldwide economic system based on the power of banks to create money by "lending" what they don't have. Both the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of this practice are explored in depth together with the multitude of ramifications. The book's range is remarkable: although much of the data is UK-centred, the author opens up a world-wide vision, from the exploitation of third world countries to the destruction of the environment to the pernicious waste of human life and energy under a system which - unveiled - amounts to institutionalised theft and debt-slavery.
Finally, the author provides suggestions as to how economic reform might be achieved, opening up vistas of millions of human lives being much more usefully and happily lived.
Read this book.

A surprise all around, 31 May 2008
I wasn't expecting this book to be quite so good. First of all, there have been so many written on this subject and I had NO idea who Michael Rowbotham was or is. But reading the reviews intrigued me and so I bought it with a lot of other fiction and non-fiction books. From the get-go I was drawn into the book by Rowbotham's writing ability and hard economic truths. You should be warned though, that this is a depressing book as it explains just how things work and if you're not prepared to have your eyes opened, you might be in for a shock. I can't imagine the banking world is happy about this book as it exposes the corporate greed and fraud that have been going on for years. The book also explains how we've come to think of money and gives you some real insight into how YOU are reacting to the world of money and how you use it. Couple this with his take on countries with the largest national debts and what that means and how they got there, and you have a great book that will stop you in your tracks. This should be required reading in all schools, regardless of nationality. The End.

Engaging book but needed better data and references, 10 Dec 2006
Thought provoking book for those not intimately involved in the financial and banking industries. I suspect that most people outside of these industries are unaware of the basic functioning of the money supply and money creation. Noticed a lot of generalisations that weren't correct, although the main thrust of many arguments was valid. Engaging book, but needed more factual data and references to lift it to a book with authority.

Paradigm Shift, 26 Sep 2004
This book has fundamentally affected the way I view the world, questioning why and how we work, what governments say - and then what they actually do. If you've ever thought that something wasn't quite right with the economic certainties that blare from PR ladened print and TV media then your time will be well spent reading this book.

For an idea of what this book contains here's the first chapter:
http://tinyurl.com/565k8

Believe me it's powerful stuff and is relevant whatever political persuasion you belong to.

The reviewer from Helsinki seems to have missed one of the chapters in the book dealing with the value of loans in an ever deflating system as this is well covered.

Get this book.

Brilliant, 30 Aug 2002
This is a must-read text. Get it, buy it, read it. It will reveal the subtle workings of the money economy and the heart of true power in the modern world. The writer rips off the veil of secrecy surrounding how money circulates in the modern economy and lays bare the cold enslavement that the vast majority must face in modern economic life.

If we are to provide our children a world worth living in, making real the recommendations of this book is essential. Nothing can be acheived without monetary reform. With it, everything can be.

The writer does not refer to eariler works of distinguished (but fringe) Austrian economists such as James Buchanan and Prof Rothbard. These are but minor criticisms. This is not a work by a academic economist and is perhaps a better work because of this. He speaks the truth.

Please read this important work.

A Fantastic Book, 04 Nov 2008
This is a very easy-to-read book, that will get you up to speed on the credit quake in one easy sitting. It's so well written that it's impossible to put down - or is that just me ;-)? Covers everything but ends pre Lehmans collapse in summer 2008.

An economic review of the current mortgage crisis, 15 Sep 2008
This is an excellent review of the current economic mortgage crisis that led to financial disaster. The author lays out all facts leading to this fiasco in an easy to understand language. No information is ignored in this fact finding mission; unscrupulous lenders, irresponsible borrowers, greedy speculators, developers, real estate agents, investment bankers/investors and last but not least the inept regulatory agencies destroyed the economic order and passed on the burden to unsuspecting tax payers.

Subprime mortgage is a loan made on the basis of a weak or troubled credit history. Historically it was a peripheral financial phenomenon; a marginal market with few borrowers and lenders, but that changed in 1990s. Mortgage lending companies were not setup as traditional depositories or brokers, but as real estate investment trusts (REITs). It is a corporate form for developers to avoid corporate income taxes. REIT pays out the earnings to shareholders who pay personal income taxes on them. Since they are publicly traded, it avoids regulators. But it comes under SEC which focuses mainly on insider trading, and corporate transparency, and not on mortgage lending. This helped REITs financial mismanagement streak through regulatory cracks. By the time subprime financial shock hit, 35% of the after-tax income was spent on debt obligation (Fig 13.5). The financial benefits of outsized asset price gains have gone almost entirely to higher income households (Table 13.1).

