Rating: 
Summary: Good Info But Repetitive
Review: I would have given the book 3 1/2 stars but couldn't so I'm giving it 4 because the book contains quite a bit of good information. The book is uneven with some very good chapters and some weak ones. The strongest chapter is "Turning Japanese". The book is very long winded and repetitive. I think it was put together from many articles or posts to a website which would explain the repetition. It is very much a historical book about the political ideology, crowd psychology and war, history of bubbles, Japan, Greenspan, etc. I believe they are right on target on the direction of the US and the economy, but will Financial Reckoning Day occur next week or in 20 years. Also the book gives almost no advice on how to invest or preserve wealth for the Reckoning Day.
Rating: 
Summary: Great History Book, Slim on advice
Review: I really enjoyed reading the "history" and "Political Science" aspects of this book. Unfortunately, I was emotionally damaged when the author added no valuable conclusions on where things are going and what to do about it. Now I am kidding about the emotionally damaged part, but was disappointed with the lack of conclusion. Lastly, I would *highly* suggest this book for anyone wanting a deep understand of "why we are where we are" and why the future is going downhill. If you are expecting a "what to do book", this is not it.
1929-1946 - 17 year BEAR market
1946-1965 - 19 year BULL market
1965-1982 - 17 year BEAR market
1982-2000 - 18 year BULL market
2000-2017? - 17 year BEAR market?Cheers, Brian
Rating:
Summary: OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND TURN ON THE FIRE HYDRANT
Review: Can anyone fathom the US going into a depression worse than that of the 1929 Collapse. Can the same masses that created one of the worse Stock market bubbles in the 1990s but the natural participants in the upcoming market collapse. Bonner does an excellent job in illustrating just what could happen, and a darn right scenario foretelling that it will happen. Scary enough, this book will help you understand that we(Americans) are past due on a collapse that will profoundly affect everyone's financial condition - if you are not prepared for it. IT IS DEFINITELY REQUIRED READING.
- Mason Johnson, President, www.tomorrowsgold.com
Rating:
Summary: Not Get-Rich or How-To-Invest but A Great Why-Things-Occur
Review: Bonner doesn't seem to be telling you what to invest in and for some reason, this seems to disappoint some readers. Look, you can get what-to-invest-in advice for any financial newspaper or magazine on any newstand... And at least half will be wrong. What you need is to step back and learn about the overall system from a high-level, macro viewpoint and to learn how our money system interacts (or fails to) with wealth-building mechanisms today. Bonner doesn't give you fish, he teaches you the history of fish and explains how to understand the fish of tomorrow. If (I mean WHEN) the financial reckoning day does arrive, it will surprise almost everybody except those who have read this book. You need to understand what's going on and how to prepare. No this isn't a preparedness "World going to hell in a handbasket" book either although some scenarios are frightful. Bonner seems to want to teach you, in his usual enjoyable prose, how to make the most from what you decide to do with your family's financial stewardship.
Rating: 
Summary: Save Your MONEY
Review: While the book contains some interesting hylites of history and ties it together with economics and the consumers dollar it ain't gonna help-ya with your investing.The punch line? The author has no speculative idear what the future will bring.The basic smart-wit throughout the book gets annoying.
Rating:
Summary: Student Of Markets
Review: Chapter 4 on the Japanese "bubble" of the 1980's to the 1990's is a good explanation. Chapter 3 on John Law and fiat currency is helpful history. The rest of the book is just too much ranting and raving on issues - with a great shortage of charts, tables or diagrams to make a point. Note to author - Give It A Rest! Overall, a disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book contains all the usual litany about what's wrong about the American economy and the American consumer especially. While this prosa provides for lots of entertaining reading, it absolutely fails to explain what the true roots of the approaching catastrophe are. The demise of the US economy started roughly in the mid 1970's. In my opinion it is not a coincidence that this time period marks the peak of US oil extraction ("Hubbert peak"). The peak of oil extraction was followed by a similar peak of the US natural gas production in the 1980's. The country is now facing a energy crisis of epic proportions. Like in a earthshake, the first tremor appeared in the early 1970's (the first oil crisis). We have failed to respond to that problem in the following 30 years and have instead indulged ourselves in building up a debt orgy as if there would be no tomorrow. Much of our foreign debt is due to the increasing energy imports (more than 60% of the total). There is no easy way out of these problems. If you want to know more, forget the book under review. More relevant and better information is avaiable on the internet for free. By the way, the title "Soft depression" is definitely misleading. The depression will most likely not be soft.
