I bought this to study the connection between Hindu & Egyptian mysticism and mirror mythology, but was very disappointed. It's mostly wishy-washy vagaries about getting a person in touch with the astral plane. There's very little reliable referencing to actual ancient beliefs, and instead sounds more like Delaurence was attempting to fuse different systems he'd studied into some new, simplified route to "enlightenment". It would be more appropriate to call it "The Wanna-Be-Genuine Psychics Text Book". Who knows, maybe those looking for such a book would benefit.

From my own explorations into the research on saving, it appears as though Mr. Kotlikoff is considered one of the heavyweights on this subject. This book is a collection of a dozen studies that he has authored or co-authored. Mr. Kotlikoff's preface to the book and the introductions to each of the four parts identify the key findings of the material discussed. This was helpful as this book was extremely difficult reading. The studies are heavily laden with intricate formulas that called for far more effort than I could bring myself to expend so as to comprehend them. To get to text that provided a reasonable return for the time and energy it takes to read it required frequent skimming.

Probably because I am most interested in what I perceive to be within my own locus of control, Part I entitled "Savings Motives" (and to a lesser degree Part IV called "Empirical Studies of Saving") held the most interest for me. Parts II and III included papers on savings that I believe would be of more interest to policymakers and those seeking a macro-economic perspective. Part II is labeled "Fiscal Policy and Savings," while Part III is entitled "Social Security, Demographics, and Savings."

With each study covering a different aspect of how savings are affected by selected variables, the value of this volume to any given reader is not dissimilar to that of a cookbook. Some may find that one or more studies are worth the value of obtaining the book, whereas others may not. Some of the findings are clearly of interest to me, but because of the significant difficulty rendered by the very technical presentation, and I was unwilling to give this book more than two stars.

A dark alley, a stationary car, a gunshot... and the London police officer Toms is lying seriously injured on the street. Immediately his colleagues of Scotland Yard start a large-scale search to find the perpetrator. But when they finally find some important clues, the most difficult is yet to start: finding the evidence. Only one question seems valid: "What should be done about criminals whose guilt is known but whom the law cannot touch?"

The opening of this book, where police officer Toms is getting assaulted, has a lot of potential. Sadly enough, none of these possibilities have been explored in the further development of this rather plain story. It reads almost like a boring police report. Characterisations of the main figures are nowhere to be found, apart from some dry factual descriptions. The revengeful ending is a real bummer and has nothing to do with the story-line.

I have been a fan of Laurence Harvey since I was eleven years old. I am now 52. I have heard all the "gay" rumors, all the "he uses women" as well as "he always goes for older, rich, slim women, etc". But this book is a ugly, mean spirited attack on a dead man. I find it odd that the author waited until Harvey's death (in fact many of the quoted people are dead as well). I purchased this book and put it in the trash. I didn't even donate it because it was so hateful.

This book is nothing like a comprehensive biography of Harvey. The authors don't mention any of his television work, only a few stage plays, and an incomplete list of his films. The text is mostly trivial and anecdotal, and biased against this really wonderful actor.

This is an all too rosy analysis of the Chinese economy's fundamental flaws. Its re-engineering will not go as smoothly as Brahm implies because of the one thing he seems to ignore: the insolvency of its banking system. Of course, Brahm would rather you ignore that small matter, rush to China with your venture capital, and pay him and his consulting firm for his advice once you run into these problems. If you want to understand the transition in the Chinese economy, then I recomend China in the Next Millenium edited by Michael Dorn.

It is not often that I am so disappointed by a book purchase. Had I actually been able to thumb through it, I most certainly would not have bought it.

This is a book of big print and small ideas. White space and empty pages pad the number of pages from less than 100 to nearly 300. Of these, 10 pages are given over to glossy photos of Party leaders accompanied by vacuous comments.

Indeed, the entire book reminds me of the sort of barren tracts published by China's official printers. It is full of anecdotes and homilies that are poor substitutes for their lack of analysis.

There is a sense that the authors know that there are problems with the Chinese economy. But they offer no sensible analytical framework to understand them or to resolve them.

While dancing around the issue of China's state-owned enterprises, they never seem to understand that most cannot be mended, they must be ended. If not, continued expenditures on them will destroy yet more of the hard-earned savings of China's citizens and destroy opportunities to create new wealth.

Their lack of candor could be put down to ignorance or knowledge that the Chinese government does not appreciate strong criticism. However, the bios on the authors suggests that they may suffer from a conflict of interest. They are consultants on restructuring of these state-owned enterprises.

Even the production of the book disappoints. My copy had pages that were uncut and others were printed unevenly. There is no bibliography. A more grievous sin is the lack of an index, itself a simple matter with any word processing package. But with a book that offers so little substance, I suppose these are of no great concern.

My son was attracted to this book as it is about helicopters. I was sorry I bought it. First, there are stickers that you are supposed to put on the pages. I let him do it his way, putting things where he wanted. Otherwise I would have been too much of a dictator, saying "no--put this there", etc. As you read the text you realize that the stickers only have one "right" place and if there is one in the wrong place the text does not even make sense. For example, the vegetables sticker is supposed to go in the helicopter's net but my son put it on the loading dock instead (which makes sense). The stickers don't stick well and my son has taken it upon himself to peel them away bit by bit, when he played with it by himself, so the book looks horrible with parts of stickers in some places. The story is nothing special and is actually quite silly. The helicopter lands down on top of a parade float onto a flat and empty base of glue (silly). He sticks to the glue and needs help getting out. The helicopters go around doing different deliveries and it ends with Budgie getting washed off as he is sticky with glue and smelly from delivering fish. This is one for the trash bin. I think this may have been related to a TV show as there is something on the back cover to indicate this but we've never seen the show itself. This is the kind of book that may appeal to the child becuase it is a familiar TV character but the book is of inferior writing and a low entertainment value.

it is not objective on the issu

Cahanged the role of the state abaout social security policy. Globalization and implications to social security. Social Security systems privatization and reorganization. Social security reform and new perspektivness.Social security excluding majority.

This book is way out of the range. I had it as a text book in my International Banking class. First, all data is simply old. Second, no international finance concepts whatsoever. Third, some very primitive examples are repeated over and over again. Quality of the paper is terrible, etc., etc. If you are a professor, do not make your students hate you. If you are a student, embrace yourself. If you are buying it for fun, good luck finding any. If you are the author, please try again!