Business Money Books

This is a simple get-it-started book. Worth the money. I use it as a bedside reading reference on my journey into this subject. It got me very interested to learn more!

The foreclosures covered in this book relates to tax deeds. Basically you could own properties for one tenth the price. The things I liked about this book were mainly that...

PROS:
a.) It's written by an investor. According to his bio page, he actually invests in tax liens and foreclosures. It's not a person who writes for a living and cares about proper grammar structures, but actually someone that has experience in what he's talking about.

b.) The book is for the average Joe. Some of the foreclosure books I've read took 3-4 chapters in before you learn anything. Some books don't even tell you how to do it, they just tell you how wonderful it is to be rich and being able to invest.

CONS:
a.) I think the web site for the book could be better designed. Not really a fan of white text on black background. But heck, it's free and you don't have to pay anything extra to get updates.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Day 1: Know The Types of Auctions
Day 2: Before You Start (Learn how to finance your investments, even from strangers online...)
Day 3: Where To Find Tax Auctions
Day 4: Research Before The Auction
Day 5: Bidding Types And Strategies
Day 6: Flipping Tax Deeds With Ease
Day 7: Conclusion

One of the best books I've read on tax liens and tax deeds/government foreclosures. You don't buy this for bank foreclosures but for government foreclosures (which is often more common in some areas). I used this in time for Arizona auctions (occuring in late Jan and Feb) and so far the checklists and strategies hasn't done me any wrong. The maximum returns in Arizona is roughly 16% but you bid down to win. I was able to secure an average 13% on the tax lien instruments.

Some of the helpful things I liked were as follows:

(1) Online web resources that gave updates on upcoming tax auctions
(2) Tax lien calendar in the book that shows approx month each state holds their auctions.
(3) Easy to read and understand without any technical or law jargon.

I would recommend this but there is a newer version of the Ultimate Foreclosure Kit, which is the Complete Guide to Real Estate Tax Liens and Foreclosure Deeds: Learn in 7 Days-Investing Without Losing Series by the same author. You should search by the ISBN number (0978834682) to find it. Found that out the hard way. I suggest getting only one of the books rather than both.

I should have spelled that 'concice' to match the book! This book was straight to the point (less than an hour to read) but had lots of grammar, spelling and sentence structure errors. One paragraph had three errors in it! If you can get around that, plus the fact that this book is really more like a booklet, you'll find that it's ('its') loaded with great information!

This book is a great introduction to the history of monetary policy in the United States. The readability and coverage of subjects allows for a working knowledge of what happened during the major episodes which are covered by this book. The work is faithfully cited to original sources and to other comments which have been made. I bought this book as an undergraduate looking for some more detail to satisfy my curiosity on the some issues raised in classes. I have revisited it many times, and find it a great refresher for encountering new questions to research.

great metaphors from author to help understand organizational thinking but read slowly if you are a concrete thinker. Easy reading really if you think metaphorically. Had to write a paper on psychic prisons, uncanny how true Morgan's analogy is to real workplace environment. This book was better than our required text. Hated the Organizational Behavior instructor I had but loved the book and the subject matter.

This is not a "three steps to understanding organizations" type book. The people posting negative reviews for this were looking for something simple and digestable - this book is not that. However, if you take the time, you will find it profoundly alters your thinking about understanding organizations.

This book provides solid theoretical models for understanding what is occuring in organizations. I read this book over 10 years ago and STILL find it the second best and most enlightening thing I have ever read on organizations. This has dramatically aided me in being a very successful business consultant.

The foundation of this book is the notion that you cannot understand complex organizations in any meaningful way through a single perspective. People in the organizations operate on many different perspectives. Each view of the world creates its own understanding of the organizational problems, solutions and daily pattern of interaction. This book provides you the tools for understanding organizations through a number of key perspectives or metaphors, and gives you indications on how to perform a multi-perspective systems analysis.

If you spend the time with this book, you will find yourself able to understand your surroundings FAR better than your peers.

This was the single best book of all the books I was required to read for my Masters in Public Administration, and it remains a valued reference in my rather large personal library.

