Gold Speaks

Review by R. Turner:
Mike has made a compelling case that sooner, rather than later, the US Dollar is going to tank and everyone will be running to gold and silver to protect their wealth. The good news is that NOW is the time to get in on both silver and gold- before the HERD of people start rushing in. Mike states that this opportunity coming could be the best investment in history.

The book starts off with the history of other empires that have used a fiat currency and how they have failed 100% of the time. The United States has been on this path since Aug, 1971 when President Nixon took us off the gold standard. There are a lot of interesting facts in this book but not too many to bore the reader. He explains that gold and silver will revalue themselves periodically in relation to the amount of paper currency printed. For example, the M3 money supply (total printed money in circulation) was ~.7 billion in January, 1980 when gold hit 0 an ounce. Today, the M3 is estimated at trillion, a 7.7 times increase in the amount of currency. With that said, gold, when it adjusts, should be ,118.00 an ounce…

Mike goes into today’s current economic climate, then predictions for “tomorrow”. He concludes with the final section “How to Invest in Precious Metals”.

I recommend this book if you are unsure about silver and gold relating to investing. There’s so much documentation and research behind it.

I’ve never read an investment book with this much passion put into it!!!

Review by Jeremy Isaac:
If you don’t know why gold and silver are a good investment “Guide to Investing in Gold and Silver” will tell you why they are. Simple to read full of facts about money and currency and history of money and currency. It breaks down complicated economics into fun easy reading. This book gives you the do’s and don’ts of investing in precious metals and a clear understanding of why now is the time to invest in gold and silver. If you want to protect your wealth from inflation or build your wealth through gold and silver this book is a must read. A great addition to the Rich Dad library of books!

Review by James R. Holland:
Like most people, I had no idea how important railroads were to the history of the world. This over-all story of the contributions made by the Iron Horse to civilization and the industrial revolution is fascinating even to somebody like myself who really doesn’t know much about trains, but who has always loved traveling on them. I prefer them to travel by automobile or airliners. From this book, it appears that I’m not alone in that love of train travel and it’s wonderful to know that railroads are making a big comeback all over the planet. Railroads are still the least expensive way to move freight and raw materials and it appears that they in the process of greatly expanding their role in the economy. This is a very good read and not just for train enthusiasts. The text is accompanied by lots of helpful maps and 16 pages of really interesting photographs both in color and black and white.

Review by Mike Morgan:
The book starts with a fly-on-the-wall description of big, offsite meeting in Boca Raton for J.P. Morgan employees. There they made plans to ensure that J.P. Morgan led the industry in credit derivatives. This story of the bravado of young party animals becomes the backdrop for how we got into this mess. These recently minted and overconfident traders and analysts risk takers, lead a headlong charge into a poorly understood market innovation. After that, Tett describes in detail the array of models, players and events that lead to the financial crisis and weaves them all together to explain the events like no other author yet has done.

Although the description of events are detailed, Tett leaves out explanations of how basic psychology and particular modeling errors contributed to the problem – such as the researched described in Hubbard’s The Failure of Risk Management: Why It’s Broken and How to Fix It (although Hubbard is talking about risk management in a broader sense than financial risks alone, I still recommend both books for this topic). But Tett is also more pragmatic and specific than Taleb’s The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable and makes more logically supported conclusions than Posner’s A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ’08 and the Descent into Depression.

Tett seems to cover just about every aspect of the recent crisis that an author can cover without getting into specific mathematical modeling errors (Hubbard argues this is a critical contributor but it would be hard to elaborate without alienating much of the audience). She covers AIG, Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae, the credit rating agencies and the Basel II accords. She mentions Gaussian copula model, Goldman Sachs and the actions of Alan Greenspan. The details of Structured Investment Vehicles (SIV) and Value at Risk are included along with recent events like the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

I do not believe there is another single book that has this breadth of coverage combined with a logical picture of how they formed an avalanche of connected events. As of now, this is the single most important book on the topic, period.

Review by S. Yang:
Having read this book over 3 days (interrupted only by work, playtime with my two toddlers, and sleep), I highly recommend it to anyone who cares about our financial system (be it that you work in finance, or hate financiers that brought us the ruins – just bear in mind they were not the only ones to blame, throw in the regulators, lenders, and borrowers who enjoyed the party, and politicians who took credit for the housing boom). The book is well-written, focused, and surprisingly a page-turner that you don’t want to put down once you start reading it.

