The authors claim that just because average real return (after inflation) on the stock market has averaged 7% this does not mean you can count on this in the future. Let's take the most pessimistic scenario of long term economic downturn leading to the next few decades of extremely poor return on stocks - though again this is without precedent in our history let's assume the possibility all the same.

Public companies are nothing more than productive assets - investments in people and equipment - that help create a valuable product (good or service) for cash. The value of a company is determined by its ability to produce cash flows from now out into the future. From these cash flows companies reinvest and grow making stock price appreciate, paying dividends, paying bondholders and paying salaries. Social Security taxes come from these salaries. If there is a long-term economic decline - stagnant or decreasing cash flows - then salaries and accompanying tax revenue will also fall. So if the economy takes a long-term slide downward where will the government get the tax revenues to pay for Social Security?

The authors fail to show how the current social security system will pay out less than 20% of what young participants (those under 40) contribute over their working careers. And this ridiculously low return on contributions (adjusted for inflation) does not even allow those participants to get any "real" return on their investment. Putting money into a passbook savings account will at least return close to the rate of inflation so that over the long haul you'll get back something close to what you put in. The authors fail to show how badly shortchanged the young contributors are by the current system. For this reason I don't recommend anyone under 40 to bother reading this book if they want to get the truth on social security.

Social Security PRIVATEERS tell us that in 2029.or 2032...now 2050 (notice that the date has to be constantly readjusted BACK every year) it is "calculated" by a Government advisory commission that Social Security won't have enough income to cover more than 75 percent of the benefits it must pay to aging baby boomers.

But the authors point out, the specificity is illusory, all lever-pulling and smoke-blowing from the Wizard of Oz. The projections aren't economic but actuarial extrapolations based on assumptions that the all the actuaries know are fictitious at best. Tweak them ever so slightly--lift real wages by a quarter- or half-percent per annum, or immigration by a little--and the so-called "crisis" disappears entirely. But according to the apparat-niks at the CATO Institute and the attack dogs at the OUT-Fox-ed Network--you might think the numbers have come down from Moses. They haven't. Social Security isn't in trouble and the criticisms of it are not logical as the authors of "The Phony Crisis" point out.

First of all, Social Security is an INSURANCE System, not an "investment". When you factor in the cost of buying disability and survivor insurance and "invest the difference"...the performance "advantage" of equity markets gets razor-thin at best. It turns out that Social Security yields the same as nice safe government bonds, which any intelligent investor knows should form the basis of an investment portfolio.

Secondly, the so-called performance advantage of the markets has a whole lot of IFs that the PRIVATEERS conveniently fail to mention.

Forget hyper-collapse 1929-style for the moment. Since the Crash of October 1987, U.S. markets have been on a nonstop charge; but if you'd gone into the same markets in 1970, you were worse off by 1980--not to mention where you'd be today if you'd bet on Japan in the mid-eighties or Southeast Asia's "sure thing" markets a couple of years ago. Will you do all right in the long term, as brokers and economists insist? Well, probably yes--but then as Keynes observed..."in the long run, we're all dead."

Here's where the income and wealth distribution effects of privatization turn very ugly. For millions of Americans--who bet on Kaypro instead of Microsoft (oops), Pan Am instead of American (sorry) or cattle futures without the skill and connections of Hillary Clinton (smile, please)--life at 75 could mean not "golden years" but working for the folks at the golden arches, or even being out on the street. A FACT of life that the young people who invested in the dotcom bubble are learning the hard way.

How many of us realistically will beat the averages? If 120 million workers are turned loose to bet the markets---40 million of whom are marginally literate or numerate--as the privateers recommend---it turns out that most will lose. The mutual fund industry's dirty little secret is that three-fourths of funds under-perform market indexes. Yet such funds have millions of naïve investors in them; in one recent survey, a majority of mutual fund investors couldn't even distinguish between a "load" and a "no-load" fund.

There is another issue, so far undiscussed in the debate. For the first time in nearly thirty years, the federal budget's in balance. But it's in balance because each year the Treasury borrows $80 billion from the Social Security Trust Fund surplus, and "covers" the deficit in the rest of the federal budget. If a big piece of Social Security contributions go into private accounts, the trust fund surplus will disappear and the federal budget will plunge back into deficit. Which federal programs are we supposed to cut to make up for it?

