Description:
Alan Murray, a longtime economics reporter for The Wall Street Journal and commentator on CNBC, believes we're heading into an economic golden age. Recessions will be rare because of high-tech inventory management. Inflation will be unlikely because global competition puts steady downward pressure on prices. And yet, because of increased productivity, our wages and standard of living will steadily increase. "The New Economy is a buyer's world," he writes, and by that he means the persistent consumer will be able to get the product he wants at a price he's willing to pay. Sometimes that price will be below the actual cost of the product. Murray does a superb job of making the task of searching for information on the tangled Web seem easy and expedient. In the section on health care in the New Economy, for example, he gives a seven-step checklist for deciding how to deal with a major medical issue. This includes Web sites you can go to for information about your doctor and hospital. The downside is that many of us are overloaded with choices, and want things to be simpler. We return to brand names we trust, even when others might be cheaper or more convenient, because we don't want to sacrifice a known quantity. Many of us stick with AT&T long distance service and high-interest credit cards just because we're too overwhelmed to choose cheaper alternatives. Ultimately, we profit from the New Economy by becoming our own brands, Murray writes. We pursue topics we're passionate about, become experts, and then find ways to profit from that expertise. Likewise, we all become investing experts and manage our own money based on the knowledge we gain online. Murray is a smart storyteller and laces the service-oriented aspects of The Wealth of Choices with anecdotes about the people he's met in his years at the Journal, ranging from Alan Greenspan to the Gardner brothers, founders of the Motley Fool investment Web site. The result is an entertaining look at our often-bewildering new world from a writer so gifted he can find something interesting to say on virtually any topic. And any book that makes choosing a long-distance provider interesting deserves a look. --Lou Schuler
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