Spend Til the End or Sleeping with the Devil

Spend 'Til the End: The Revolutionary Guide to Raising Your Living Standard, Today and When You Retire

Author: Laurence J Kotlikoff

Rich or poor, young or old, high school or college grad, this book, written by economist Laurence J. Kotlikoff and syndicated financial columnist Scott Burns, can change your life for the better! If you follow the advice in this book, it will raise your living standard (possibly by a lot), improve your lifestyle, and help you spend 'til the end. And it will completely transform your financial thinking, turning every bit of conventional financial wisdom on its head.

If this sounds like a revolution in financial planning, you got it. So do The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time, Consumer Reports, and other top publications that have been featuring the authors' economics-based "consumption smoothing" approach to financial planning.

Spend 'Til the End substitutes economic wisdom for the "rules of dumb" that currently pass for financial advice. In the process it indicts the investment and financial-planning industry for giving most people saving and insurance targets that are much too high and then convincing them to invest in risky mutual funds and expensive insurance policies. The result is that most people are scrimping and saving during the years when they could be spending and enjoying their money—and with no sure payoff.

Easy to read, this book is packed with practical and often shocking advice on whether to work, how to pick a career, which job to take, where to live, what sort of house to buy, how much to save, when to retire, which kind of retirement account to use, whether to have kids, whether to divorce, when to take Social Security, how fast to spend down your assets inretirement, and how to invest.

The Washington Post - Nancy Lloyd

This book's greatest contribution may be the inclusion of often overlooked topics, such as the timing of payouts and deductions. The authors analyze when, how and in what order to start taking payouts from various retirement savings plans, as well as when and whether to choose your own or spousal Social Security benefits. Making the wrong choice could significantly increase your tax bill and reduce the tax benefits of charitable contributions and other deductions now and for years—or decades—to come.

Publishers Weekly

Kotlikoff and Burns (coauthors of The Coming Generational Storm) turn conventional retirement planning wisdom on its head in a feisty financial guide that questions the financial benefits of college and argues delaying filing for Social Security benefits. Unfortunately, many provocative insights are buried beneath fairly recondite economic analysis. Math-phobic readers may be unable-or unwilling-to follow along as the authors couch their methods to maximize spending power in a number-heavy narrative with awkward case studies that fail to properly personalize the financial challenges new retirees may face. According to the authors, truly sophisticated planning is best left up to computer programs (such as the one Kotlikoff himself has developed and offers online at ESPlanner.com). Readers in search of a user-friendly primer might be put off, but there are nuggets of useful information to be mined-the authors efficiently address Roth IRAs and provide an eye-opening exposé of the duplicity rampant in the personal finance industry. Intrepid readers able to navigate through the numbers will be rewarded-if they keep from drowning in the evidence. (June)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book review: Pippi Longstocking or Moonlight on the Magic Flute

Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude

Author: Robert Baer

Former CIA operative Robert Baer examines the dangers behind America's collaboration with Saudi Arabia. Nominally based on a "harmony of interests" - the Saudis sold their oil to the American government very inexpensively - what we offered in exchange has damaged our position in the Middle East and left our country vulnerable to economic and terrorist threats. Baer goes behind the scenes to show how the U.S. willingly overlooked the corruption of the Saudi royal family, its financing of violent Islamic fundamentalist groups that spread hatred of the West throughout Saudi society, and its bribery of American officials. From a close-up with a corrupt Arab family to the inside scoop on how we helped fund the Taliban, Baer shows what's at stake in our pursuit of oil.

The Washington Post

Strange is perhaps too kind a word for an affair the author depicts … as sordid, corrupt and even murderous. Baer, a former CIA case officer whose assignments included postings throughout the Middle East, detests Saudi Arabia. And after reading his book -- or for that matter a newspaper on any given day -- it is hard to begrudge the author his ill will. — Lawrence Kaplan

Publishers Weekly

In his blustering second book, former CIA officer Baer (See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism) targets Saudi Arabia's corrupt leadership and cozy relationship with Washington. He argues that because the Saudis pay vast sums to powerful Americans, often in the form of lucrative defense contracts, those U.S. agencies that could help stop terrorism are thwarted by their own side. For example, CIA superiors tell Baer that they have no operating directive to look into Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia in the early '90s. He is deeply disappointed in both the CIA and the State Department, which he says looked the other way throughout the '90s as widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo took root in Saudi Arabia. While Baer's attacks on Washington's "consent of silence" sometimes beg for clarification, his many working years in the Middle East and Central Asia give him great believability, and he makes a strong case that Saudi Arabia-with skyrocketing birth rates, growing unemployment, a falling per capita income and a corrupt ruling family draining the public coffers-is a powder keg waiting to explode. To prevent being overthrown, Saudi rulers channel money to violent fundamentalists, including al Qaida, via Islamic charities. Baer's radical solution is guaranteed to stir debate and make many skittish: "An invasion and a revolution might be the only things that can save the industrial West from a prolonged, wrenching depression." Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Baer (See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism) here argues that to secure access to vital oil supplies, the United States has blindly helped the corrupt Saudi government at the cost of American finances, values, and other interests. In return, Saudis have helped finance terrorism and destabilize the region. The Saudi oil industry is extremely vulnerable to attack, asserts Baer, and the Saudi people are seething with discontent, making them ripe to follow religious fundamentalists. Baer goes on to say that American agencies are hindered in their security efforts by the big corporations, which have lucrative Saudi contracts and carry a lot of clout in Washington. In the end, Baer, a disgruntled veteran of CIA operations in the Middle East, feels that to protect the oil and to prevent the country from dissolving into chaos, which would be exploited by Islamic extremists, perhaps an American invasion will be necessary. Readers may also be interested in Doug Bandow's less alarmist Befriending Saudi Princes: A High Price for a Dubious Alliance and John Peterson's Saudi Arabia and the Illusion of Security. Suitable for all libraries.-Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.