If you count the cost of the so-called "free market reforms" over the past twenty years--to a once-viable savings-and-loan system, to Mexican workers and peasants (who've paid for bailouts not once but twice), to the world's poor as they've worked off the global debt crisis. Think about the lives of Indonesian peasants, or Korean and Thai workers today--all set to pay for the "can't miss" marketization of Southeast Asia, just as Americans have so wonderfully benefited from downsizing, capital-gains reduction and globalization.

The folks that brought you ALL these disasters are the ones telling us that now it's Social Security's turn to face the "free market reform" just because it doesn't meet the ideological test of a handful of right-wing zealots.

Social Security is not a disaster. Benefits are moderately progressive, meaning that the bottom 60 percent of retirees get more back than they paid in. More than 90 percent of us pay into it during our working lives and more than 90 percent of us can count on its benefits when we retire. The minor adjustments that are outlined by the authors are all that is necessary to save Social Security.

This book is used as a MEH textbook for sophomores in my highschool. My friends and i found this book to be very dull and boring. It contains a lot of information but the way it is presented is not in an interesting manner, rather in a dull way. This book has no bold words which makes it difficult for us to read. I believe it was chapter 17 or 18 that the beginning was very interesting but suddenly it became boring. I think history is interesting but the way that this book teaches it to you is very uninteresting. I don't suggest this book for any highschool student. Everyday when we get our history assignment i dread to read this book because it is so boring.

I enjoyed this text during my history class very much because it was so in depth. The hundreds of famous paintings alone make this book worthwhile, but it reads very much like a college text. Don't get me wrong -- I came to love history through taking this class, and the book was a large part of that. You must have a high level of literacy and some previous knowledge of history to read this book very easily. NO DETAILS ARE LEFT OUT!!! The book is fabulous and I would recommend it to any level anyways.

The book had lots of info and was easy to understand. It covered all of the most important aspects of western civilizations. Anyone who complains that it was hard to read is an ... I would consider myself smart but i am by no means a rocket scientist and i found this book easy to read and enjoyable. It provided lots of information about certain interesting aspects of different civilizations cultures that would appeal to anyone who whould sign up for a history course.

The monographs lack any sort of scientific references. A true reference manual should list references so the reader can verify the conclusions made.

I had hoped this book could be my benchmark for herbal information. What I found was a book that was hard to use with little useful information. ... Otherwise, Facts and Comparisions' Review of Natural Products is a better choice.

I have worked with herbs for many decades and have shelves and shelves full of works on Herbs and Healing. The German Commission E Monographs is still an often used Reference that in my oppinion belongs on everyone's shelf who works with Herbs. True, it does not cover all that the herbs are capable of and due to lack of proof, many wonderful herbs are not approved, BUT, and this is most important, whatever you find in this book is scientifically proven and you can believe it. I VERY strongly recomend this book, and the CD as well. Whenever you explore a new herb, or need to know facts, check it out in the Commission E Monographs. Then you have a very good outline from where you can start to work with, and together with other herbals get to know and experiment to arrive at your own conclusion. And that is not to mention the inclusion of interaction with other drugs, side effects, mode of administration, active composition for each monograph and different chapters that cover all that is important. A MUST for every practitioner and professional. A MUST for Everyone involved in healing, period. If you can only buy one book on herbs, I would recomend this one. Herbs are gentle and effective healers as a rule. That does not mean that when handeled and prescribed wrong they can't be fatal and dangerous as well. Due to a long time of suppression, there's much information that is doubtful at best, plain wrong and harmful at worst. So even if it's not always approving old favorites, and not mentioning all properties of all herbs, it is an amazing work. Non Nonsense and you can count on everything it says to be true. Five Stars? No way, but that's the maximum available. I would give it many more if I could. But YOU be the judge. Check it out for yourself in a store if in doubt. But don't let this work pass you without giving it a chance. It is truly a treassure.

This book is poorly written and confusing. There are at least 10 instances where theories are introduced with no explanation, as if prior knowledge is assumed. There are acronyms used with NO explanation and the publisher makes the claim that if the book does not improve your grades they will refund your money. This is a LIE. I've tried, believe me... Or you can try yourself. Do yourself a favor: Go to a good book store and look around, find a book that seems to be written in laymen's terms and purchase it from Amazon.com, but whatever you do, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!