The ripple effect is observed all over economy: The government sold U.S. Treasury bonds to raise cash for the economic stimulus package but the consumers spent the entire check on raising gasoline costs. Saudi Arabia which bought most of these bonds essentially financed the purchase of their own oil! A sharp drop in dollar value in the international market did more damage than good, because this downfall helped the surge in oil prices, and consequently raised food and other commodity prices. Given the higher dollar value of Euro and Yen, Europeans and Asians were consuming more throwing the demand and supply curves off balance.

This book is very well researched, and organized with useful economic data, and this is not for the investors who are looking for juicy financial secrets: Highly recommended.

1. Real Estate Lending in the New Millennium: The Sub-prime Market
2. Lending to Higher Risk Borrowers: Sub Prime Credit and Sustainable Home Ownership
3. Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis
4. The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do About It
5. House Poor : Pumped Up Prices, Rising Rates, and Mortgages on Steroids: How to Survive the Coming Housing Crisis
6. Living in a Bubble: Credit, Debt and Crisis

Great inspiration, 17 Feb 2008
The book is certainly an insight into property investing, and why propertyt is a good vehicle for financial reward. After considering a few options I have decided to pursue property and have not looked back. A few colleaugues have gone down the stock market route and my investment growth far outstrips their's, with a fraction of the hassle. Yes it is risky (any investment is), but this book is a roadmap of the pitfalls. I read it again and again, it is an excellent reference book.

Advantages of Real Estate over Stock Investing, 06 Jul 2004
New Zealander Dr. de Roos learned about investing in real estate while he pursued his education in electrical and electronic engineering. A few weeks before getting his Ph.D., one real estate deal netted him $35,000. His best job offer was to earn $32,000 a year. He thought. Why bother? And so began a full-time real estate investing career that led to him teaching real estate investing with Rich Dad, Poor Dad author, Robert T. Kiyosaki. Both played Monopoly as children, and found the real thing even more fun and rewarding as adults. From those experiences, Mr. Kiyosaki reports that "Dolf de Roos walks his talk." For fun, they will go out looking at property together in Phoenix where they both live now. "If driving around town looking at properties is a chore for you, then property is probably not for you," says de Roos.

In simple comparisons, Dr. de Roos shows you how property investors can earn hundreds of times the returns of stock investors. He had noticed as a young man that many rich people either made or kept their money in property.

Some of the advantages over stocks include greater stability in value, ability to borrow almost all of the purchase price, tax laws that allow deducting expenses for depreciation on an appreciating asset, potential to buy below market value, possibility of making improvements that add value beyond their cost, opportunity to refinance to extract cash without selling the asset, cash income to cover carrying costs, little need for day-to-day supervision because you can hire property managers to take care of almost everything, and real estate values moving up consistently.

The drawback of real estate investing is that you will invest a lot of time getting started. For example, you will probably have to look at 100 properties to possibly buy one. If you want to earn a living from real estate investing, you will look at many thousands of properties before you will have enough invested to become inactive. During those beginning years, you can be vulnerable to problems with renting or fixing specific properties, finding time to be your own property manager before you can afford one, and setbacks during times of rising interest rates or falling property values.

Having established the potential benefits in part one, part two goes on to describe what you need to do. It begins with finding property to look at, looks at analyzing potential deals, recommends how to negotiate and submit offers, shows how to use more of other people's money and time, describes improvements you should look to make, and explains the risk of government involvement.

After reviewing Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I got lots of questions about the tax advantages of real estate investing. For people who do not understand the subject, this book won't be enough. Although it has a lot of case histories, this book doesn't do any of them in enough detail for a reader to see exactly what happens throughout the investing and ownership process.

This book also is accurate only if you pick locations where prices move up annually at a pretty consistent rate. Although one of the eight rules is be a countercyclical investor, the book needs to emphasize how much more money you make when you buy at the peak in an interest rate cycle and refinance at the bottom of the same cycle, and how the economic cycle affects pricing of property and your ability to rent it. Also, you need to take advantage of trends. With the aging of people born after World War II, this will mean a shift in where property is attractive in the decade ahead from communities where it's a good place to raise children to those where it's good to retire. There's a vague allusion to these issues in the book, but much more is needed. For example, a new factor like foreign terrorism in major U.S. cities could have a large effect on future property values in those cities.

