Customer Reviews

The Pig and the Python: How to Prosper from the Aging Baby Boom

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This book takes a decent short article and expands it to book length, without adding much balance or evidence to justify the greater length. While it should be obvious that the size of the boomer generation has been driving the American economy for years, the authors ignore or minimize the numerous alternative explanations and countervailing effects that are also at work. Unfortunately, our world cannot be reduced to a single explanatory factor. While the boom is part of the mix, I feel the book over-promises the reader about how to prosper. Much of its content is just another version of the conventional wisdom on personal finance, packaged in a lame family-interest story. This book may make you feel better, but I'm not sure it will help you prosper -- that is, if you've been paying much attention these last 50 years or so.

As a financial consultant, I would highly recommend this book to all interested readers without hesitation. Cork and Lightstone have sucessfully captured and portrayed the importance of long-term planning (more importantly, they outline the steps necessary to make educated decisions regarding your long-term planning). At present time, we are being sucked into a quagmire of contrasting opinions from a variety of prominent economists as the US market is experiencing periods of extreme volatilty and Asia has yet to decide its future. These messages are confusing to the average investor. Cork and Lightstone remind us of the importance of focusing on our long-term goals and, especially, paying close attention to trends that are developing around us. This book is an excellent primer on the trends that are being set, and have been set, by the aging baby boomers. Anyone who is looking to create positive changes in their life, this book is a must read, but don't stop here. It's ! always more fun to learn when the messages are wrapped within a an enjoyable/readable storyline (much like The Wealthy Barber). "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance" and if you wish to succeed in life, here's another gem of knowledge!

Being in the financial service field, sometimes understanding your client's need and their goals can be overwhelming when you talk to them about long term planning. Especially in times of our current economy and the market, feeling what decisions I will make personally and what I experience my client makes can be almost paralyzing. I found this book to be a very, very big eye opener as to what our future may look like years from now. I'm sure like many of you, I've always asked the questions of why are some things so popular now, why are interest rates so low, why is the stock market so bullish, and why are so many American families struggling to make ends meet. I found this book to be a powerful planning tool for my own future and those of others. As the decades come, I can anticipate and understand the changes that would possibility affect our lives. Because in my field we serve our clients to create more wealth for families, this book gives me confidence to follow this mission.

Very entertaining book to read. Written in the Creative Nonfiction style like The Richest Man in Babylon and The Wealthy Barber.

Story uses a fictional Baby Boomer family who are educated about the Baby Boomer generation and financial planning by two professors who study the Baby Boomers.

The financial planning education does hit most of the basic points of financial planning (Use automatic savings methods to save at least 10% of income, invest in the stock market, and use asset allocation strategies). As an Index Fund fan, I would have liked to have seen a plug about the advantages of Index Funds over actively managed funds.

The author's prediction, made sometime before the 1998 book publication date, that real estate prices would drop significantly, has not proven correct. Fueled by relatively low home mortgage interest rates, real estate has boomed in most of the U.S. between 1998 and 2005. It will be interesting to see if U.S. real estate home values stagnate or decline between 2005 and 2020.

As a U.S. stock market investor, it was great to see the author's prediction the stock market will do well until 2020-2025. After 2020, the author predicts the U.S. stock market will stagnate for 20 years as the Boomers shift from stocks to bonds to lower risk and spend their assets in their retirement. Although it was soothing to hear the stock market won't crash in 2020, I'm not convinced we are smart enough to know how it will really play out 15 years from now.

The author's prediction of U.S. interest rates staying low over the next 20 years seems to be coming true so far. As Baby Boomers reach middle age, they start saving for retirement. Some of their savings will go into fixed rate investments, driving down the returns. Traditional asset allocation has called for some percentage of the portfolio to be invested in bonds. If interest rates (or bond yields) are going to stay inordinately low the next 20 years compared to historical bond yields, then maybe bonds should be replaced by blue chip stocks paying good dividends. Food for thought.

It would also have been nice to see more predictions of what areas and companies will boom as the Baby Boomers age. The real trick is to identify companies that will benefit from the aging boomers before other investors identify them so they can be purchased at a relatively low price.

All in all, a very informative and entertaining book. I'm not convinced that demographics alone cause every change in U.S. society, but it is one major factor.

I would suggest companion books to supplement this book including The Richest Man in Babylon, Bogle on Mutual Funds, The Millionaire Next Door, The 4 Pillars of Investing, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Wealth of Experience: Real Investors on what Works and What Doesn't, The Coffeehouse Investor, and the Armchair Millionaire.

"The Pig and the Python" is an easy to read, easy to grasp book about a topic that has trouble maintaining its readers attention. If you know best selling "The Wealthy Barber" by David Chilton, this book goes through the same format. This book will make look to the future and the opportunities that it possesses. If you are interested in investing, worried about retirement, this book is just for you. And this is also a good reading for financial consultants. It find out how to prosper from the aging baby boom. Recommend!

Life-Changing! If you are interested in investing, worried about retirement! Please read this book. It is a "fun read". The authors both have a way of presenting an idea. Bravo! bill callahan-glens falls, new york

I found that the Pig and the Python was an easy to read, easy to grasp book about a topic that has trouble maintaining its readers attention. The book presents itself in a "story" like manner making the issues covered very easy to comprehend.

I found this book very informative and fun to read. If anyone has ever read "The Wealthy Barber" By David Chilton, this book goes through the same format. This book will make look to the future and the opportunities that it possesses.

THIS BOOK IS EASY TO READ AND COMPREHEND, AND IT IS VERY INFORMATIVE. IT WAS GREAT.