This book is poorly written and confusing. There are at least 10 instances where theories are introduced with no explanation as if prior knowledge is assumed. There are acronyms used with NO explanation and the publisher makes the claim that if the book does not improve your grades they will refund your money. This is a LIE. I've tried believe me... Or you can try yourself. ...

I recommend this book because it is a good book for JAR66 module 4
and parts of 3,5,11&13. It starts with ohms law, explains transistors and amplifiers and ends with all household electronics
such as TV, microwave, fiber optics and many many more.
Amazon should publish the index. Other books for 3 times the price
provide less information.

I would advise to read this book to noone, maybe only to knowledgeable people, who know the real situation and won't be misled by the tricky description of the author. Why? Just to see the real face of Armenian nationalism in its veil of "national democracy".

The problem with ethnic issues is that often the only people that care about them are people of that ethnicity -- therefore, this author is going to be called biased and unbiased by the 2 sides. I found this book an interesting account of how the issue of Karabagh was used by the National Democratic Movement (a loaded term -- basically, the people who were pro-democracy in the end of the USSR who also happened to all be of the ethnicity) in promoting their own goals. I read this book twice in an academic setting and found it to be one of the best on the subject.

The conflict over the Armenian territory of Artsakh, also known as Garapakh (hence the title of the book), has been intractable since the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet few today remember how the conflict originated, how Joseph Stalin's purges and ethnic engineering shaped the region, and how the Mountain Turks (called "Azeris" since WWI), the Armenians, and indeed most of the Soviet Union's subjects were used in the often arbitrary Stalinist decisions. In this mostly objective work, the origins of the conflict are traced in such a way as to explain why feelings in that region of the world are so strong, why the Mountain Turks want Artsakh from the Armenians, and the relation between the Genocide of the innocent Armenians in 1915 by murderous Turkey itself still has ramifications in the present.

TERRIBLE book! I have no respect for the authors. Even in 3rd edition, there is a mistake on about every other page and some of the formulas are even printed wrong! They keep a known error page on the web (bad) but there are many more (even worse).
The book is incredibly difficult to use because there are very few examples and of the few examples many steps are dropped and does not explain clearly where the formulas came from. As for the problems in the book, besides the fact that the answers in the back are often wrong, the authors often require formulas not mentioned in that particular section and sometimes not even in the chapter or the book itself! As for the text of the book, every chapter includes too much chatter on the background of the discovery and not enough words explaining the concepts themselves.
The worst book I have used and several students agree. Physics is hard but these guys make it harder. My advice: get a book from a good publisher with authors from good universities.

This textbook is extremely difficult to follow and doesn't flow very well. I had a difficult time trying to understand the concepts the author was trying to make without having to read it several times.

This is very well written and easy to follow. My required text was from Eisberg/Resnick and I hated it. This book is much better to read from. The problems are not quite as hard, but if you're learning modern physics and have any trouble then read the corresponding chapters or sections from this book and then go back to your required text. It will help make physics fun to learn again.

Which is fair enough. I mean, to get these three classic movie bad guys together, you need to bend a few rules. A damn good idea, but in this case, extremely poorly executed. They should have just left it alone. One star for the monsters, one star for the cover.

Well I can't deny it...i absolutely love the Alien, Predator and Terminator. So when I heard of the crossover that pit all 3 against each other, I was thrilled...until I bought it and read it, that is.

This is probably the most convoluted and bizarre story yet in the Aliens vs. Predator universe. It hardly consists of any of the 3 fighting each other at all...at least not to the extent of which the cover and blurb on the back would have one assume. The story tells of John Connor and the resistance defeating Skynet, only to have Skynet reawakened years later by Terminators that have gone into deep cover, posing as scientists. To assure victory, samples of Alien DNA have been used to construct a new generation of Terminator, which the Predators see as a great threat of war.

If it sounds ridiculous...it is. The story is bizarre and goes in all different directions. And worse yet...it spins off of Alien: Resurrection. That alone makes me not like this comic, aside from the bizarre story and sub-par artwork. The story even has Ripley 'become' a Predator. So...she's human, she's Alien, and now she's Predator. The book just gets worse and worse as you go on.