Having fought the battles in the trenches over the past two years during the ongoing financial crisis, I have a deep appreciation for what Gillian Tett has accomplished in this book. It provides a comprehensive view of one corner of the financial markets – the one that caused so much of the wreckage over the past two years. While it will be a daunting task for any single writer to document the crisis we are still going through (given the multiple contributing factors/actors to this crisis), the author has done a great job producing a contemporary record on the credit derivatives market and its role in fueling the housing bubble leading up to the crisis.

Obviously, the author deliberately chose to exclude some critical episodes of the credit crisis (such as the SocGen trading scandal, the resulting ill-timed massive cut in Fed funds rate leading to the oil shock of 2008 that partially contributed to the inflation scare and added shock to the economy). She also chose to withhold judgment on policy responses during the early stage of the crisis and exclude the various “local” factors contributing to the subprime housing boom (think Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke claiming the subprime crisis “being contained”, think Barney Frank and his role in shielding Fannie and Freddie from proper oversight, think Clinton and Bush administrations’ claim that homeownership was at “historical highs”). She may be right to do so as inclusion of these topics will obfuscate the focus on credit derivatives. An educated reader will want to keep in mind such background information as part of the mosaic of the financial crisis.

Without a full understanding of all the factors contributing to the crisis we find ourselves in, it would be tempting to find solutions that seem to eliminate the excesses of the past years only to sow the seeds for future problems. So-called “always fighting the last war”. A simplistic solution to the credit derivatives abuse would be to ban it. A simplistic solution to the failed U.S. auto industry would be to subsidize it with taxpayer funds. A simplistic solution to the housing problem would be to mitigate mortgage foreclosures through taxpayer subsidies (as if everybody who bought a home deserves to live in that home or be a homeowners in the first place).

Gillian Tett was nominated as British Business Journalist of the Year not for this book, but her regular writings in the Financial Times. Her writings in the FT are insightful and timely. This book only reinforces her reputation as one of the best journalists in the field.

On a separate note not related to the book but the book reviews found on Amazon, I find it hard to believe that any review by people who haven’t actually read the book is entertained on this site. Simply saying that “I heard this was a good book and I heard the author interviewed” is no qualification for one to write a book review. There is no prize to win from writing the first review, especially when it’s only based on hear-say. Anyone who does that is doing the author and intended readers a great disservice, no matter how flattering the review is. Amazon should impose some minimal standard on such postings.

Review by S. Springer:
“The New Gold Standard” is a thorough, well organized book by consultant Joseph Michelli officially offered courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton/Marriott ownership. “The New Gold Standard” focuses on the Ritz-Carlton itself: issues of internal change and consistency since the recent takeover by Marriott from the original team. Quite an excellent case study, and probably a defining book in both the hotel management and company biography genres since its publication a few years ago. There is also information here on the turn of the century and before with Cesar Ritz, the way the team banded together during Katrina, how lateral service (an important concept) works in banquet service, and more. Five star rating well deserved for this predominantly (but not entirely) hotel centered reference work.

**Update, 2/12/10:** A new, related book has now been released by a group of Ritz-Carlton insiders and customer service systems designers on how to apply Ritz-Carlton methodology to any business at nearly any price point. Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization. It teaches the Ritz-Carlton methodology initially in a hotel context but quickly moves on to its main focus: showing you how to apply Ritz-Carlton-style techniques to your own business, regardless of industry.

This for me is an appealing and practical approach as it is not limited to the hotel industry, is a wry and witty read, and has a decidedly entrepreneurial outlook. The authors of the new volume are Leonardo Inghilleri (the creator of the Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center/Training Institute); Micah Solomon (entrepreneur/customer systems developer); and the legendary Horst Schulze (Schulze, the Founding President of the Ritz-Carlton, is the man you generally hear credited with inventing the modern-day Ritz-Carlton methodologies).

Review by Robert Morris:

As a frequent guest of Ritz-Carlton throughout much of my life, I can personally attest to the validity of its reputation for superior guest service in all respects. In fact, such service is consistently of such a high quality that guests take it for granted. Founder César Ritz observed long ago that “people like to be served, but invisibly.” I agree while presuming to suggest that the “Ritz-Carlton experience” becomes visible whenever I stay elsewhere.

