Satisfaction Not Guaranteed
Автор: Peter N. Stearns
Год издания: 0000
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, modern urban, industrial, affluent societies have made great strides towards fixing some of the problems that plagued other societies for centuries: food shortages are nearly eliminated, infant and maternal mortality has fallen dramatically, birth control is both readily available and effective, education levels are higher, and internal violence is significantly reduced. Modernity’s blessings are many and bountiful—but has modernity really made us happy? Satisfaction Not Guaranteed is a book about the modern condition, and why the gains of living in modern urban, industrial, affluent societies have not proved more satisfying than they have. It examines why real results that paralleled earlier anticipations of progress have not generated the ease and contentment that the same forecasters assumed would apply to modern life. Employing his trademark inquiry of emotions in American history, Peter N. Stearns asks why, if modern life has been generally characterized by measurable themes of progress, abundance, and improvement, are people not happier or more content with their lot in life? Why is there an increased incidence of psychological depression, anxiety, and the sense that no one has ever reached a pinnacle of happiness or contentment? It’s not so much that modernity went wrong, but rather that it has not gone as swimmingly as was anticipated. Satisfaction Not Guaranteed uses concrete examples from both history and the present, such as happiness surveys, to discuss how as a society we might better juggle the demands of modern life with the pursuit of happiness.
Pensionize Your Nest Egg. How to Use Product Allocation to Create a Guaranteed Income for Life
Автор: Moshe Milevsky A.
Год издания:
Guarantee your retirement income with a DIY pension Pensionize Your Nest Egg describes how adding the new approach of «product allocation» to the tried-and-true asset allocation approach can help protect you from the risk of outliving your savings, while maximizing your income in retirement. This book demonstrates that it isn't the investor with the most money who necessarily has the best retirement income plan. Instead, it's the investor who owns the right type of investment and insurance products, and uses product allocation to allocate the right amounts, at the right time, to each product category. This revised second edition is expanded to include investors throughout the English-speaking world and updated to reflect current economic realities. Readers will learn how to distinguish between the various types of retirement income products available today, including life annuities and variable annuities with living income benefits, and how to evaluate the features that are most important to meet their personal retirement goals. Evaluate the impacts of longevity, inflation, and sequence of returns risk on your retirement income portfolio Make sense of the bewildering array of today's retirement income products Measure and maximize your Retirement Sustainability Quotient Learn how your product allocation choices can help maximize current income or financial legacy – and how to select the approach that's right for you Walk through detailed case studies to explore how to pensionize your nest egg using the new product allocation approach Whether you do it yourself or work with a financial advisor, Pensionize Your Nest Egg gives you a step-by-step plan to create a guaranteed retirement income for life.
Business Process Mapping. Improving Customer Satisfaction
Автор: J. Jacka Mike
Год издания:
Praise For Business Process Mapping: Improving Customer Satisfaction, Second Edition «A must-read for anyone performing business process mapping! This treasure shares step-by-stepapproaches and critical success factors, based on years of practical, customer-focused experience.A real winner!» —Timothy R. Holmes, CPA former General Auditor, American Red Cross «Paulette and Mike make extensive use of anecdotes and real-life examples to bring alive the topic ofbusiness process mapping. From the outset, this book will engage you and draw you into the worldof business process mapping. Who would have thought that reading about business process mapping could make you smile? Well, Mike and Paulette can make it happen! Within each chapter, theauthors provide detailed examples and exhibits used to document a process. Each chapter also includes a 'Recap' and 'Key Analysis Points' which enable the reader to distill the highlights of the chapter.» —Barbara J. Muller, CPA, CFE, Senior Lecturer, School of Accountancy W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University «Keller and Jacka cut through the drudgery of process mapping with a path-breaking approach thatenables the reader to better understand processes, how they work and how they work together toward successful achievement of business objectives. With great style and flair, this book will provide youwith a different way of thinking and new tools to assist you in process analysis and improvement. This book is a must-read for auditors, risk managers, quality improvement management, and businessprocess engineers.» —Dean Bahrman, VP and Internal Audit Director (Retired) Global Financial Services Companies «Mike Jacka and Paulette Keller show their expertise with the application of business process mappingin increasing customer service and satisfaction in this updated and expanded edition of this popular book. With clear, practical examples and applications, this book shows the writing talents of bothauthors, and it will be used over and over by those from all lines of industries and professions. Kudos for a job well done!» —Joan Pastor, PhD, Founding Partner, Licensed Industrial-Organizational Psychologist JPA International, Inc., Beverly Hills, California
