MEDIA REVIEWS - August 24-31, 2010

Roy Diliberto puts his finger directly on several of this reviewer's own pet peeves, so naturally I think his column is highly relevant and worth reading in this month's issue of Financial Advisor, although I had to subtract points because he found a way to express them better than I do. Joel Bruckenstein offers a review of the newest features in Morningstar WorkStation, and the magazine's cover article tells you how a former CEO of U.S. Trust has created an interesting financial services firm--chiefly by raiding his old place of employment.

I've also reviewed several articles from The Economist. One tells us that the recessionary trough in the U.S. economy was deeper than anybody realized at the time, which may be why the fiscal stimulus wasn't quite as effective as economists were expecting. The magazine also says that Britain is embarking on a huge restructuring of its government, slashing the size of the government's bureaucracy, decentralizing how things are managed, and generally offering an experiment for the rest of the world to watch closely. And in another cover article, the magazine warns that many federal governments around the world are dipping their hands deeply into the workings of their economies, trying to stimulate job growth by taking over, propping up or otherwise investing in various industries. The article does a decent job of showing why this might not be a great idea.