I suppose if you are a fan of any or all of the characters, like I am, it should pique your interest. But the sloppy and senseless story combined with the elements that made Resurrection such a bad movie, not to mention the lack of attention paid to detail both in artwork and in story, just make this comic unreadable. This is a crossover that had so much potential, and it could have been in so many different, better ways...but it turned out to be nothing more than an attempt to throw 3 popular franchises into one book as a cash-graber. Buy this if you are a collector and want it for your collection, but don't bother reading it. Otherwise just stay away from it completely.

AvPvT is a very interesting plot, but the it gets one star off because the Aliens are only featured in three pages at the most, and they weren't drawn as well as the predators or terminators. How do each of the three races fit in the story? The Terminators are using Alien anatomy to perfect their combat effeciency, and the Predators have come in to stop that. The story follows Ripley, after Alien Resurrection. She is forced to follow Call and her friends to infiltrate a military compound to stop the Alien research that is going on there. The mission goes wrong when they encounter a Terminator/Alien hybrid and a band of predators that kill most of the team and cause havoc, and you figure it all out from there. The story was rushed for a book of this length, and a lot of events happen waaay too quickly, and some events take too long. For instance, one part where the team witnesses a terminator/alien hybrid fight a predator takes 12 pages, while an event where two terminator/alien hybrids single handedly attack and destroy 2 military bases, and wipe out an entire fleet of ships takes 10 pages!!!! AvPvT gets a point off for that. However, it gets 3 points for art and creativity. The art is about as close as you'll get to an anime styled AvP comic, it was all well drawn with a lot of effort and very original. The idea of how the story continues off Alien Resurrection is very original, the way the plot uses the three sides is original as well, though the aliens deserved more credit. Its a unique book. If you want an AvP book with unique art and story, this is it. But if you want something with more bite, with more of a realistic yet cinematic feel, consider getting Stronghold.

One morning in 1989 gay school teacher Tom Mason unlocked his Chicago classroom and opened the door to one of the most successful mystery franchises in gay fiction--the real mystery being the apparent popularity of this implacably mediocre series.

And yet there is much to be said for Zubro's work. His plotting, though predictable, is crisp and clean, a balance of action and analysis, with all loose ends tidily knotted. Through the (currently) eight books of the series--not even counting the Paul Turner series--Zubro worked out a formula which has served him well, although his characters, ex-Viet Nam vet and high school teacher Tom Mason, and southern baseball star Scott Carpenter, never evolve. When we first meet them they have already been a couple for eight years. Scott, we are given to understand, is initially closeted, but it never puts much strain on their relationship. The differences in their personalities are never explored--possibly because there aren't any. The books are written in a passionless, simplistic style ideal for teaching English in ESL courses.

In ARE YOU NUTS?, the seventh book of the series, Tom echoes his 1989 entrance by finding a body in the school library. (No wonder the PTA is in an uproar; it probably has less to do with Tom's orientation than the fact the man is a walking health hazard, an academic Jessica Fletcher trailing death and disgrace in his wake). As usual one of Tom's closest friends and allies (there's still some alive?) is arrested for the murder, and Tom and Scott (Scott, suffering mild depression--and who could blame the guy) set off in flat-footed pursuit, following the blueprint so successfully laid down eleven years earlier.

That, eleven years after Tom Mason stumbles on his first body, there are still very few gay mystery series' probably explains the relative popularity of Zubro's books. It's interesting that this series is published by the Stonewall Inn imprint and Keith Kahla, who recently asked in "Having Our Say" why so many gays seem to have abandoned the written word? Just a clue, Keith, but possibly if publishers offered something a little more substantial in the way of genre fiction, readers might be more interested.

The value of the book as a mystery is pretty average. However, I found, as usual, the portrayal of gay characters very affirming and supportive. Especially good for gay teens or people just coming out.

They have been a happily married, faithful couple for years. Scott Carpenter is a well-known professional baseball pitcher while his spouse Tom Mason is an English teacher. They hid their sexual preference and their relationship out of fear for their careers, especially the athletic Scott. However, unable to hide any longer, they reveal their relationship to the world and to their sock and joy, most everyone supports them.