What we have in this volume is a rigorous and comprehensive examination of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company that, to the best of my knowledge, has not previously been provided. Joseph Michelli seems to have had almost unlimited access to its senior corporate executives, hotel managers and staff members (“the heart of the house”), and of special interest to me, its Leadership Center headed by Diana Oreck, vice president of global learning. Michelli observes that “From my perspective, the Ritz-Carlton [customer] experience is reflected in leadership committed to unrelenting quality, respect for all of the company’s staff encounters, and oddly enough, also a great spirit of candor.” Individual initiative is not only encouraged but indeed expected at all levels and in all areas in fulfillment of The Motto, “Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen.”

As I read this book, I was reminded of what retired CEO Herb Kelleher says when anyone asks him to explain Southwest Airlines’ competitive advantage: “The intangibles are far more important than the tangibles in the competitive world because, obviously, you can replicate the tangibles. You can get the same airplane. You can get the same ticket counters. You can get the same computers. But the hardest thing for a competitor to match is your culture and the spirit of your people and their focus on customer service because that isn’t something you can do overnight and it isn’t something you can do without a great deal of attention every day in a thousand different ways. That is why I say that our employees are our competitive protection.” He could have just as easily been explaining Ritz-Carlton’s advantage in another highly competitive industry in which others also have excellent locations, superb facilities, state-of-the-art technologies, haute cuisine, etc.

The framework of Michelli’s narrative is based on Ritz-Carlton’s five principles that any organization (regardless of its size or nature) can establish and then sustain, creating a “gold standard” of its own: define core values and refine by leveraging continuous improvement; empower people with authority as well as responsibility through trust in their ability and eagerness to live The Motto; “It’s not about you” (i.e. focus on serving associates as well as guests); deliver WOW! (i.e. a “thrilling customer interaction,” especially when problems develop unexpectedly, as they i vitably do); and “leave a lasting footprint,” an enduring legacy of great service for generations to come. Michelli explains with meticulous care how any other organization can to create its own “gold standard.” Consider this statement by Ed Staros, co-founder of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company:

“We have not created the ultimate experience. It’s still out there. It’s that magic carrot we keep trying to approach. If you can come to work every single day focusing on how much better you can be today than you were yesterday, you will draw nearer to that carrot. You might never touch it, but you’ll get one step closer.”

Throughout the Ritz-Carlton organization, top to bottom, perfect service is a never-ending journey of continuous improvement rather than an ultimate destination. Michelli inserts dozens of real-world incidents throughout his narrative that illustrate that this journey proceeds one guest at a time.

For example, because members of the Ritz-Carlton staff are fully empowered, the Ladies and Gentlemen in Dearborn learned that a 13-year old champion figure skater, Natalie Salazar, had been diagnosed with osteosarcoma and her chemotherapy treatments proved unsuccessful. She was told by her doctors that she was going to die. Her biggest regret was that she would never be able to go to her high school prom. Technically, she was not a guest. However, according Laura Guitierrez, area director human resources, here’s what happened. “We hosted Natalie’s Prom in our ballroom, and it was attended by 18 classmates and 7 of her championship ice skating team members. Our audiovisual technician was the disc jockey, our IT technician was the photographer, our banquet director provided security, and everyone pitched in to make this an extras special event.” Prince Charming guided her down the red carpet to her favorite song, “Sweet Escapes,” and the room was fully decorated with photos of Natalie and her classmates from kindergarten to eighth grade. She danced every dance and ate her favorite foods. She died on September 20, 2007. The seamstress at Ritz-Carlton who made her prom dress also made the dress in which she was buried later. Michelli suggests that “While many other companies support members of their community, the Ritz-Carlton culture of service routinely delivers caring such as that provided to Natalie’s family.” And this is but one of several dozen real-world situations that Michelli cites, not an isolated incident or rare example.

Fortunately, thanks to Joseph Michelli’s exceptionally informative as well as eloquent book, other organizations can now learn about the unique culture of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and then apply (with appropriate modification) the core principles that continue to serve as that culture’s foundation. And thanks to the Leadership Center, their leaders can gain a broader and deeper understanding of how service excellence and the quality of their own commitment to it can achieve a substantial ROI, not only in terms of dollars but also in terms of the lives that are enriched within their own organization as well as the lives of those whom they are privileged to serve.

