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The Smartest 401k Book You'll Ever Read: Maximize Your Retirement Savings...the Smart Way! |  | Author: Daniel R. Solin
Publisher: Perigee Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy Used: $1.45
as of 3/16/2010 15:06 UTC details
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Seller: snowlionbooks
Rating:  18 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 0399534520
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.0240145
EAN: 9780399534522
Publication Date: June 24, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780399534522 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
The guide readers need to retire richerfrom the international bestselling author of The Smartest Investment Book Youll Ever Read.
In this New York Times bestselling guide, author Daniel R. Solin takes issue with the commonly held belief that participating in defined contribution retirement plans is a no-brainer because of the employer match.
While providing readers with comprehensive, accessible information on the most common deferred compensation plans, annuities, and other retirement-based investments, he shows the 70 million participants currently in those plans how to create the best portfolio with often limited options.
In his straight-forward, no-nonsense style, Solin offers the new rules for investing for retirement and shows readers how to quickly and simply determine their own needs, get control of their assets, avoid scams and sucker bets, discover untapped resources at retirement, and eventually get income out of tax deferred plansthe smart way.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
 Come alive at 65 (no, this isn't a political book) January 14, 2010
Samuel Chell (Kenosha,, WI United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Even though I thought I had become somewhat of an amateur expert on the stock market, I confess that I didn't know the difference between a 401K and a 403K, wasn't sure if the retirement fund I'd amassed was good only until I died, had little to no notion of the tax consequences of activating an annuity of some sort. It seemed a lot easier to save for retirement than to confront that stage of life and to begin spending down the money I had so cleverly managed to collect (like everybody else, losing a lot of it in 2008 but, thankfully, not 50%).
If you're in a similar state, or even if you're younger and smarter than I am, this could still be a handy, timely little book. It has reader-friendly prose, the chapters are concise and clear, and the price (especially Amazon's currently displayed price, representing a 70% reduction from list) is not the least of its charms. Were the price higher, I might withhold a star, but at its present single-digit figure the book exemplifies the cost-cutting approach that it espouses. Still, the reader should be forewarned that much of the book is devoted to common financial definitions--T-Bills (of varying duration), CDs, stocks--with the long-term effects of "slightly" smaller or greater interest rates producing eye-opening results. Still, "Bogleheads" are likely to find the information in this book repetitious and all too familiar.
The author does make some judgements and criticisms of retirement plans (or scams) that he finds non-profitable, ill-advised, or highly questionable. Why that should provoke charges from some reviewers that he's too "political" or (horrors!) even "liberal," I have no idea. Apparently these critics know things about the author that are not apparent from reading the book, which strikes me as mainstream, practical, commonsensical wisdom applicable to all genders, religions, classes, ethnicities, and even political parties. If the author has "opinions," so much the better I say.
More than likely, it's the finance industry that would rather have you disregard the advice of this book, by now becoming causing savvy investors to forego the pricey services of financial planners. The author simply encourages readers to follow the example of John Bogle at Vanguard funds, who eschews expensive, actively-managed funds in favor of index funds. If, as the author's figures show, even the legendary Bill Miller cannot match the benchmarks, the average investor is wasting his time and money paying other people to lose it for him. Now is the time to follow the statistics and cold truth rather than gut-feelings that tell everyone they can, or somehow deserve to, "beat the markets." It simply makes more sense to pay expense ratios of .3% to passively-managed funds 3% of many actively managed funds: more than likely, you, not your financial planner, will be the winner after 40 years. (It's amazing how Cramer manages to crow away an hour each night without either: 1. talking about options, puts, derivatives, etc.; or 2. warning against the high sales and expense fees of many brokers and mutual funds. Rather than education, he entertains, merely feeding into the public's naivete about their ability to somehow defeat the system, which is an "efficient" market where all known information and variables are in place well before the news gets to the individual investor.
As I said, the book has some style, and the author indeed does have a "voice." If you find something to disagree with, do so. But chances are that instead you'll find this a retirement book that holds your interest better than many of the other top sellers, managing to be provocative, engaging, and extremely informative at the same time--but a whole lot calmer than some of the shows on CNBC. (If that's what it takes to get young people to save for retirement, good; but I can think of many more productive uses of time than swearing allegiance to either the over-the-top manic eruptions of Cramer or the glib, reassuring proclamations of Kudlow that capitalism and the American way are beyond reproach, and failure.)