Tom and Scott begin to openly support gay rights, but soon become symbols and targets of the opponents. Things begin to turn ugly forcing Scott to hire bodyguards. Scott assumed that he, being the more public figure, would be the target if tragedy struck. Instead, while Tom is at the Human Services Clinic, a series of bombs go off destroying a whole block, killing many people. Tom is lucky to survive, but is badly injured. Scott wonders if Tom ultimately was the target. He begins his own investigation that will lead to a dangerous person with a deadly goal who will do anything to attain it.

ONE DEAD DRAG QUEEN is as much a relationship drama as it is an amateur sleuth mystery. The tale stars two heroic, realistic males trying to make the world a better place. Mark Richard Zubro has written a mystery inside the mystery. The technique can slow down a story line, but works extremely well in this plot because the author never loses sight of the main theme and ties the subplot back to it. By providing color and insight, the secondary characters are vital to the beat of the tale and lead to a special treat for readers.

Never before have I seen a Doctor Who television episode or read a Doctor Who book with so many fight scenes. Of course, coming from a reviewer who reads a lot of Richard Stark and Mickey Spillane, you would think that I wouldn't mind the violence. Unfortunately, it just seems out of place in Doctor Who.

Usually, the Doctor likes to work problems out with his mind, and ensnare the villans in clever traps. This book is just overloaded with situations where he has to fight his way out. There is blood everywhere, trying to fuel the story.

The best thing about the book is that it deals with Anji's mental anxiety over her dead boyfriend Dave. It finally brings her closure. The book also features a very fitting, Who-esque ending with a clever trap that Who fans will enjoy.

Clapham's writing is never dull, with good dialogue and great description. You get a real feeling for the dreadful city of Hope, as well as the emotion involved with all the characters. Some drawbacks but also many good points make this novel worth reading.

A TV critic, once writing about one of Rod Serling's lesser "Twilight Zone" scripts, noted that the episode had just two kinds of characters: those who made speeches, and those who made speeches while shouting.

Welcome to "Hope".

"Hope" is very much in the "Parallel 59" style of "Doctor Who" drab. It's set in the far, far future, on a perpetually overcast planet divided into remote, fortress-like cities. The military and the poor coexist uneasily. There's a lot of bar-fight violence (casinos still exist in the far, far future) and two headless bodies in the first 30 pages. Some characters make speeches. Other characters make speeches while shouting. The Doctor makes speeches. The Doctor also makes speeches while shouting. You get the drift, I think.

The plotting is also all over the place -- first it's a murder mystery, then it's a story about a war between the citizens of "Hope" and the out-of-time Earth scientists (with names like Stephen and Castillo, in the far, far future). Then it becomes a 1960s-style Marvel Comics adventure. Really, if you boil all the plots down to their essence, this is a character study about a cyborg named Silver. Mentally reference him as the Captain from "The Pirate Planet", and he works quite well. It really feels as if Stan Lee wrote the final chapters. "Remember, kids, absolute power corrupts... absolutely!". The villain is dispatched bloodlessly, and the surviving Hopesters gaze hopefully (ha!) into the morning sunrise.

Clapham writes a good potboiler here. There are some heavy continuity references to the Doctor's recent physical trauma, and a very portentous dream which feels as if the editor literally threw that page into the presses as the book was entering its first print run. The human element -- Anji's continuing pining over her long-since-departed boyfriend -- gives this book a little bit of flavor, and as far as run-of-the-mill DW novels go, this one is very tolerable.

Since this is such a trad Dr Who book, I can start by comparing it to other entries in the series which adhere to the established formula:

Christopher Bulis writes the best trad Who novels. Hope is nowhere near as good as Imperial Moon, or City At World's End, or The Eye Of The Giant. But it is on par with the likes of The Palace Of The Red Sun, or even Shadowmind. It was better than The Ultimate Treasure.

Did that help? No?

Okay. Hope, then, as compared to Trevor Baxendale's Who novels: Certainly not as fun as the shivery Coldheart...but definitely better than The Janus Conjunction. Marginally better than Eater Of Wasps, because the plot is a bit more creative.

No good?

