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I can summarize the reasons to buy this book:
(1) Financial Institutions, the media, family, friends, and financial advisors hype myths for their own benefit and personal satisfaction.
(2) You can't recognize a myth (a Sacred Cow) when you are in it until it's too late.
(3) The book covers 9 broad-based myths with useful anecdotes, historical examples with repetition of important, useful concepts.
(4) You can destroy the Sacred Cows of financial terrorism, or be destroyed because you don't question them. You'll learn how.
Garrett Gunderson lays out precise principles in this book. He gives you the knowledge to avoid costly mistakes and the reasons why they happen over and over again throughout history. (Does Enron, WorldCom, now Lehman, AIG, Merrill, WAMU, Fannie & Freddie sound familiar?).
The hidden danger of a Sacred Cow is that you don't know it's a myth until it's too late. Like high blood pressure, you don't necessarily know you have it until you get tested.
Please read this book slowly to digest it. I suggest reading it with a high-lighter, and re-reading it at a later date. Why? Dead Cows have "ghosts" that constantly haunt us, being reinforced through toxic "sales hype" and conventional "wisdom".
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I like to look at many finance books at my local Barnes and Noble and sure enough this was one of them. This book stands out for saying something different than 90% of finance books, and it should be applauded for that effort. Unfortunately, the reason why 90% of finance books generally tend to give the same advice is that, that advice reflects reality for a random member of the great masses.
Myth 1: The "Finite Pie." Basically don't be jealous of other people and think in ways that help everyone. No one is disputing this. However, thinking win-lose is not the accept as accepting the reality of scarcity (which is not the same as Malthusian thinking). A limited supply of labor and material resources is the basis for all economic activity, otherwise we would not have to work and pluck what we wanted from trees! The author is confusing his terms, probably deliberately.
Myth 2: You're "In it for the Long Haul." But this is also true. Stock market and other investment returns are much riskier in the short run than the long run. The author says rather than invest long term, utilize your money to order to get better returns in the present. What the author doesn't realize is that most people did not become millionaires in their twenties and thus need a nest egg to save for retirement and other unexpected events. Buying a dream mobile home today with your life savings will not give you a greater rate of return than investing it.
And on and on and on. The author pooh-poohs his own achievement in becoming wealthy at a young age, and that money is not everything, but the back cover of this book mentions first thing that he was a "millionaire by 26... owns several companies, etc. etc." and his profession is helping people plan their finances. So clearly, his whole life is revolved around money, and money was the objective for him selling this book. Money may be a store of value and not the source of value, but it is still the incentive that most people have to create that value.
If achieving your "Soul Purpose" is all you need, why isn't the author giving his book away?
The reality is,
1.) most people work in boring 9-to-5 jobs that are not their "soul purpose" although they may be something interesting.
2.) Most people do not have time to manage their money and utilize it to generate higher returns, and that is why they rely on someone else.
3.) Most people do not make enough to skip saving for retirement.
4.) Money IS power.
5.) Most financial advice is similar, boring, and will only give you low returns. But it is the best generalized advice out there that is available to the public.
6.) You are better off skimming this book in Barnes & Noble than buying it.
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This is a fabulous book, not only for understanding how money works, but also getting you to set goals for yourself. If you were raised with a Depression-era mentality and you think money in the bank will make you feel safe, this is the book for you.
Setting a goal of where you'd like to be financially and making it happen shouldn't be a number. It should be a life choice. I have been wealthy, I have been poor, but you can't truly be wealthy without knowing what that means to you. I am doing what I love everyday, I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, I own my new car outright. And I don't live in fear. What's that worth to you?
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This book was mailed to me free of charge by Nightingale Conant Corporation. Several pages had been damaged in the process of printing the book, rendering several pages as un-readable.
I think that perhaps an underlying motivation by the author is to sell membership programs in Killing Sacred Cows.com. which is mentioned at the end of the book.
After reflecting on this book I have doubts about the theories and propositions that the author purports.
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This book says in several hundred pages what can be said in 5-10 pages. It is highly repetitive, and has more of a moral message than a financial one.
It has very little "hard", quantitative information.
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