After you read this book, think about what allows you to sleep best at night about your finances. For some, that will be part in real estate. Invest in what gives you the best return in piece of mind, as well as income!

Poor E-Book, 09 Jun 2004
After numerous attempts to download this ebook I am still none the wiser.

I downloaded Adobe then tried the ebook which told me to activate which did not work.

Went through all the help items in Adobe and still cannot get the ebook.

Very Poor - expected more from Amazon and Adobe !

Don't do it - refuse e-books, 09 Nov 2003
The e-book failed to download via the Amazon link when it came through into my e-mail so I waited a day before trying again. Then it worked and re-directed me to Adobe for 'activation' of my Acrobat Reader. This failed with some web error code.

I can't be bothered with this, Abode - chill out and relax about this e-book thing OK? If you are gonna do this at least make it *work*. Too much hassle, buy a dead tree version.

I still have yet to read this book because of these 'technical advances'.

Ouch my neck aches, 07 Nov 2002
The content of Real Estate Riches is very American, and this book often refers to the USA Tax system. Having said that, it really opens up your mind to the opportunities that exist now.
This is not a 'get rich quick' book. Mind you if I had known what I know now, back in 1992, I would be a multi millionaire (echo's of Del Boy). Well this book has inspired me to take action.(better late that never).
I have read a few books by Robert T. Kiyosaki, the best known is Rich Dad Poor Dad, in which this subject is mentioned. Real Estate Riches is one step further and more in depth than the others.
My only gripes are that ebooks are a pain to read, you can't forward the ebook to another PC eg work. You can't print any of it off either, e books are a pain. But the book its self is great.

Financial Democracy, 08 Nov 2008
For Prof. R.J. Shiller, the root of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US is a myth, the belief that real estate prices must strongly trend upward for demographic reasons.
He proves that the price of real estate, to the contrary, is trending lower. What went up are the quality and the dimension of the average individual houses. But what about `land'? Didn't Mark Twain recommend strongly: `Go for land. They've stopped producing it.'? R.J. Shiller remarks cleverly that only 2,6 % of US land is used for urbanization.
Another factor of the bubble was psychological: the human herd instinct. There was a social contagion of boom thinking.
A third, more specific, factor was the deliberate governmental policy to promote home-ownership as much as possible. This should be good for the Party.

When the real estate bubble burst, it disrupted immediately the credit markets. Aggressive mortgage lenders never worried about repayment risks. They repackaged the mortgages, got top ratings from the rating agencies and sold their packages to third parties all over the world.
But even more importantly, the crisis damaged the `social fabric', the way of life of millions of families and also human relationships (through aggressive creditors). It created an atmosphere of distrust, of hoarding, with runs on banks; in one word, it gave rise to a psychological environment that could lead to a severe and long depression, which would hurt every citizen. Therefore, the subprime crisis must be solved.

Prof. R.J. Shiller makes a distinction between the short term and the long term solution.
In the short term, there should be a massive bail-out in order to prevent an escalation of the crisis and of the economic downturn.
In the long term, the US government should create a basic social contract and protect every citizen against major misfortune. It should impose financial democracy through standardized full disclosure documents so that everybody should get better information about all the risks involved. Without affecting individual privacy, indicators should be created about the real value of real estate. Those should lead to a more efficient pricing of houses and to a stabilization of the market. Prof. R.J. Shiller did not only recommend these policies, but created an indicator himself.

With an open and clear-sighted mind, Prof. Shiller wrote a small, but essential, book about a dramatic worldwide crisis, without losing the `human touch'. It is an essential read for all those interested in the future of mankind.


Thoughtful, straightforward diagnosis and prescription, 18 Sep 2008
Robert Shiller, the prescient author of the book Irrational Exuberance, offers an insightful examination of the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis, and suggests a list of potential measures for the future. He lays the blame for the subprime crisis on the same oblivious fiscal attitudes that led to the technology bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s. Both bubbles involved excessive lending and resulted in severe losses for capital providers. His prescription for dealing with the crisis involves a range of policy measures. In the short term, he calls for bailouts for low-income borrowers who got drawn into subprime scams that they did not understand. For the long term, he proposes a new framework for financial institutions, more transparent information, simpler contracts, improved risk-management markets, equity insurance and home loans linked to income, among other measures. Both his diagnosis and his prescription will be controversial, no doubt, but getAbstract thinks his book is a necessary text for anyone who wants to understand what's happened, and how to survive it and learn from it.

