Amazon.com: Total Wealth: Lifetime Wealth and Lifelong Security: Mac Barnes: Books

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A guide to accumulating and enjoying lifelong wealth though good investments. Combines classic investment principles with index mutual funds to help the reader create a solid portfolio that is customized and designed to earn high returns with low risk. Aims to educate readers to successfully manage their own investments. DLC: Investments.

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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thoughtful book on a pleasant subject., August 23, 2001

By A Customer

This book tells how to manage your financial life. Although it is full of sage, practical advice, it is really a book of ideas. It is written with a light touch and is a pleasure to read. The ideas in the book are based on a few principles: 1) stocks produce handsome returns (at least they have for the past two hundred years); 2) the risk of investing in stocks is not terribly great if you go about it the right way and your time horizon is reasonably long; 3) capital appreciation is not taxed until it is realized; and 4) an index fund provides a good vehicle for most people to participate in the stock market. From these principles Barnes argues that you should create for yourself a "personal endowment account" (PEA) and invest it in an index fund with the intention of never touching it. Furthermore, once you have set aside enough cash to cover upcoming expenses and emergencies, you want to put as much as possible into your PEA and let it grow. How to evaluate the risks associated with your investment and your lifestyle is discussed very thoughtfully. Beyond that, much of the book is devoted to finding clever ways to put as much money as possible into the PEA and clever ways to avoid having to take it out. Most people can put much more money to work for much longer than they would ever have imagined before reading this book. That is the road to Total Wealth.

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent but..., June 18, 2001

By	W. Richardson (Illinois United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The first 2/3rds of this book provides excellent advice for the nonprofessional investor and backs it up with facts. I wish I had known this stuff 30 years ago and did not have to learn it the hard way. The last part of the book was troubling in that it provides information re using margin accounts and then seems to drift off course to using brokers. Margin accounts are too dangerous for the investor to whom this book is directed and using a broker seems a misstep on the path to creating a S&P 500 index fund investment which is the point of the book. Also, a great deal of this book seems to be a duplication of information from "Bogle on Mutual Funds" which is THE definitive work on index fund investing but is not even mentioned in the suggested reading list provided in this book. You might want to read Jack Bogle's book first or instead (Bogle started the Vanguard fund family)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beating the pros, made simple, February 12, 2002

By	d. wilber (Palm Beach Gardens, FL) - See all my reviews

Here's a book that insults all guru's in the market. 93% of all mutual fund managers have failed to beat the index, so Mac Barnes says, 'why try?' Invest for the long haul and don't bother watching CNBC. You will win. He also gives keen insight in other financial matters that I never considered, such as 'to lease or borrow.' You will be shocked at the conclusion. Mac isn't trying to wow you with great strategies and concepts. Just keep it simple, more simple than you ever realized. Excellent book. I did not put it down (and I am a financial consultant).