Rating:
Summary: American Dream is evaporating
Review: May be I am reading too much into this gloom and doom, being an a Finance Major from one of the top Finance Business Schools in the USA. After graduating about 10 years ago I started my research on the following premise that, "How Long Can a Nation Continue to Live on Debt", and over the years read books titled: - "Creating an Interest and Inflation-free Economy, that is good for ordinary citizens and the environment" by Margritte Kennedy, Professor of Urban Planning at University of Hanover, Germany - "The Problem with Interest", by Tarek El-Diwany, Kreatoc, 2003 - "Islam and The Economic Challenge", by Dr. Umer Chapra, Former Chief Economist as Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), The Islamic Foundation, UK 1995 - The Dollar Crisis, Richard Duncan, World Bank Consultant, John Wiley, 2003 - The Greatest Depression in the History of US & UK, Daniel Arnold - Dangerous Market - Managing in a Financial Crisis, McKinsey Consultants, John Wiley, 2003 - Global Finance at Risk, Professors from the New School, 2001 - Capital Flows and Crises, by Dr. Barry Eichengreen, UC Berkeley, 2003 - The Coming Crash in the Housing Market, John Talbott, UCLA Research Scholar - and lastly, the "Financial Reckoning Day" caps all the above research, and exposes this fake projection of economic growth All these books allude to the same thing. This Dollar-driven credit/liquidity creation is losing steam as an engine of growth, and causing the de-leveraging of American. There is only so much that lowering of interest rates can do to boost the economy. Combine this with the demographic bomb, and we have a disaster at our hand which will unfold in the next couple of years. Most of us are sleeping, and thinking that our nominated and elected officials will have our interest in mind. Unfortunately, we will wake up from our hallucination one day, and see our networth evaporate just as it has happened many times in history.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Explanation of Economic History, But...
Review: This book provides great insight into investment bubbles and the madness of crowds. My only complaint is that the subtitle, "Surviving the Soft Depression of the 21st Century," is somewhat misleading. There isn't much investment advice to be found here, other than "Sell the DOW and buy GOLD." This is excellent advice as far as it goes, but in this book it doesn't go much farther. Having said this, I think the author does a great job of drawing parallels between the Japanese economy of 1989 and the U.S. economy of 1999. There are compelling arguments to be made that our economy is destined to decline in much the same way that Japan's did ten years earlier, but in greater magnitudes. I also enjoyed the political discussions about democracy and freedom, and how the first doesn't necessarily guarantee the second. The fact that the author is also a copywriter, makes the book a pretty easy read.
Rating: 
Summary: So I wanna be a copy-ad writer
Review: This book says absoultely nothing new. Gives absolutely no practical advice save Ch. 9 one liner to buy gold in 2010. Save your $25+, go to a bookstore that carries this book, read Ch. 9 and see for yourself. This person's business is to write advertisements, often long, sparkling descriptions of why you should by a certain product. This is called copyrighting. This book is written in that style. A lot of superfluous, non-fiction writing sprinkled with 20/20 hindsight facts to bolster his prediction (right or wrong). Then, except for the one-liner in Ch. 9 about buying gold in 2010, offers ZERO guidelines or how to tell when to move in and out of stocks/gold. Do what I did, go to Borders or Barnes and Noble or someother bookstore that carries the book, read it there, and I'm sure you won't feel you have to buy it for reference.
| 
