Book Review - Scroogenomics

A great book?  No.  A good book?  Yes.  An interesting book?  Absolutely.

Joel Waldfogel, wrote a book called Scroogenomics exploring the pro's and con's of purchasing goods and spending money at Christmas time. 

The pro's - people get stuff.  The con's - people get stuff they don't want or need that has bought by other people who have sent their time looing for and buying stff that could very well have been a waste of ther time.  Time that could have been far better spent pursuing productive outputs.

So what's the problem?  Too much stuff is given by people to others with either little thought or no thought at all.  The solution?  Give cash.

There you go - 146 pages of book content condensed into 4 paragraphs. 

It's worth reading.  Seriously.

Giving

One of the best ways to lift your attitude and working style is to start thinking about others. Not just others in the office but others internationally.

One way you can do this is through investing into a micro-bank style system. One that use is called Kiva.

Kiva works by loaning funds to persons on predominantly third world countries funds to either start or grow their business. Then as that person does well they are required to repay the funds which you receive back (usually $ for $).

By doing this it enables you to become focused on someone else's business venture and makes you reconsider what you are doing and why.

Another great thing about Kiva is you generally are called on to loan $25 US at a time. So this method of giving will not hurt your bank balance too badly.

Philanthropy is a fantastic way of being able to keep life in perspective.