Other books I recommend:
Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies
Radical Man: The Process of Psycho-Social Development.
The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (Collins Business Essentials)
Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
The Knowledge Executive
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
End of Bureaucracy and the Rise of the Intelligent Organization

I am a graduate student in organizational development. Although this book has some good underlying concepts, I found most of the book hard to follow and not very engaging. It was often difficult to see how many of the concepts actually apply to organizations. There may be good ideas, but they often get lost in the rambling chapters.

Gareth Morgan's book provides an antidote to the finance, marketing and HR texts that are required reading for an MBA student. The clever use of metaphor allows the reader to absorb the huge anount of information contained within the book (check out the bibliography!) - you don't even realise how much you are learning until you start relating concepts to others around you. My fellow students, colleagues and even my parents had to listen ...

I found it a very easy to read book, if you are willing to put aside your existing ideas (psychic prison) about the way the organisation works(?) If you prefer big words, read Morgan and Burrell's Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis - essential reading, but even more brilliant as a companion to Images.

Learn the stuff you are expected to know from your finance, marketing, statistics, strategy and HR texts, but understand the stuff that will change your world from Images of Organisation.

I got the CD in the mail yesterday and listened to it right away. Quite honestly I have to say that this person sounds looney. I think that the average person, if he or she were to let Dave come into his or her life, would be able to get something out of his system of using envelopes and zero-based budgeting.

If you are in debt, there might be more benefit from listening to this CD. It seems that half of the message is how to get out of debt, and it didn't pertain to me because I am not in debt.

Despite his style, I think I might get the entire DVD set.

Overall, I have to give this product 3 stars because I was disappointed that it didn't seem to live up to its title of Cash Flow Planning. I think a more appropriate title would be "Planning Your Expenses" rather than "Cash Flow Planning" because he does not seem to address the issue of Flow.

The only thing better is to have the kit and the DVD's so you can see him speak rather than just listening.

This CD was my introduction to Dave Ramsey and I am now a huge fan. In less than 3 years we paid off over $80K in debt, our income has gone up and we are working on paying off our mortgage. Simple practical advice - stop borrowing, pay cash, have an emergency fund and pay off your debt. Dave is very motivating.

Absolutely loved it. Great book. I recommend it to everyone.

This book was very well-written and instantly got me in the mood to reorganize my life! As a stay at home Mom, my husband and I were desperate to find ways to "cut corners." The author makes it very clear in the beginning of the book that she was NOT writing about debt management, investing, saving, etc. This is purely a book about organizing your life, your home, and how to be smart and frugal with things like shopping. It had great insight. I knew before I got this book that it is spiritual-based, and that's exactly what I was looking for too. I wanted a book that also followed my beliefs in the Bible and not simply a worldly view. I think that's a great asset to the book!
Definitely a great buy!

Cynthia Yates' 'Living Well on One Income' is a good read. It has humor, lots of personal examples that anyone can identify with, and it is filled with good tips. Yates challenges our attitudes about money and belongings and encourages everyone to "Waste Not, Want Not."

This book is interesting reading, but to me it read more like a hodge-podge of frugality tips, random anecdotes, and Sunday school lessons than an organized approach to making your money go further. The author is really enthusiastic, and she gives some very accurate and humorous descriptions of the clutter to be found in many homes. But I really had to pay attention to mine the best tips from the book because they got lost in hype, strange personal stories, and religious discussions. Some of the advice in the book struck me as just plain weird, such as to stay away from your microwave because it might explode; to put a bowl of ammonia into a warm oven to clean it (I can just imagine the smell !); to buy food in bulk and re-can it at home (that just sounds dangerous to me); to give someone a year's worth of old magazines tied up in ribbon as a gift. Finally, this book is very religious; there are references to scripture from the Bible inserted into almost every discussion. I don't mind a book on personal finance including some discussion of the spiritual basis of abundance, but I had a difficult time making the connection between the religious ideas presented and the surrounding points, and it just felt like opportunistic preaching to me. Overall I felt this book sort of meandered around without providing any clear direction that would help someone to change the way they think about money. Two alternatives to this book are "Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence" by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, and "The Tao of Abundance" by Laurence G. Boldt. In closing, I will contribute my own frugality tip....if you want to read this book, do what I did and check it out from the library so you don't spend any money on it.