Review by Robert D. Steele:
I have read and praised Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, The Ecology of Commerce and Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things here at Amazon, and I mention them to emphasize that this book, “Green to Gold,” is the hands-down no-contest best primer for top management. The others are intellectual presentations. This is a business oriented primer with lots of facts, lists, and resources.

It is a pro-business book that focuses on opportunities. It is extremely well-organized, with three parts, twelve chapters, and three appendices including a superb list of active web sites relevant to doing well by doing good.

This book is based on hundreds of interviews over four years, and every aspect of it is professional presented, including boxes with “10 second overviews” interspersed throughout.

The authors are compellingly pointed in their discussion of how the environment, and attendant regulations and attendant risks of catastrophic costs, is no longer a fringe issue. Mistakes in cadmium content of connecting cables can cost hundreds of millions.

The authors excel at discussing the new pressures from natural limits that are now visible (changes that used to take 10,000 years now take 3–see my reviews on Ecological Economics, the Republican War on Science, the varied books on Climate Change, etc) and the fact that there is a growing range of stake-holders who are altering the balance of power.

The authors are clear in noting that environmental compliance and wisdom is neither easy nor cheap, but they are equally detailed in documenting that most investments to reduce environmental costs are recouped within 12-18 months. In one cited example, 3M saves billion in the first year alone on pollution reduction, and over the course of a decade, was able to reduce its pollution by 90%.

On page 33 they list the top 10 environmental issues and I like this list very much as an expansion on “Environmental Degradation” which is the over-all threat that the High Level Threat Panel of the United Nations ranked as third out of ten, to Poverty and Infectious Disease. They are:

01 Climate Change

02 Energy

03 Water

04 Biodiversity and Land Use

05 Chemicals, Toxics, and Heavy Metals

06 Air Pollution

07 Waste Management

08 Ozone Layer Depletion

09 Oceans and Fisheries

10 Deforestation

The authors do a superb job in summarizing each of these in several pages perfectly suited to the busy manager. For those desiring more in-depth looks, see my many reviews across the board, including Priority One: Together We Can Beat Global Warming; various books on energy, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource; Pandora’s Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy, Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America’s Ocean Wilderness; and The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink.

The bottom line for the first part of the book: extremes can no longer be dampened down; and we now recognize the eco-system value of the wetlands that we have paid the Army Corps of Engineers to eradicate for decades.

The authors devised a schema for businesses to develop an understanding and then a strategy for reducing their environmental footprint. The authors do extremely well with their organized examination of Aspects, Upstream, Downstream, Issues, and Opportunities (AUDIO), and anyone looking at the book in a store can go directly to pages 62-63. This is an operational management handbook.

There is an excellent overview of the many new stake-holders (or significantly matured stake-holders including NGOs, religions, and local citizens. Business can no longer bribe government–government cannot “deliver” the way it used to (see my review of The Global Class War: How America’s Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back for a sense of how corruption of other elites by our elites has accelerated all the ills of the world).

Regulations, according to these authors, should be seen as vital incentives and parameters for both reducing costs and gaining trust.

Forty global banks, and many insurance companies, now demand proper examination of ecological costs as a condition for funding or coverage.

The authors remind me of General Tony Zinni, whose books I have reviewed, in their emphasis on relationships developed over time. They urge a strong focus on relationships NOW, across the board, as a means of building a “trust bank” as well as a deeper understanding. Blocks that used to be labels “not our problem” or “not legally liable” are now labeled “IMPORTANT TO US.”

In the middle of the book they explore the digital information advantages that can accrue to those who get out of their closed loops and increase innovation. In one instance, simply adding load to trucks reduced fuel consumption and emissions considerably.

The middle of the book contains 8 detailed “Green to Gold” plays, and I won’t spoil it by listing them. A box in this section says “Truth Matters” and I applaud silently.

The authors stress that mind-set, not just a check-book, is required to get this right. Five basic rules are 1) See the forest; 2) Start at the top; 3) No is not an option; 4) Feelings are facts; and 5) Do the right thing, morality DOES pay.

