The Tools & Techniques of Employee Benefit and Retirement Planning (Tools and Techniques of Employee Benefit and Retirement Planning)

September 25, 2008

The Tools & Techniques of Employee Benefit and Retirement Planning (Tools and Techniques of Employee Benefit and Retirement Planning) Customer Review: Worse than the Worst PowerPoint Presentation
If ever you’ve sat through a presentation in which the speaker followed a PowerPoint template and asked yourself, “Could anything be worse than this?”, this book is the answer and the answer is “Yes, much worse!”
Stephan Leimberg may know something about employee-benefit and retirement planning but his writing skills might best be used to torture prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
For chapter after chapter, he follows the same deadly template: “What is it?, When is it indicated?, Advantage, Disadvantages, Design Features.” For paragraph after paragraph, he follows the same hackneyed formula: Bland, meaningless string- I can’t say sentence; so I have to resort to computer language to describe the assemblages of words he puts between periods- followed by another string that begins with “however”, “although”, or “but.” Apparently he didn’t write this book; he word processed it. Having conjured up an incoherent notion, he characteristically begins the next sentence with something along the lines of “This can often….” What the “this” refers to, not even he could figure out. As if all these travesties were not awful enough, he greatly prefers the passive over the active voice.
Besides being useful in the war on terror, the book might serve well for beginning courses on “How to Edit Pitiful Writing.” Almost every sentence contains at least one example of how not to write.
Well, now I’ve told the truth and feel guilty for trashing the book and its author. Is there something nice I can say about Stephan Leimberg? The nicest thing I can think of to say is this: Maybe he didn’t actually write the book.

Customer Review: Not for average consumer
I do not recommend this book as a main source of information for the average reader. It is informational, but probably incomplete and not useful in deciding which plan to implement. It is used as a supplement (not even the main textbook) in an advanced Certified Financial Planning (CFP) course. Students in this course already have proven knowledge of key concepts regarding taxes, investments, risk management-insurance, etc. This is tough education/training that is being undertaken by people who’s main job is (will be) to advise on these subjects.