Someone Will Make Money on Your Funds - Why Not You: A Better Way to Pick Mutual and Exchange-Traded Funds by Gary L. Gastineau

This book really has all of the information that most investors will need to build a mutual fund portfolio using ETFs or index funds. Gastineau explains how ETFs work, and makes recommendations for creating mutual fund stock portfolios with either ETFs or index funds. Gastineau’s approach is conservative, and seems to take a fairly orthodox modern portfolio theory approach to investing, ie., preference for index funds over actively managed funds, and emphasis on controlling risk through asset allocation. When I say conservative, the author says that most portfolios under a million dollars don’t need to worry about international funds. A year ago, this would have been considered wildly heterdox, and perhaps still is. Even Vanguard’s target retirement funds, a rather conservative fund branch in their family, include some international allocation. But if one followed Gastinieau’s advice this year, one would have been spared some pain. For me, this is one of the more useful books out there for mutual fund and ETF investors who are going to take a patient, rather basic approach to investing and growing their money.

“… Gastineau and Mark P. Kritzman, Dictionary of Financial Risk Management, John …”

“… CA 90212-2775, USA Gastineau, Brittny (Actor, Reality TV Star) c/o Staff Member True Entertainment 435 …”

“… Angel, Don M. Chance, Jack Clark Francis, and Gary L. Gastineau, “Comparison of Two Low-Cost S&P 500 Index Funds;” Derivatives Quarterly …”

The collection of stories from 2007 ranges from some duds to some very nice pieces, with nothing that challenges for greatness. The authors demonstrated some very creative ideas and themes, without the follow-through in several of those cases to make compelling enough stories.

Some favorites:

Okanoggan Falls - aliens invade Wisconsin and need what’s underground. The relationship between a local woman and the alien leader makes this rather unusual. I’m not sure exactly why I liked this one quite a bit.

The Cartesian Theater - philosophical considerations about duplicate life and definition of humanity and the sould, similar in principle to AI debates, with a bit of mystery thrown in.

Incarnation Day - virtual children as a substitute for real, only they can become real with minds of their own. I liked how the virtual children can be purged from the system via reboot if the grownups want to get rid of them.

Exit Before Saving - morphing technology gets a spin here as a tool of espionage, with a little dangerous fun on the side, and a risk of being overtaken by a replacement technology that could make this obsolete. As with some of the other stories, this one could have been expanded.

Life on the Preservation - a piece of Earth is preserved in an endless cycle of repetition for interplanetary tourists to observe. Kylie is sent on a special mission and decides, hey, life here was pretty good. Pretty neat story that could have been better.

A Billion Eves - a novella about the propagation of humanity through a clever “ripper” technology that transports a group instantly to another world, from which the process expands indefinitely. With religious overtones and an ecological perspective. In fact, it has a bit of a jumble of ideas thrown together, creative enough to sustain interest.

Overall, three to four stars, rounded down for the appalling error in the cover and some sloppy editing.

Zip file of the entire book 144 MB

This book lives up to the others that preceed it. The collection of photographs are powerful, and there are 365 days of these images along with desciptions. The book is informative as well as stunning to look at. This is one for the coffee table and not the shelf.

Zip file of the entire book

36 short stories by some of the greatest names in fiction. Two are worth reading. In fact, those two are so great that they make the book worth buyingespecially if you can find a cheap used copy.
The two great stories are:
“Open Winter” by H. L. Davis, a wonderful tale of an old cowboy mentoring a younger one; and
“You Could Look It Up” by James Thurber, the funniest baseball story I’ve ever read.
Okay, maybe some of the others aren’t terrible–though several are. But they are all at least disappointing or boring.

Zip file of the entire book (201MB)