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The authors come up with an alternative to the Markowitz approach for portfolio selection based on something they call a simugram, which looks to be computer intensive.
Much of the book is spent on fundamental analysis, and indeed the authors do not seem favorably disposed to technical analysis. They dump on Black-Scholes and blame its use for the collapse of LTCM and Enron.
Some finance professionals will find much of this book annoying, since it attacks many standard concepts, such as the Efficient Market Hypothesis. And it seems to attack some of the basic tools in the finance tool kit, such as "risk neutral" evaluation.
One of the troubling things I found is that though the authors attack the canon of modern finance, they have only limited alternatives to recommend. They seem to recommend either doing deep fundamental analysis, using their complex simugram portfolio analysis, or putting one's money into an index fund. Most of us don't have the time to do the first or the software to do the second. To do the third really gives up on mathematical finance.
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While the events described in Murdered happened prior to the end of the Cold War, the story gives us pause-we really HAVE to start thinking about what our tax dollars are supporting-dictators and death squads are the same whether they are on the right or the left-to support them in the name of fighting communism or terrorism is immoral.
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This book is laid out as follows. First, there is a helpful introduction, which lays out Brewster's essential claims. She provides useful, carefully compiled information here, to suitably prepare the minds of readers who may not be conversant with the basic de Vere theory. Don't skip the introduction, if you aren't a de Vere buff. It also provides information to help the reader visualize the setting of the Elizabethan period.
After the introduction, Brewster walks us through careful descriptions of the lives, and personae, of the women in de Vere's life. We learn about his mother; his sister; his unhappy first wife; Queen Elizabeth; his mistress; his second wife; and his daughters. Each person is given a chapter, and we see over and over again the range of references in "Shakespeare's" plays which seem to refer to these women. It's usually pretty convincing, frankly. Now and then I feel like Brewster might be reaching a little, in her enthusiasm over the topic, but not often. She does a lot of very impressive detective work here.
The book concludes with sections about Shakespeare's First Folio, and with some issues raised by the known portraits of Shakespeare and of de Vere. There is a very useful bibliography for further reading. Also, each chapter concludes with a subject-specific bibliography, which is often quite useful.
People who are interested in this subject need to know about the original book that put forward the basic theory. This book was "Shakespeare" Identified as the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford," by J. Thomas Looney, published in 1920. Please don't be too put off by Looney's last name (ha ha) -- his ideas are sane, lucid, and compelling. This idea is sort of depressing to me in many ways -- one likes to think of Shakespeare as an untutor'd genius who simply made up all the plays based on trips to a local library of some kind. Well, for examples of that kind of genius, there are always scientific geniuses like Ben Franklin, Einstein, or Edison! Sadly, Eleanor Brewster has convinced me that Shakespeare can't be counted among their ranks. Oh well. This is still a great book, however, and I give it two thumbs up.
The best part about the presentation method and the overwhelming body of useful information is that once sampling what everyone else believes, you can decide for yourself. It is a completely even-handed, non-secular review of Biblic prophecy, and one that is fascinating to read and hard to put down, despite the formidable topic and size of the work. Guaranteed to make even the lay person an expert, and an expert realize how much there is yet to learn.