If you read the introduction to the book it says knowledge is power. He never promises to give you the answer but he does tell you where to find them. This book is for people who are willing to put the effort into finding the information that's out there. If you need a starting point for beginning your search for funding towards the purchase of a home, this has helpful references of agencies and types of programs available. If you've ever had to deal with government workers then you know you'll get more frustration than help, Lesko gives you the werewithal you need to go after exactly what you need. The book tells you its out there, so when you contact the angecies or personnel, you can go armed with the information and need to find only the specifics.
I borrowed this from my library and want to have a copy of my own to work with. It has lists of agencies through the state and their contact information. By far, it is one of the better reference books I've found for this type of information. The other good source (if you can make sense of it is the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance) which lists everything, but if you don't know how to use it, it won't be very helpful to you.

I took the bait and bought this book. It's jammed packed with information that can be obtained from most any phone book. The oddest book I've ever bought and I have quite a collection. If you need a big book for a child to sit on or to prop a door open, go ahead. If you're looking for useful information, call your county extension agency or local groups. This one's a waste of paper and ink.

Some reviewers have critiqued the fact that half the book is an introduction to R, available for free through the internet. Well, I instead found that very convenient. But that aside, let us look at the actual content from the author. Yes, many of the concepts can be found in an undergraduate book on investments. But here in this book, you will find only the concepts that are useful to the practitioner, and in a form that is both easy and innovative to implement. Maybe that is the reason why that part of the book is only 132 pages. I for one am busy, so I find it refreshing that I don't have to go through filler material. Look, the chapter on stop-loss myths alone is worth the price of the book (and I mean the original steeper price tag) and I won't even go into all the rest (since I feel the author gives a bit too much away)....

I had high hopes for this book but like most people here I am extremely disappointed. Please review this book in the bookstore before ordering it sight unseen. 40% of the book is reprint from free R Project manual.

The product title was promising and the editor prestigious. From the table of contents it was clear that a big part of the book was devoted to R and its application to portfolio construction. Theoretically, an appealing combination. Unfortunately, however, neither the finance part nor the programming part have significant added value. Most of the information can be obtained for free in the internet. I couldn't believe my eyes that I paid more than one dollar for something like that. Absolutely disappointing!

I had a chance to look at this book at a bookstore and I am glad I did not buy it on Amazon. It is basically a book on R with no real information on portfolio modeling. The information presented can be found in one chapter of an undergraduate text on investment management. Too bad because the title seemed promising along with a CD-ROM.

Oh well...I guess it is back to the drawing board for someone to put out the definitive book on portfolio modeling with a CD-ROM to illustrate the concepts.

This book is an excellent introduction to the world of portfolio management and managing risk and return in general. The author's approach is from a statistical viewpoint but with minimal math. The book covers such areas as market micro structure and the distribution of price changes. It also debunks some myths about how effective stop losses are. That part was very interesting and clearly identifies when to use stop losses and when not to do so.

The treatment of how to maximize Sharpe Ratio was very clear and thorough but still accessible to the layman. For those who do not know any Excel at all this book may need to be supplemented with an introductory Excel book. But all of the more advanced Excel features are fully explained and very clear. Examples are presented in both Excel and the language R. The examples are also available on the CD that accompanies the text. For novices in the statistical language R, a full introduction is provided as an appendix. This was very helpful. It is almost like getting two books for the price of one.

The discussion of robust random portfolio modeling was very advanced and yet treated at an introductory level. The dual discussion of the log normal distribution along with the empirical distribution of real fat tailed markets was very refreshing. The book also espouses a new log log utility model that is quite innovative. All in all, it is an innovative book that is well written and easy to understand.

after having had the opportunity to attend one of Amy's lectures I was convinced, buying the book would be a good idea! and it was: the book provides the reader with an overview of the relevant fields of activity, fast facts and more detailed and very practical information on what to do in each of these fields. For anyone who wants to start greening events it is informative and perfectly helpful and can be a great source of inspiration!

I think that this book really puts the whole green thing in perspective. Taking some of these small steps are not as painful and I thought and this book gives me some great ideas on how to get clients on board. A must read for anyone that wants to do the right thing and make a living planning events and conferences.