Short and radical, 30 Aug 2008
Robert Shiller has written some very interesting things over the years. In my opinion Irrational Exuberance is still one of the best books to read about stockmarkets, and in the New Financial Order he set out some new ideas for democratising finance so that it better serves the public. This short book (the previous reviewer is right to say it's more of a pamphlet) draws a bit on the ideas mapped out in the New Financial Order as a way out of the current mess.

To massively over-simplify, Shiller says we need a mix of short-term sticking plasters and longer-term reforms. In respect of the former camp he says we have to accept bailouts as a necessary evil, even though it goes against the moral hazard arguments. he also suggests setting up a revamped Homeowners Loan Corporation which would take on mortgages as collateral for loans to mortgage lenders in return for influencing the form future mortgages take (in order that they offer a better deal to homeowners).

Turning to the longer term Shiller sets out 6 key policies - comprehensive financial advice (based on fees rather than commssions), the establishment of a consumer finance watchdog, the creation of more default financial options (not just pensions, mortgage arrangements could also be included), improved financial disclosure, to improve accountability, the creation of better financial databases which would help provide consumers with better advice and more tailored products, and finally and most radically the creation of new units of economic measurement, based on what things actually cost.

There are big plus points about this book. First, Shiller is willing to think big. he's effectively arguing for more financial innovation, not less, but also that the process should be carried out in a way that meets the needs of the public. Secondly he warns against scapegoating the financial sector. In the epilogue he argues that we should be focusing on the systems that went wrong, rather than seeking to punish the industry as a whole. As tempting as it might be to try to stick the boot into the super-rich in the City, that isn't really going to take us very far. Shiller instead is setting out some challenging ideas for how we might stop this kind of crisis arising again.

an essential handbook for bubble spotters, 05 Aug 2008
Shiller's is a concise attempt to elaborate in just seven chapters the genesis of the housing bubble (a psychological carry-over from the dotcom bubble), explode its myths ("prices always go up"), explore its scale and the dangers of its deepening impact (it's bad), assert the need to maintain confidence in our economic and financial institutions by aggressive action (comparing the US and European responses to the Great Depression), and then explore longer-term, more fundamental reforms and innovations that will create a population much more attuned to economic risk.

Shiller says his inspiration was John Maynard Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace', which I take to mean that getting the subprime solution wrong could have devastating consequences.

At less than 200 pages of wide-margined type, lightly annotated and with no bibliography, there is something of the emergency pamphlet about this book. And Shiller is advocating a much speedier and more deep-rooted response to the crisis, which, as of a few weeks ago, he felt was still not being taken seriously enough.

There are many recommendations, but if the scale of the problem is as suggested, I'd argue that it's a book that everyone who lives in a house (and who is of reading age) should own; just don't buy ten and try to rent them out.

The Knackered Hack

Now is the time..., 02 Jun 2008
There's an old saying: always buy when there's there's blood on the streets. The theory is that if you go into an area after there's been a war or a disaster, you can pick up huge bargains. Anyone who invested in Croatia in the mid 90s will vouch for how effective this tactic csn be. So this book by Gary McCausland is a timely reminder that there is still plenty of opportunity to make money from the UK property market. The rapid decline in prices will lead to nervousness and panic selling, or at least to the presence of many juicy bargains for the astute investor with the skill to pick and choose the right flats/houses/land. This book gives a pretty comprehensive run down of the skills you'll need to do well, and - more importantly - the expensive mistakes to avoid. I recommend it.

An Essential No Nonsense Guide - highly recommended!, 21 Apr 2008
I picked this book up at the airport and was drawn in immediately. Really down to earth and inspirational. Even with the present day 'credit crunch' Gary has packed it full of practical no nonsense steps to get up the property ladder. Excellent!

At last, a useful book telling you how to really do it..., 07 Apr 2008
An honest account of how to make money out of property. Using his own personal exerience - the good times and bad, Gary shares the secrets to success in property whatever the econmic climate. I would recommend this book to any would-be inspired property developer.

How to Make a Million From Property, 07 Apr 2008
Not a bad read but you will only get a very basic understanding of property most of it is just common sense stuff but then you are not going to get chapter and verse for the price of a paperback .