Pages 168-169 are sheer brilliance, and illustrate why the value chain must be completely integrated into the environmental strategy of each element of that value chain and most especially the largest and most powerful of the elements, which must carefully consider and accept responsibility for demanding improvements by the smallest elements.

Eight lessons of partnering, 13 problems and their solutions, and a final chapter of very specific actions that managers can take, conclude the book.

My final note on this book: a pleasure to read, easy to read, so well done I got through it in half the time characteristic of denser or less well designed books. This is first rate stuff!

Review by Alan Lekan:
This is one of the better books on the New Green Wave of sustainability sweeping across the business world (2006). It is written by two Yale profs who take a much more objective view of the successess – and failures – of companies who have launched into major sustainability initiatives. As such, it is a more credible assessment of the real value of sustainable business practices. It is well written with many case examples, factoids and stimulating discussion – as well as many “tools” for any company to size up their path ahead.

Most books on the topic leave you with the idea that all is rosey and money when “doing the right thing” and developing more sustainable business practices. Not so here – you will find many examples of what HASN’T worked out according to expectations. Case-in-point Interface Floor Covering, a company whose case is in about every book on sustainability. Well, in their pursuit to reinvent the way carpeting is made and sold (many excellent eco-accomplishments), they totally musjudged the marketplace and assumed corporate customers would be happy to switch from buying carpeting (out of annual capital budget) to leasing it (out of monthly operating budgets). They ignored one of the great rules of “Green Marketing”: Don’t expect the customer to change behaviour to make green choices. So, this book brings these valuable lessons for all to learn and avoid repeating.

This is a great book for VP, CEO, COO levels as it highlights the business case in a clear and compelling way and shows how, really, the business case for sustainability has been largely proven. Green to Gold is a quality, believable business book that will help especially managerial staff understand this topic in biz terms most known to them. It also gives some excellent but succict summaries of the top environmental problems that have led to unsustainable activity and how to savvily engage various stakeholders from Greenpeace to shareholder or employees asking tough questions.

Also highly recommended is “A Necessary Revolution: How Organizations are Collaborating to Create a Sustainable World” by MIT’s Peter Senge (2008).

Review by William Marshall:
The book reminded me in some ways of the One Minute Manager books. Rather than simply laying out the content in a text book format or a series of short anecdotes, it’s written as a novel. What I love about this style of teaching is that it is both educational and entertaining. Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. Stories are generally easier for people to remember than mere facts.

In this story, a man named Greg is going through personal adversity in his business and his personal life. Greg meets a super-successful businessman, Jonathon Buckland. During his personal journey, he meets with a series of real life successful men and women who share their secrets of success–particularly the value of persistence through adversity.

While the story is fictional, most of the people he meets along the way are real people with real lessons that they have learned from their own experiences. This helps bring the ideas and lessons they share out of the “ivory tower” of theory and into the real world of everyday men and women.

I liked the way the main character has very real and contemporary problems, but learns how to overcome them with positive persistence and a commitment to self-improvement. As a big fan of Napoleon Hill, I loved the way Hill’s teachings are woven into the story. While Greg receives a helping hand from his friends, it’s clear that the reason they are helping him is because the gradual improvement in his own attitude and a sincere desire to help improve the lives of other people.

I believe that a great book is worth more than it’s weight in gold. That is because wisdom and relationships are more valuable than money. Wise thought is the “stuff” that is used to create wealth and success. One of the points made in the book is that “you’re the same today as you will be in five years except for two things: the people you meet and the books you read.”

I think that with the adversity that many people are experiencing today, the message from “Three Feet From Gold” is especially timely. Keep moving forward. Keep growing and learning. Serve others with sincerity. Consistently and persistently apply the proven, timeless principles of success and you can achieve your goals.

Since you’re reading this review, you are clearly thinking about getting this book. Go ahead, buy it, read it, study it. You won’t be disappointed.

Review by Frank Crerie:
This book gives the personal success secrets of how a number of people have achieved success. It’s not written like a text book. It’s not lecturing you. It’s telling you in story form how to succeed. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking the ability to persevere. Having lived 89 years, I’ve seen in a lifetime how perseverance and determination pays off. I think so highly of this book that I bought 2 copies; 1 for each of my grandchildren.

F Crerie (Phoenix)