This book was extremely interesting to read and far exceeded my expectations in terms of giving real-world advice that I can use immediately. As a planner I am always charged with showing a positive impact to the bottom line and this book shows me how to do the right thing for hte Earth while also saving money.

In fact, by doing just a few of the tips in the book, I'll be able to save literally thousands of dollars!

Founded and directed by Terry Axelrod, "Raising More Money" is a Seattle-based company that trains non-profit organizations in fundraising. A successful enterprise in its own right, Raising More Money has grown from 2 employees to 50, and has trained more than 2,000 organizations to date, with the average of $150,000 being raised by a nonprofit client group within a year of training. In Raising More Money: The Ask Event Handbook, Terry Axelrod (who is also the Director of the American Association of Fundraising Counsels; a Trustee of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce; and a Life Trustee of the Swedish Medical Center; and the founder of three nonprofit organizations) has distilled into a single volume the complete body of "how to" information for successfully raising money at a nonprofit fundraising event. Readers will learn how to determine when to hold an "Ask Event"; how to build a powerful, emotion-filled, one-hour program honoring the nonprofit organization's mission; how to conduct one-on-one "Asks"; how to evaluate results and follow-up with guests; and how to prepare for the next year's event. If you are charged with responsibility for fundraising with respect to a nonprofit organization, then you need to give a close and careful reading of Terry Axelrod's Raising More Money: The Ask Event Handbook. Also very highly recommended from Raising More Money Publications are: The Point Of Entry Handbook ($39.95, 263 pages); The Ask Event Handbook ($49.95, 238 pages); Raising More Money Video or DVD ($69.95, 47 minutes); and the Re-Igniting Your Board ($39.95, 21 minutes). Nonprofit and community library collections would be wise to acquire all five items in the form of the Raising More Money Library ($189.95).

Imagine your organization having a development plan that includes nothing but major donors and qualified prospects. No more special event fundraisers, no more sweating grant applications, no more "moves management" from sub-$100 donors to $500 to $5,000 to endowment givers, no more living hand-to-mouth and year-to-year. Terry Axelrod presents a compelling case for restructuring the development function using a combination of revolutionary and evolutionary thinking.

In reading this book, I was finding myself alternately saying, "Wow! What an innovative approach!" and "That's a different way of saying what everyone's doing now!" The key to understanding these (seemingly) conflicting reactions is that the author proposes to: 1) treat all donors and prospects as major donors and prospects; and 2) not solicit support at any lower level. She believes that a relatively small coterie of well-cultivated, passionate "friends" of a nonprofit bring far more stability and benefit to a nonprofit than the traditional "donor pyramid."

One key to the success of her model is to AVOID asking for money until the prospect is ready to give. Many development directors would cringe at the donation opportunities the author encourages one to pass up in favor of cultivating a deeper, longer-lasting relationship. Facility tours, special events, and similar happenings are intended to be free, open, and low-pressure opportunities for the community to learn about the organization and its mission and for the organization to learn contact information on attendees and who is most likely to be interested in further contact on the donor's chosen terms.

One point made fairly early will unnerve many volunteer managers. Ms. Axelrod points out that relatively few nonprofit organizations are ready to listen to a prospective donor/volunteer and be prepared to accept what they are most willing to give. If the nonprofit makes it easy for the donor to identify a need and volunteer the time and/or resources to fill that need, then they will have made a friend as well as enhanced services. Ms. Axelrod places volunteer management squarely in the development arena and takes it out of its "unpaid employee/HR management" status. Volunteers are donors and donors are volunteers, and they need to be recognized, cultivated, and sustained in the organization for their blended, "customer-driven" status. This also means that the donor who "just writes the check" will also disappear, since the writers of the larger checks also tend to be involved in the nonprofit as volunteers.

In Ms. Axelrod's model, the lowest donor level is $1,000 per year ($83 per month), with a five-year commitment to give at that level. From there, donors may be requested to give additional gifts during the period, accelerate the fulfillment of their pledges, increase their pledges, and refer selected friends and acquaintances. Rather than the traditional "strong-arm the Rolodex®" fundraising model, donors invite friends to free, no obligation meet-and-greet/tour "point of entry" events as new entrants into the donor cycle.

