andreweverett360 Book Review, Management

Bottom Line Tales


Bottom Line Tales: 30 Lesser-known Ways to Build Sales, Profits, and Cash Flow
by Alastair Thomson

This book reads like practical advice from a mentor. Alastair Thomson is a board-level executive with experience as a CEO and CFO in a variety of industries. In 30 chapters, he shares his wisdom about such topics as fixing operational bottlenecks, improving customer service, and minimizing bureaucracy. He shares a story of a company that grew revenues rapidly by making unprofitable deals. In a counter example, another company turned down profitable business below an arbitrary minimum order. He observes that companies claiming to be data-driven often make decisions without understanding what the numbers mean. He also shares his views on AI and semi-skimmed milk.

Continue reading “Bottom Line Tales” →
andreweverett360 Book Review, economics

The Skyscraper Curse


The Skyscraper Curse: And How Austrian Economics Predicted Every Major Economic Crisis of the Last Century
by Mark Thornton

This book covers three primary topics: Austrian Business Cycle Theory, Cantillon Effects, and the Skyscraper Curse. The common thread is the economic havoc caused by artificially low interest rates, including price inflation and greater economic inequality.

The author also sheds light on the dominating force funding economics research in the United States, presumably controlling the narrative and suppressing dissenting analysis.

Continue reading “The Skyscraper Curse” →
andreweverett360 Book Review, Finance

Quality of Earnings


Quality of Earnings: The Investor’s Guide to How Much Money a Company is Really Making
by Thornton L. O’Glove

Thornton “Ted” O’Glove published the Quality of Earnings Report from 1969 through the 1980s, identifying red flags in financial statements for institutional investors. He wrote this book in 1987 to share his due diligence methods with individual investors.

“Often the stock can go north while the quality of earnings goes south, and vice versa.”

For example, the author provides examples of how reported net earnings growth can mask a decline in operating income — or even an operating loss.

Continue reading “Quality of Earnings” →
andreweverett360 Book Review, Nonprofit

Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World


Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World
by Charles Koch with Brian Hooks

“This book… calls for all of us to move away from a top-down approach to solving the really big problems in society toward an approach that focuses on empowering people from the bottom up to act on their unique gifts and contribute to the lives of others.”

Continue reading “Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World” →
andreweverett360 Book Review, economics

Entrepreneurship


Entrepreneurship: A Primer
by Eamonn Butler

“Entrepreneurship is the unseen factor of production. Land, labor, and capital produce nothing until they are actively put to work. They need to be directed and focused by some human mind—an entrepreneurial mind that realizes how they can be used to create value.”

“British philosopher and economist John Stuart Milll (1806-1873) identified entrepreneurs as people who assume both the risk and the management of a business. Today, economists focus on the role of entrepreneurs as innovators or in spotting opportunities or taking risks in a world of future uncertainty.”

Continue reading “Entrepreneurship” →
andreweverett360 Book Review, critical thinking

How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Stats in the News


How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Stats in the News
(and Knowing When to Trust Them)
by Tom Chivers and David Chivers

News stories often cite misleading statistics. This book seeks to inform news consumers how to critically examine the claims. It also includes a “statistical style guide” to help journalists report numbers more responsibly.

Continue reading “How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Stats in the News” →
andreweverett360 Book Review, Nonprofit

Agency


Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for All Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power
by Ian V. Rowe

Neil Postman posed this question about public schools: “What kind of public does it create?” Ian Rowe addresses that pertinent question, arguing they are doing a disservice both to students and society, and offers a vision for getting back on track.

The author’s background will provide some context. Rowe immigrated to the United States from Jamaica with his parents and brother in 1968. He attended public schools in New York City, then earned an engineering degree from Cornell and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He worked on postsecondary education philanthropy at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and was an executive in charge of public service campaigns for MTV. He then served as CEO of charter elementary schools in the South Bronx for 10 years before cofounding Vertex Partnership Academies charter high schools.

WHAT IS AGENCY? “My short definition is that it is the force of your free will guided by moral discernment. It is the force that closes the delta between… what is and what ought to be. It is the conviction that we are active players in our own story… Agency is learning to see ourselves not as victims of our circumstances, but rather as architects of our own better futures, and to do so even in the face of real obstacles.”

“However—and this is key—no human being acts alone. Agency is individually practiced, yet socially empowered.”

Continue reading “Agency” →
andreweverett360 Art, Book Review

The Art of Responsive Drawing


The Art of Responsive Drawing
by Nathan Goldstein (1927-2013)

I was prompted to read this book after a discussion with an art professor about what makes a work of art compelling. I commented that spontaneous gesture drawings can capture an intangible quality—energy, attitude, spirit—that is often lost in more technically resolved drawings and paintings. How does an artist preserve the initial spark of interest in a more complete work?

Nathan Goldstein writes about the expressive character of a drawing—that is to say, its psychological appeal—grounded by the fundamentals of representational drawing: gesture, shape, line, value, perspective and foreshortening, volume, color, and composition.

“The best drawings always disclose a blend of facts and feelings, and to displace intuition and empathy with a dry intellectual examination of a subject’s structural condition upsets the necessary and delicate balance between discipline and indulgence that gives master drawings their individual character and spirit.”

Continue reading “The Art of Responsive Drawing” →
andreweverett360 Book Review, Crime & Law Enforcement

Back from the Brink: Inside the NYPD and New York City’s Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop


Back from the Brink: Inside the NYPD and New York City’s Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop
by Peter Moskos

I have previously read Commissioner Bratton’s memoir Turnaround on the dramatic reduction in crime during the 1990s in New York City. Back from the Brink features many more perspectives on the subject. Criminal justice professor Peter Moskos interviewed 50 people at various levels of law enforcement and beyond. Besides these primary sources, the author’s extensive research includes a nine-page bibliography of secondary sources.

This book makes it evident that while superior management of the police department played a central role in crime reduction, this did not happen in a vacuum. There was support from politicians, prosecutors, the Bryant Park and Times Square business improvement districts, the leadership of Port Authority bus terminal, and FBI/NYPD task forces—all working toward a common goal making the city safer.

Continue reading “Back from the Brink: Inside the NYPD and New York City’s Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop” →
andreweverett360 Book Review, Management

The Shaping of an Effective Leader


The Shaping of an Effective Leader: Eight Formative Principles of Leadership
by Gayle D. Beebe

Westmont College president Gayle Beebe presents his eight principles of effective leadership and weaves in the wisdom of Peter Drucker, under whom he studied. The eight principles are character, competence, chemistry, culture, compatibility, convictions, connections, and commitment.

“Character is the foundation of all leadership responsibilities for all our life.” However, “without threshold competencies, even the most well-meaning individual can do real harm.”

Continue reading “The Shaping of an Effective Leader” →