Weekly Musings 29 7-23-11 from oftwominds.com
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I downloaded the PC app last week and was reading my first Kindle book within a few minutes. It's very easy to download and the app is easy on the eyes. Just as with the Kindle reader, you can easily adjust the font and font size. I think you'll like reading the ebook on the Kindle app, regardless of what device you're using.
Here's the deal: the ebook is available to subscribers/major contributors at a 50% discount for two days only--Sunday and Monday. After that, it will be offered to readers of the blog for $6.95 for a limited time, and then it will revert to the full retail price of $9.95.
It has long been my policy to offer a free copy of one of my books to contributors of $60 or more, either as a one-time contribution or 12 months as a subscriber at $5/month or 6 months as a subscriber at $10/month.
Some of you have declined my emailed offer of a free book this year; many of you are longtime contributors who have generously supported oftwominds.com over the years.
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Those of you who requested a copy of An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times as your free book: please email your preference: this Kindle ebook or the print edition, which will be forthcoming in a few months.
I think this book is unique in the investing/personal finance shelf, for it addresses the critical reality that the Status Quo is unsustainable and increasingly unstable.
The next 20 years will not be a simple extension of the previous 20 years. Everything that is currently seen as permanent--the Savior State, the financialized economy, cheap energy-- is visibly unsustainable. Status Quo financial strategies are doomed by their reliance on increasingly unstable global markets and a myopic focus on the rearview mirror--the recent past is no longer an accurate guide to the future.
Uniquely troubled times require an unconventional understanding and "toolkit" of investment strategies. This comprehensive guide offers practical ideas for everyone, from investors seking to protect 401Ks or IRAs to entrepreneurs to those with more time than money to invest in their future. This book offers a broad spectrum of strategies for investing your social, human and financial capital in low-risk, decentralized, diversified assets that increase resiliency and independence.
Topics include systemic risk, the spectrum of potential investments, gold, hedging, relative value, hybrid work, income streams, ecosystems of local enterprise and the essential tools of investing. The full table of contents is reprinted below.
An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times will be issued in a print edition in a few months, after the cover design has been completed and the usual back-cover endorsements have been obtained ("There is not a single human being on the planet who would not benefit immensely from buying this book.") The price will be around $25 so the book will ship with Amazon's free shipping option. If I set the price at $21, then the shipping of $4 brings the price to $25. If I charge $25, then the book is shipped free. In other words, the cost is the same to buyers, but the poor dumb writer gets a sliver of the $4 if it is in the list price.
I have devoted myself to this book for the past 18 months, often obsessively, because there is simply no way to coherently assemble such a vast spectrum of ideas without single-minded devotion.
I had written over 40,000 words of the book last year, as well as 100 pages of handwritten notes, but I was dissatisfied with this work and set it all aside to start afresh this January.
Thus in the first 7 months of 2011, I have written over 35,000 words in free-lance articles, 150,000 words for the blog, 15,000 in the Weekly Musings and almost 100,000 words for this book, which was edited down to 74,000 words. That's roughly 300,000 words in less than 7 months. That's a lot.
Originally I intended to email you most or all of the book as my thank-you for your support, but the possibility that a free version would escape to the Web and effectively cripple my chances of earning compensation for the 18 months of work forced me to go with the security, however modest, of the Kindle format. Yes, it can easily be broken, but most people aren't going to bother. I hope you will forgive me this desire to earn something for the 18 months of time invested in writing the book; the blog is free, and that is all I can afford to freely give the world.
I believe this book has the potential to positively change readers' understanding and perspective of the troubled times ahead. That was always my goal and my intent: to provide a positive path forward, regardless of a person's wealth or income.
I am grateful for your readership, and am astonished and gratified by your encouragement and financial support. In this way, each of you shares in whatever positive consequences the book might effect.
I do not have an assistant or fancy software; I keep track of subscribers and contributors myself, and thus things do occasionally fall between the cracks here in the chaotic Global HQ of oftwominds.com ( I have also written over 3,000 emails in response to readers year to date). If I have made a mistake or missed an email, please let me know so I can correct the error.
I will resume From Left Field next Musings.
Thank you for reading--
Charles
An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times
Table of Contents
Section I: Systemic Risk and Investing
Chapter One: An Overview of Instability
Chapter Two: Why the Status Quo Is Unsustainable
Chapter Three: An (Anachronistic) Observer’s Perspective
Chapter Four: Our Need for Inspiration and Hope
Chapter Five: The Unconventional Path
Chapter Six: The Many Layers of Risk
Chapter Seven: Novelty, Habit and Cognitive Biases
Chapter Eight: Self-Knowledge and the Psychology of Investing
Section II: The Spectrum of Potential Investments
Chapter Nine: The Spectrum of Risk
Chapter Ten: Human and Social Capital
Chapter Eleven: Health, the One True Wealth
Chapter Twelve: Decentralized/Local Enterprises
Chapter Thirteen: An Example of a Local Enterprise
Chapter Fourteen: Ecosystems of Local Enterprise
Section III: Investment Tools
Chapter Fifteen: Essential Tools of Trading
Chapter Sixteen: Building Social and Human Capital
Chapter Seventeen: Relative Value/Performance
Chapter Eighteen: Assessing the Value of Local Assets
Chapter Nineteen: Hedging
Concluding Thoughts