Warren Buffett may think much the same as the aforementioned pair, but he too can be wrong, or at least misleading, concerning the modern individual investor's degree of power. The difference is that, right or wrong, he doesn't feel compelled to expend hours covering his back, and he quickly admits his mistakes. Within the game called capitalism, he plays it the old-fashioned way and makes it sound feasible and simple. And he remains always a gentleman, a nice guy, and a cherry Coke fan.
 Advice gets lost in Huffington Post liberalism May 14, 2009
James Wiehoff
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
I bought this book based on an interesting table of contents. Unfortunately, the author who is a frequent blogger on Huffington Post, spends too much print on liberal ideology rather than investment advice. In his world, all corporations are greedy, all fund managers are incompetent, and most investors too dim-witted to do more than pick index funds. Had I followed his advice, I would have had even greater losses in my 401k than I did this past fall. Fortunately, the managed funds I am in outperformed the S&P on the way down and are outperforming on the way back up. If you are a reasonably well informed investor or if you are tired of the liberal view of the world, feel free to pass on this book.
Excellent Book January 2, 2009
Josh Itzoe
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Great information if you want to make the most of your 401(k) plan.
Joshua P. Itzoe, Author of Fixing the 401(k): What Fiduciaries Must Know (And Do) to Help Employees Retire Successfully
Educate yourself December 3, 2008
D Cosgrove (Marysville, CA USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Great book. I wish I would have had this information 20 yrs ago. Well written and well organized. Follow the advice, and you'll do better in the long run. I'm giving it to my working kids to read.
Short and educational for 401K investors October 18, 2008
Dale C. Maley (Fairbury, IL United States)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed Solin's little Smartest Investment book, so I decided to check out his 401K book also.
Solin is a DFA advisor so he promotes DFA index funds. He cites some papers which show that investing in DFA funds gives higher returns than using Vanguard Index funds. He forgets to mention that DFA advisors usually charge a 1% ER, so the return of DFA funds must be incrementally higher by 1% over the return of Vanguard index funds invested by the do-it-yourselfer.
Solin correctly rails that 403B's are terrible investment plans for teachers. He cites the case where the NEA was sued for collecting $50M in fees from investment providers.
Solin also points out that the Supreme Court said it was ok for Congress to retroactively change the tax laws for 10 years! This could be the justification Congress needs to begin taxing your IRA's, 401K's, and Roth IRA's not only on the current date, but 10 years retroactively! Very interesting food for thought.
Solin also correctly advocates that 401K funds should have to divulge actual expenses incurred versus hiding them so the investor can't find them.
One thing that Solin did not provide was a rule of thumb for deciding whether to invest in a high cost 401K investment or use a low cost taxable investment. I have seen some rules-of-thumb saying that if the 401K investment has total expenses over about 2% ER, then skip the 401K and go to a low cost taxable investment in index mutual funds.
Other than recommending DFA funds over Vanguard funds, I don't disagree with any of the 401K advice Solin gives in his book. If a DFA advisor with the 1% fee is what you need to control your behavioral finance tendencies to sell low and buy high.......then the 1% fee is probably worth it.
All in all, a very educational and short read for 401K investors.
In this age of full disclosure, it can be noted that I am the author and publisher of the book INDEX MUTUAL FUNDS: HOW TO SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE AND BEAT THE PROS. This book is an introduction to the concept of index funds is and is sold on Amazon. I am also a contributing author to the book THE BOGLEHEADS GUIDE TO RETIREMENT PLANNING available from Amazon with an estimated release date of October 2009. I have also written 21 short stories on investing which are also available on Amazon.
If you want practical ideas on long term passive investing, read some of the books below:
The Richest Man in Babylon
Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor
The Millionaire Next Door
The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition
The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
Wealth: Grow It, Protect It, Spend It, and Share It
Retirement Income Redesigned: Master Plans for Distribution: An Adviser's Guide for Funding Boomers' Best Years
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
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