Michael Edesess

Takes a close-up look at questionable investment industry practices that endanger the financial well-being of small investors and offers helpful suggestions on how to cut through the investment hype to develop a simple, sound plan designed to help everyday investors maximize their long-term financial security.

What Your Financial Advisor Doesn't Want You to Know

The Big Investment Lie

An insider's account of how consumers are scammed by the investment advice industry, and how to avoid throwing your money away. The investment advice and management industry is built on fraud: the idea that professional advisors can predictably and consistently help you get a better rate of return on your investments. The industry sells us on this lie using manipulative tactics that are studied, refined, Wall Street-minted, Madison Avenue-packaged—and extraordinarily effective. Here, Michael Edesess exposes the shocking truth that, in fact, behind the success of nearly every prosperous investment professional lies not the ability to procure higher rates of return on investment for his or her clients but the ability to procure astoundingly high fees from those clients and nothing more. Through fascinating and sometimes humorous anecdotes and straightforward explanations of investment theory and scientific evidence, Edesess reveals just how badly investors are being scammed by The Big Investment Lie. He examines how the master salespeople that make up the industry sell their cleverly concocted distortions of truth—to the tune of $200 billion a year—to unsuspecting consumers who swallow them hook, line, and sinker. He then shines a spotlight on the true cost of the industry's useless advice, showing that a prudent independent investor, following a conservative strategy, can reap anywhere from forty percent to over one hundred percent more than an investor who falls for The Big Investment Lie. Detailing the Ten New Commandments for Smart Investing—practical advice for how, where, and when to invest your money to maximize wealth— The Big Investment Lie provides the guidance you need to secure your financial future without throwing your hard-earned money away on the fraudulent investment advice industry.

John Thornton

Frank Krawiec

This study assesses the applicability of learning and experience curves for predicting future costs of solar technologies, and the major test case is the production economics of heliostats. Alternative methods for estimating cost reductions in systems manufacture are discussed, and procedures for using learning and experience curves to predict costs are outlined. Because adequate production data often do not exist, production histories of analogous products/processes are analyzed and learning and aggregated cost curves for these surrogates estimated. If the surrogate learning curves apply, they can be used to estimate solar technology costs. The steps involved in generating these cost estimates are given. Second-generation glass-steel and inflated-bubble heliostat design concepts, developed by MDAC and GE, respectively, are described; a costing scenario for 25,000 units/yr is detailed; surrogates for cost analysis are chosen; learning and aggregate cost curves are estimated; and aggregate cost curves for the GE and MDAC designs are estimated. However, an approach that combines a neoclassical production function with a learning-by-doing hypothesis is needed to yield a cost relation compatible with the historical learning curve and the traditional cost function of economic theory.

An Investigation of Learning and Experience Curves

George Peacock

Carol Fabbri

Kwok L. Tsui

Don’t believe the hype: Tips from financial professionals on recognizing and avoiding overpriced, overcomplicated, and overly risky investments. What if the most effective investment portfolio was also the easiest to manage and the least expensive? As the authors of this clear, practical, and enlightening book—part financial guide, part exposé—prove, there are just three simple rules you need to follow and only a few, very inexpensive investment products that are necessary for an ideal portfolio. The authors deftly bust investing’s myths—what they call investing’s Seven Deadly Temptations—and dispense with all the complicated, confusing, and self-serving advice of the Wall Street wolves. By embracing commonsense solutions and rejecting investments that seem enticing but are overpriced, needlessly complex, and risky, you’ll put not only yourself in a stronger position, but the entire economy as well

Why Everything You've Heard About Investing Is Wrong—and What to Do Instead

The 3 Simple Rules of Investing

No professional investing advice is good advice. This hard-hitting book proves it with indisputable facts drawn from scientific research and the author's own thirty-five years of experience in the investment industry. Michael Edesess exposes “The Big Investment Lie”: that an investor will gain by hiring professional advisors to beat the market. He proves that no professional investment advisor or manager has ever consistently and predictably beat market averages, not even Warren Buffett. While The Big Investment Lie allows an entire industry to prosper lavishly, investors invariably lose when they hire professional help. Once you know the truth, you'll want to adopt Edesess's Ten New Commandments for Smart Investing, simple rules you can follow to invest, get a profitable return, and avoid squandering any more of your hard-earned dollars on bogus expertise.

Managing your money can be stressful. And confusing and complicated advice from the financial industry just makes it harder. But as the authors of this clear, practical, and enlightening book-part financial guide, part exposé-prove, there are just three simple rules you need to follow and only a few investment products that are necessary for an ideal portfolio. That's it. And the authors dispense with all that "expert" advice by deftly debunking what they call investing's Seven Deadly Temptations. By embracing commonsense solutions and rejecting investments that seem enticing but are needle.

Michael Edesess

Books

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