I want to read (but haven't yet) these four books: The Myth of the Rational Market, The Ascent of Money, Guts: Combat, Hellraising, Cancer, Business Startups and Undying Love, and Habit. Please write a review or give me a thumbs up/down on these four if you read them already.
Papal encyclicals don't normally hit my radar. But this summer, when the Vatican released what some called a papal white paper on economic globalization and ethics, I took note because of the subject and the fact that so many people ask me "What's a white paper?"
Since so few white papers garner any publicity, I'm commenting on this one, released prior to the G8 meeting in Italy.
"There are now 38 people in the world with $10b or more in private assets...theoretically, one of these people could reverse climate change all alone." Even a poor country like Bangladesh could afford to take unilateral action to reduce the chance their low-elevation coastal zones would wash away in global-warming-induced rising seas. Question: How to fund and coordinate efforts to stem global warming?
What if we paid down our massive foreign debt by selling our portfolio of defense weapons to a global defense bond fund? I got the idea from a white paper published by the Prince's Rainforest Project, which I covered in the May blog.
As a ghostwriter with financial services clients, I stay abreast of developments in their professional publications. Ran across an article in Investment News on consumer-focused financial planners' mental health challenges during this Great Recession.
I had an "aha moment" this morning. I decided to build a repository of white papers I like in different categories for general perusal. First up, The Prince's Rainforests Project Report, which I thank my Twitter follower, Dan Tefft for bringing to my attention.
How's a financial representative to compete with so many businesspeople in less-regulated professions who send e-newsletters and blog about their work?