The obvious advantages to this approach are that most giving is made by individuals, that most individuals are likely to give a gift, even when not properly cultivated, that properly cultivated donors will give more, more often, and longer than those not properly cultivated. The disadvantages in this approach are that it requires a fair amount of planning, absolute "buy-in" from all levels of staff, and some "front-end" investment in time and energy. However, the benefits in organizational financial stability, constituent loyalty, and independence from vagaries in grant funding cycles, political shifts, and economic trends are huge.

The book itself is structured somewhat like a donation cycle (in this case, the "Raising More Money Model"), with a few chapters dedicated to overview of the process, followed by chapters delving a little deeper into the specific steps, and ending with several chapters discussing specific strategies for specific steps in the cycle. There is a little repetition and reinforcement in using this structural technique, but that's a good thing and not at all overdone. Ms. Axelrod refers to her "Raising More Money" seminars, and it's easy to see the book's contents as components of two or three curricula, complete with the "tell 'em what they're going to hear, tell 'em, and then tell 'em what they heard" structure that works so effectively with adult learners in practical learning situations.

This book is far more than a traditional "how to" cookbook; it's both a theoretical challenge to traditional fundraising and a practical, step-by-step primer for implementation of Ms. Axelrod's new paradigm of fundraising. Even those who challenge her premise will be hard-pressed to challenge her implementation techniques.

Terry gives you practical advice on how to create lifelong donors. She encourages you to think about your donor as your customer, and advocates managing the relationship. She also encourages you to set your vision and your system in place to encourage attracting people that will be passionate about your cause. She gently reminds you that 80% of the funds that are donated on an annual basis are donated by individuals as opposed to organizations- a fact that many fundraisers forget about in their quest to raise money.

She shows effective ways to get people in the boat with you! I am so impressed I am planning on taking one of her Raising More Money Workshops. I highly recommend this book. There are so many wonderful pointers that you will want to read it slowly with a high lighter and a pen to take notes!

This book is excellent for challenging undergraduate courses as well as graduate courses in international finance. It has a unique mixture of theory, evidence and institutions. The theory is mainly delivered to you using a few equations and helpful diagrams. The "evidence" part accompanies each theoretical offering and usually takes the form of reporting the structure and results of empirical tests. As far as I know this is the only international finance text that gives so much insight into the econometrics of international finance. It is well known that MacDonald is an international expert in the econometrics of international finance, and the bibliography indicates that he has worked quite a lot with Hallwood investigating various propositions concerning the behaviour of pegged exchange rate regimes. One of the best features of the book is the way that the theory and evidence is used in the discussion of international institutions such as the operation of fixed and floating exchange rates, currency unions and development of the international financial architecture. There is also an extensive discussion of the main features of the history of international monetary systems. Finally the authors have made an effort to bring in some discussion of international finance in east Asia. Probably the book could have benefitted from more discussion of regional issues such as these. Even so there is quite a good theoretical discussion of dollarization in Latin America.

We have tried hard to keep abreast of the literature in all of the main fields of international finance - theory, evidence, institutions and policy. As we believe that scholarship requires the scholar to know the sources of ideas - every idea having its own author(s), we have not spared the student the bother of knowing about the researchers and the generation of ideas in international money and finance. We cover 'recieved wisdom' as well as the important new developments in the field. The latter include such diverse subjects as theoretical innovations in the general equilibrium theory of exchange rate determination, explanations for the relative immobility of long-term capital alongside highly mobile short-term capital, the behavior of exchange rates within target zones, theories of the best course of financial integration of transition economies and developing countries into the circuit of international capital, explanations for why real exchange rates often diverge for long periods from purchasing power parity, how misinformed speculation and speculative bubbles can cause floating exchange rates to be unstable, new successful empirical methods for forecasting exchange rates, and a reassessment of the performance of the gold standard in the 19th century and its role in the Great Depression. This textbook-monograph - written for smart undergraduate and gradute students, is widely used on three continents (the Chinese translation appeared in 1996). And we know that is it used for course work at Ivy League universities in the US, and many universities throughout Europe.