Hmmmm. Hope was much better than Kursaal by Peter Anghelides, probably better than Millennium Shock by Justin Richards, loads better than The Taint, by, uh, Michael Collier, was it? Hmmm. That puts it right in company with Deep Blue by Mark Morris.

The weaknesses of Hope are as follows:

Clapham lacks style, and beyond that, some of his writing needed a stricter editor. He's one of those writers who will use the same adjective or verb twice in adjacent sentences, or even in the same sentence, and it smells more like laziness than a conscious style choice. Plus, you get a lot of simplistic sentences that do little more than state facts, or provide basic descriptions. A little daring, or panache, would be welcome.

Too nitpicky? Well, I should also say that Clapham is one of those authors who has trouble capturing the Doctor's unearthly charisma. He talks too much like just anyone (though, to be fair, the Doctor does have the occasional clever line in this novel). This is an especially bad situation in this entry, because part of the theme of Hope is the Doctor, having recently been reduced to human level physically, trying to make a point that he's still mentally unique. Cornell, Parkin, and Miles have a much better handle on spicing the Doctor up in only a few paragraphs.

What helps Hope immeasurably is the plot, which does keep shifting in unexpected directions, though it does manage--barely--to remain cohesive, and relevant to some basic overall themes. Saying that the book is actually spliced unevenly in the center is unfair, given what is established early-on concerning Anji's mindset. And any angle in a trad Dr Who book which gives the novel any kind of uniqueness above the pack is appreciated...so I didn't mind that the whole "who is the multiple murderer?" mystery scenario finished up awfully early, so that the story could suddenly shift gears and examine Anji's potential betrayal of the Doctor. Anji's dilemma late in the proceedings did relate enough to all that had gone before, previous to the "false" happy ending. I blame Clapham's style, here, for any reader-feelings of triteness or too-sharp turns, not the structure of the plot. Clipping along too fast, and in wooden style, will hurt emotional content in a tale, trad or not trad.

So are the Doctor's adventures in Hope worth sampling? Well, he investigates a string of decapitations, he snoops around a cool city on stilts that hovers over an acid sea, he battles a cybernetic villain who wants ultimate power over everyone, and he learns whether he can forgive attempted betrayal by a friend. You might want to take the trad with the good.

...It represents a new fashion in book publishing, where one author approaches a series of artists to share one of their projects and how they did it... The publishers love it because these books are so easy to do. The authors love it because no one person has to do the work. The result is a badly thought out, mish-mash of techniques and one total worthless book.

Too bad Amazon.com does not have a way to give "0" stars or even a minus category, like "I give this book -5 stars for failing on the most basic of criteria." These people should be drummed out of the profession for such rank amateur...

This book is a weird one. on one hand it's inspiring & not at all like a AE manual which I appreciate. On the other it is also borderline useless. None [bar one] of the projects featured have a simple Quicktime or Windows movie of the final piece that you can view what it is the author actually did. They have AfterEffects working files of which you have to export the movies yourself, BUT each project also uses different third party filters [no demo's on the cd] which throw error's soon as you load the AE project so you STILL can't see the finished product. Just plain stupid if you ask me. Most of the projects seem to have between 100%-50% of the working files missing. in the case of renescant all you get is the finished movie & nothing else. seeing as you are paying for the oppurtunity to 'pick apart' the files & explore I think it's fair enough they hand them over.
Overall I kind of like the book, but it is really on the whole disapointing & frustrating. I doubt whether I will by another Friend of Ed book based on this one. it really feels like a stooge job in the end.
PS I visited the FofED site to try & find files of which I found some for one project. but nothing else.
My advice is steerclear unless you REALLY want this book. I am sure there are others out there that do what this one does ALOT better..

The book has some great examples, which the reader is talked through. Not all of them are great, but a lot of them are, and they're from the sort of projects that form the bulk of AE work. It beats most of the AE books out there hands down (most of the others are just a rehash of the manual). I noticed a few people on the list hated it, but if they're really that advanced, why would they be bothered reading "how to" books? My biggest gripe with the book is that there were not MORE examples in there (books are expensive these days) > but I could say the same for most books I see now. Anyway, the book helped speed up my AE learning time, which is the main thing I'm after - not just an illustrated rehash of the manual.