I bought How the Economy Works: An Investor’s Guide to Tracking the Economy (How the Economy Works) by Edmund Mennis as a reference work for my weekly series on economic indicators at Financial Options. Mennis starts off with an explanation of why investors need to track the economy in the first place that hits the two most important things the economy affects from an investor’s point of view - interest rates and corporate profits. Then he explains what exactly is worth tracking starting with “What is GDP anyway?”

Mennis devotes the next chapter to what I’d argue is the single most important economic factor moving markets - inflation and the fear that inflation will force moves by the Federal Reserve. He returns to that theme in Chapter 8 “Interest Rates and Monetary Policy.” The book has plenty of space devoted to explaining the interpretation of other important indicators: consumer sentiment, business activity, government action, corporate profits and the global marketplace. Finally the last quarter of the book offers advice for finding reliable economic information online advice for individual investors. Throughout, the explanations are sound, with proper attention paid to how the indicators affect markets both directly and indirectly.
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How the Economy Works: An Investor’s Guide to Tracking the Economy
- Amazon Reviewer Stars: 4
- Author: Mennis, Edmund A.
- Description: Paperback, 320 pages
- Dewey Decimal: 332.67/8 21
- ISBN: 0735200769
978-0735200760
- LC Call Number: HB171 .M523 1999
- My Stars: 5
- Published: Prentice Hall Press, 1999
- Subjects: Economics.
Investments.
United States--Economic conditions--1981-

With 101 Ways Promote Yourself : Tricks Of The Trade For Taking Charge Of Your Own Success, Raleigh Pinskey is giving not so much 101 ideas you will specifically use as 101 ideas to start your own brainstorming session. The key to self-promotion is being fearless in putting on the yellow chicken suit and standing in front of your restaurant waving at passing cars and this book will give you ideas much better than the chicken suit. And even if your solution is standing on the corner in a chicken suit, you need to relate that costume to your business and get the attention of the media, not just the 500 drivers who will see you today.
The book promises to help you:
- Develop hot new leads
- Project a positive image
- Get your name in front of potential customers
- Promote instant name recognition
- Hold on to valued customers
- Build on your success by cultivating referrals
- Position yourself for greater visitibility in your market
- Grow and expand your network and database
- Explore media opportunities
- Market effectively on the internet
- Create goodwill in your community
Other than the next to the last, where the book is outdated because of the speed of change on the internet, the book doesn’t just promise, it delivers.
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101 Ways to Promote Yourself
- Amazon Reviewer Stars: 4.5
- Author: Pinskey, Raleigh
- Description: xix, 393 p. ; 18 cm.
- ISBN: 0380785080
- LC Call Number: HF5415 .P557 1997
- My Stars: 4
- Published: New York : Avon Books, 1997.
- Subjects: Marketing.
Public relations.

Millionaire Republican : Why Rich Republicans Get Rich–and How You Can Too! is Wayne Allyn Root’s pull no punches look at how you can become a self-made millionaire by following the same principles as the self-made millionaires castigated as “rich Republicans”. If you aren’t prepared to accept that men like Dick Cheney - who paid his way through college as a power company lineman and a member of the IBEW union - are rich because they earned it, this book isn’t for you. The author’s theory is that there are those who see others with wealth and get jealous and then there are those who see the wealthy nd ask, “How can I become that way myself?” This book is for those in the second category - presumably if you are here reading this, that means you. Root, himself a Republican activist and self-made millionaire, offers “The 18 Republican Secrets of Mega-Wealth and Unlimited Success” which he describes as “Rush Limbaugh meets Napoleon Hill” in 18 counterintuitive rules. Root admittedly borrows from Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad and that’s enough to endorse the book by itself.
The book got 4.5 stars from 17 Amazon reviewers and it’s only been out for 15 days.
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Millionaire Republican : Why Rich Republicans Get Rich–and How You Can Too!
- Amazon Reviewer Stars: 4.5
- Author: Wayne Allyn Root
- Description: 242 pgs, 8.3 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
- Dewey Decimal: 332.024/01 22
- ISBN: 1585424307, Tarcher (October 6, 2005)
- LC Call Number: HG222.3 .R66 2005
- Subjects: Money--Psychological aspects.
Millionaires--Psychology.
Entrepreneurship--Psychological aspects.
Capitalists and financiers--Psychology.
Wealth--Psychological aspects.
Rich people--Psychology.

Get Clients Now!: A 28-Day Marketing Program for Professionals and Consultants by C.J. Hayden is a book that Guerilla Marketing guru Jay Conrad Levinson recommends as turning marketing amateurs into marketing geniuses.
As you’d expect the book offers action plans and lots of great business building ideas. What’s unusual is that it focuses on breaking down the sales cycle to determine where you need the most work and focusing your action plan on that area. Most books in the genre are all about the strategy Hayden calls “Filling the Pipeline”, but this book offers three other strategies: Followup, Getting Appointments and Closing Sales. (After sale goes back to re-Filling the Pipeline.) Your action plan will contain elements of all four, but you go through an initial self-assessment first to determine where to focus. In fact, as someone who has read marketing books for years, the self-assessment idea and breaking down the action plans by strategy was more important than the specific marketing ideas though they are excellent also.
The book also emphasizes simple record keeping to track your progress and rewarding yourself as you go. The action plans, also called “menus”, include “dessert” items like writing in your Success Journal or even Get 8 Hours of Sleep Every Night, that contribute to your plan’s success, your motivation and your overall well-being all at once.
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Get Clients Now!
- Amazon Reviewer Stars: 5
- Author: Hayden, C. J.
- Description: x, 214 p. : ill. ; 26 cm.
- Dewey Decimal: 658.8 21
- ISBN: 0814479928
- LC Call Number: HF5415 .H296 1999
- My Stars: 5
- Published: New York : AMACOM, c1999.
- Subjects: Marketing--Study and teaching.

Hot off the presses!
The Complete Landlording Handbook from the editors of Socrates Media is the just released guide for making money buying and renting real estate. This book covers essential business practice aspects of landlording. Included is a CD-ROM which includes leasing forms and other useful free tools. Buyers also get access to a special “web landing page” with more free forms and up to date tools.
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The Complete Landlording Handbook
- Description: 280 pages
- ISBN: 1595462457
- Published: Socrates Media; Bk&CD-Rom edition (September 30, 2005)