Highly recommended!, 07 Apr 2008
A great book for anyone thinking of buying and selling property. Gary uses examples of his own experiences; both good and bad, to show us how to avoid the pitfalls and be successful. Now I can't drive down a road without seeing things differently! ;-)

Essential reading for everybody, 29 Jul 2008
Almost all of us are victims of the economic system. How this system functions is for most of us veiled in mystery, giving the system even more power over us. In this book Michael Rowbotham unveils these mysteries in a style which is clear, straight-talking and free of any academic jargon: in fact any concept, institution or practice which might be unknown to the non-specialist is thoughtfully explained by the author without even a hint of condescension.
This book describes the iniquity of a worldwide economic system based on the power of banks to create money by "lending" what they don't have. Both the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of this practice are explored in depth together with the multitude of ramifications. The book's range is remarkable: although much of the data is UK-centred, the author opens up a world-wide vision, from the exploitation of third world countries to the destruction of the environment to the pernicious waste of human life and energy under a system which - unveiled - amounts to institutionalised theft and debt-slavery.
Finally, the author provides suggestions as to how economic reform might be achieved, opening up vistas of millions of human lives being much more usefully and happily lived.
Read this book.

A surprise all around, 31 May 2008
I wasn't expecting this book to be quite so good. First of all, there have been so many written on this subject and I had NO idea who Michael Rowbotham was or is. But reading the reviews intrigued me and so I bought it with a lot of other fiction and non-fiction books. From the get-go I was drawn into the book by Rowbotham's writing ability and hard economic truths. You should be warned though, that this is a depressing book as it explains just how things work and if you're not prepared to have your eyes opened, you might be in for a shock. I can't imagine the banking world is happy about this book as it exposes the corporate greed and fraud that have been going on for years. The book also explains how we've come to think of money and gives you some real insight into how YOU are reacting to the world of money and how you use it. Couple this with his take on countries with the largest national debts and what that means and how they got there, and you have a great book that will stop you in your tracks. This should be required reading in all schools, regardless of nationality. The End.

Engaging book but needed better data and references, 10 Dec 2006
Thought provoking book for those not intimately involved in the financial and banking industries. I suspect that most people outside of these industries are unaware of the basic functioning of the money supply and money creation. Noticed a lot of generalisations that weren't correct, although the main thrust of many arguments was valid. Engaging book, but needed more factual data and references to lift it to a book with authority.

Paradigm Shift, 26 Sep 2004
This book has fundamentally affected the way I view the world, questioning why and how we work, what governments say - and then what they actually do. If you've ever thought that something wasn't quite right with the economic certainties that blare from PR ladened print and TV media then your time will be well spent reading this book.

For an idea of what this book contains here's the first chapter:
http://tinyurl.com/565k8

Believe me it's powerful stuff and is relevant whatever political persuasion you belong to.

The reviewer from Helsinki seems to have missed one of the chapters in the book dealing with the value of loans in an ever deflating system as this is well covered.

Get this book.

Brilliant, 30 Aug 2002
This is a must-read text. Get it, buy it, read it. It will reveal the subtle workings of the money economy and the heart of true power in the modern world. The writer rips off the veil of secrecy surrounding how money circulates in the modern economy and lays bare the cold enslavement that the vast majority must face in modern economic life.

If we are to provide our children a world worth living in, making real the recommendations of this book is essential. Nothing can be acheived without monetary reform. With it, everything can be.

The writer does not refer to eariler works of distinguished (but fringe) Austrian economists such as James Buchanan and Prof Rothbard. These are but minor criticisms. This is not a work by a academic economist and is perhaps a better work because of this. He speaks the truth.

Please read this important work.

A Fantastic Book, 04 Nov 2008
This is a very easy-to-read book, that will get you up to speed on the credit quake in one easy sitting. It's so well written that it's impossible to put down - or is that just me ;-)? Covers everything but ends pre Lehmans collapse in summer 2008.

An economic review of the current mortgage crisis, 15 Sep 2008
This is an excellent review of the current economic mortgage crisis that led to financial disaster. The author lays out all facts leading to this fiasco in an easy to understand language. No information is ignored in this fact finding mission; unscrupulous lenders, irresponsible borrowers, greedy speculators, developers, real estate agents, investment bankers/investors and last but not least the inept regulatory agencies destroyed the economic order and passed on the burden to unsuspecting tax payers.