How to Make a Living Trading Foreign Exchange. A Guaranteed Income for Life
Автор: Courtney Smith
Год издания:
Solid Forex strategies for capturing profits in today's volatile markets How to Make a Living Trading Foreign Exchange puts the world of Forex at your fingertips. Author Courtney Smith begins with an introduction to the Forex market-what it is and how it works. He then delves into six moneymaking techniques for trading Forex, including his unique Rejection Rule that doubles the profit of basic channel breakout systems. In addition to two specific methods for exiting positions at critical levels, Smith also discusses powerful risk management techniques and successful trading psychology strategies that will keep you one step ahead of the game. Reveals the secrets of the Forex market and how to create a lifetime of income trading it Offers advice on maximizing profits during the volatile swings that have increasingly become the norm Other titles by Smith: Option Strategies, Third Edition, Seasonal Charts For Futures Traders, Commodity Spreads, and Profits Through Seasonal Trading Make more from today's Forex market with How to Make a Living Trading Foreign Exchange.
The Little Book of Big Dividends. A Safe Formula for Guaranteed Returns
Автор: Terry Savage
Год издания:
Everyone needs to invest, but where do you invest during bear markets? The massive stock declines over the past year have eroded savings, but this doesn't mean you should stuff your money under a mattress. It needs to be put to work getting some return so that it will grow. Smart investors will turn to high dividend paying stocks to get a stable and growing stream of income. Dividend investing-that provides an income beyond any gain in the share price-may be the investor's best weapon. Dividends are safe, largely reliable, and maybe at the their cheapest levels in many years. While the best paying dividend stocks of recent years, such as financials, took a huge beating in 2008, opportunities will abound in 2010 and beyond-if you know where to look. In The Little Book of Big Dividends, dividend stock expert Chuck Carlson presents an action plan for dividend-hungry investors. You'll learn about the pitfalls, how to find the opportunities, and will learn how to construct a portfolio that generates big, safe dividends easily through the BSD (Big, Safe Dividends) formula. If you're a bit adventurous, Carlson has you covered, and will teach you how to find big, safe dividends in foreign stocks, preferred stocks, ETFs, real estate investment trusts, and more. Contains the simple tools, strategies, and recommendations for finding big, safe dividends Helps you put a complete portfolio together that pays dividends every month Show you the top dividend paying stocks with their dividend payment dates It doesn't get any easier than this, and in these turbulent times, you can't afford to ignore the power of dividends. Read The Little Book of Big Dividends and gain a better perspective of how you can protect yourself for the future.
Have a Nice Conflict. How to Find Success and Satisfaction in the Most Unlikely Places
Автор: Michael Patterson
Год издания:
How to successfully navigate and prevent conflict From the publishers of the popular Strength Deployment Inventory, Have a Nice Conflict follows one man's fight to rescue his sinking career. Sales manager John Doyle would consider his career a success—he's his company's top revenue driver, and his take-charge attitude gets the job done. However, when he is passed over for promotion—again—after losing two direct reports, who cite his abrasive style as their reason for leaving, John is forced to reassess how he approaches his relationships. With the help of Mac, an expert in the art of Relationship Awareness Theory, John learns the three stages of conflict, and how he reacts in each. Once John recognizes his own values and trigger points, as well those of other people, he becomes able to better navigate terse situations, express his points in a way that resonates for other people, and even avoid conflict altogether. Equipped with this new understanding of how other people interpret and react to conflict, John soon finds all the relationships in his life—both at work and at home—improving. Reveals a practical understanding of how conflict really works Shows how to recognize its initial stages of conflict, how to navigate it better to diffuse a situation, and how to understand the values of the other person to better frame your point for them Provides guidance for moving beyond conflict to enhance relationships Includes a five-step framework (anticipate, prevent, identify, manage, and resolve) and tools for locating conflict triggers in ourselves and others Anyone can profit from the tools in this book to understand and take control over conflict.