Subprime mortgage is a loan made on the basis of a weak or troubled credit history. Historically it was a peripheral financial phenomenon; a marginal market with few borrowers and lenders, but that changed in 1990s. Mortgage lending companies were not setup as traditional depositories or brokers, but as real estate investment trusts (REITs). It is a corporate form for developers to avoid corporate income taxes. REIT pays out the earnings to shareholders who pay personal income taxes on them. Since they are publicly traded, it avoids regulators. But it comes under SEC which focuses mainly on insider trading, and corporate transparency, and not on mortgage lending. This helped REITs financial mismanagement streak through regulatory cracks. By the time subprime financial shock hit, 35% of the after-tax income was spent on debt obligation (Fig 13.5). The financial benefits of outsized asset price gains have gone almost entirely to higher income households (Table 13.1).

The ripple effect is observed all over economy: The government sold U.S. Treasury bonds to raise cash for the economic stimulus package but the consumers spent the entire check on raising gasoline costs. Saudi Arabia which bought most of these bonds essentially financed the purchase of their own oil! A sharp drop in dollar value in the international market did more damage than good, because this downfall helped the surge in oil prices, and consequently raised food and other commodity prices. Given the higher dollar value of Euro and Yen, Europeans and Asians were consuming more throwing the demand and supply curves off balance.

This book is very well researched, and organized with useful economic data, and this is not for the investors who are looking for juicy financial secrets: Highly recommended.

1. Real Estate Lending in the New Millennium: The Sub-prime Market
2. Lending to Higher Risk Borrowers: Sub Prime Credit and Sustainable Home Ownership
3. Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis
4. The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do About It
5. House Poor : Pumped Up Prices, Rising Rates, and Mortgages on Steroids: How to Survive the Coming Housing Crisis
6. Living in a Bubble: Credit, Debt and Crisis

Great inspiration, 17 Feb 2008
The book is certainly an insight into property investing, and why propertyt is a good vehicle for financial reward. After considering a few options I have decided to pursue property and have not looked back. A few colleaugues have gone down the stock market route and my investment growth far outstrips their's, with a fraction of the hassle. Yes it is risky (any investment is), but this book is a roadmap of the pitfalls. I read it again and again, it is an excellent reference book.

Advantages of Real Estate over Stock Investing, 06 Jul 2004
New Zealander Dr. de Roos learned about investing in real estate while he pursued his education in electrical and electronic engineering. A few weeks before getting his Ph.D., one real estate deal netted him $35,000. His best job offer was to earn $32,000 a year. He thought. Why bother? And so began a full-time real estate investing career that led to him teaching real estate investing with Rich Dad, Poor Dad author, Robert T. Kiyosaki. Both played Monopoly as children, and found the real thing even more fun and rewarding as adults. From those experiences, Mr. Kiyosaki reports that "Dolf de Roos walks his talk." For fun, they will go out looking at property together in Phoenix where they both live now. "If driving around town looking at properties is a chore for you, then property is probably not for you," says de Roos.

In simple comparisons, Dr. de Roos shows you how property investors can earn hundreds of times the returns of stock investors. He had noticed as a young man that many rich people either made or kept their money in property.

Some of the advantages over stocks include greater stability in value, ability to borrow almost all of the purchase price, tax laws that allow deducting expenses for depreciation on an appreciating asset, potential to buy below market value, possibility of making improvements that add value beyond their cost, opportunity to refinance to extract cash without selling the asset, cash income to cover carrying costs, little need for day-to-day supervision because you can hire property managers to take care of almost everything, and real estate values moving up consistently.

The drawback of real estate investing is that you will invest a lot of time getting started. For example, you will probably have to look at 100 properties to possibly buy one. If you want to earn a living from real estate investing, you will look at many thousands of properties before you will have enough invested to become inactive. During those beginning years, you can be vulnerable to problems with renting or fixing specific properties, finding time to be your own property manager before you can afford one, and setbacks during times of rising interest rates or falling property values.

Having established the potential benefits in part one, part two goes on to describe what you need to do. It begins with finding property to look at, looks at analyzing potential deals, recommends how to negotiate and submit offers, shows how to use more of other people's money and time, describes improvements you should look to make, and explains the risk of government involvement.

After reviewing Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I got lots of questions about the tax advantages of real estate investing. For people who do not understand the subject, this book won't be enough. Although it has a lot of case histories, this book doesn't do any of them in enough detail for a reader to see exactly what happens throughout the investing and ownership process.

This book also is accurate only if you pick locations where prices move up annually at a pretty consistent rate. Although one of the eight rules is be a countercyclical investor, the book needs to emphasize how much more money you make when you buy at the peak in an interest rate cycle and refinance at the bottom of the same cycle, and how the economic cycle affects pricing of property and your ability to rent it. Also, you need to take advantage of trends. With the aging of people born after World War II, this will mean a shift in where property is attractive in the decade ahead from communities where it's a good place to raise children to those where it's good to retire. There's a vague allusion to these issues in the book, but much more is needed. For example, a new factor like foreign terrorism in major U.S. cities could have a large effect on future property values in those cities.

After you read this book, think about what allows you to sleep best at night about your finances. For some, that will be part in real estate. Invest in what gives you the best return in piece of mind, as well as income!

Poor E-Book, 09 Jun 2004
After numerous attempts to download this ebook I am still none the wiser.

I downloaded Adobe then tried the ebook which told me to activate which did not work.

Went through all the help items in Adobe and still cannot get the ebook.

Very Poor - expected more from Amazon and Adobe !

Don't do it - refuse e-books, 09 Nov 2003
The e-book failed to download via the Amazon link when it came through into my e-mail so I waited a day before trying again. Then it worked and re-directed me to Adobe for 'activation' of my Acrobat Reader. This failed with some web error code.

I can't be bothered with this, Abode - chill out and relax about this e-book thing OK? If you are gonna do this at least make it *work*. Too much hassle, buy a dead tree version.

I still have yet to read this book because of these 'technical advances'.

Ouch my neck aches, 07 Nov 2002
The content of Real Estate Riches is very American, and this book often refers to the USA Tax system. Having said that, it really opens up your mind to the opportunities that exist now.
This is not a 'get rich quick' book. Mind you if I had known what I know now, back in 1992, I would be a multi millionaire (echo's of Del Boy). Well this book has inspired me to take action.(better late that never).
I have read a few books by Robert T. Kiyosaki, the best known is Rich Dad Poor Dad, in which this subject is mentioned. Real Estate Riches is one step further and more in depth than the others.
My only gripes are that ebooks are a pain to read, you can't forward the ebook to another PC eg work. You can't print any of it off either, e books are a pain. But the book its self is great.

Dissapointed of MK, 25 Jun 2007
I was expecting a real insight into finance and more information about starting up your own business and generating additional income. I expected details on how to calculate your savings, how to compare these to the interest on your mortgage, etc.

What I got was a beginners introduction to the different type of mortgages available and a small chapter on what to bear in mind when starting a business.

All in all a huge dissapointment! First step towards frugality, don't waste your money on the book!

Excellent, 30 Jan 2007
How many of the reviewers have actually achieved (even the morgage brokers) financial freedom? I doubt very few and I can tell by the comments. In order to do these things you have to adhere to the knowledge follow the advice and follow the plan. This is hard for people to do and it requires a state of mind to achieve and follow through on their plans. Any advice no matter how basic or simple is rarely taken and applied for all it is worth.

Formulate a strategy design a plan and set the goal and most important follow through on a daily basis. You will achieve no matter what challenges lay before you!

Only a few pages of use, 11 Jan 2007
The book is full of complete waffle and in between all this are good bits of info but none of it really mind blowingly new. Basically, it just tells you things like - don't keep electricty on when its unnecessary; make your own food instead of buying it daily at tesco; when there are probs with your electricty try and get a mate or relative to fix it who'll charge you much less; instead of joining a gym, and paying for a new membership, go joging; get a second, and even third job if you're up to it etc..
All common sense really just maximising your income and minimising your outgoings.
I think a much better book for you if your interested in controlling your finances are thoses by ALVIN HALL. I've read all his books and they are loaded with much more advice and better tips than this.


[...], 13 Oct 2006
This information given in this book is so basic, " make sandwiches for work lunch " or " grow your own vegetables " to save money. My financial advice would be, that your money would be better spent on your mortage than this book, complete waste of time and money.

utter garbage, 13 Mar 2006
save the money and put it towards your mortgage. If the info in this book is of use to you then you probably shouldn't have a mortgage at all!