5 comments about All About Dividend Investing (All about).

1. Don Schreiber makes a strong and persuasive argument for why any savvy investor needs to give attention to dividend investing. This book showed me exactly how I can be a savvier investor. Now I have a better grasp of the tax consequences and impact of inflation on my investments and how stocks with excellent dividends can shield me. This is an excellent primer for investors at every level.



2. This is a very good book, full of pratical advices. It is easy to read and understand. It's useful for planning a rational investment strategy. Recommended!



3. This recent entry in the "All About..." investment series covers a lot of territory, but many of its most useful points are made in the first few pages. Dividend paying stocks should be in your portfolio because their cash flow provides steady income with less price volatility in up and down markets. Dividends offer the possibility of positive returns during extended periods when there is little or no price appreciation in the equity markets. In fact, the authors believe that we are in for a "fairly long stretch" of disappointing returns based on their reading of bull and bear market cycle history. Retiring baby boomers looking to squeeze more income from their financial assets will want dividend producing stocks - another reason to own them ahead of their demographic buying wave. Recent tax law changes that include a low maximum 15% rate for most common stock dividends have also made these investments more attractive.
   
   Much of what follows will be of interest to the Do It Yourself portfolio builder. The authors provide advice on analyzing a company's financial ratios to determine the sustainability of a company's dividend and their ability to raise it in the future. Investors are advised how to diversify their portfolio and suitable criteria for screening their holdings. Managing the portfolio with an automatic stop-loss sell discipline to preserve capital in declining markets is a much discussed and infrequently used strategy. Here it gets close attention. My sense of this book is that readers will pick and choose ideas and pieces of their strategy rather than try to follow their methodology step by step. Chapter 11 on DRIPS, Folios, and Mutual Funds and the final Chapter 12 can be skipped.



4. If you're fairly new to investing and have gone beyond mutual funds and dipped your toes into a pool of stocks, you're probably like most new investors... you picked a few growth stocks because those are the stocks that are exciting and sexy. I always wondered what a "Value" stock was and why anyone except our elder citizens would want dividend stocks in boring industries like utilities.
   
   This book will help open that world to you and give you some basic tools to start with in picking valuable, dividend producing stocks. It has actually made it exciting for me to search, pick, and buy those boring stocks!
   
   I'm still young and new to investing, and I found this book, and a few other "All About" books, to be my favorite. They're technical enough without being too technical. And broad enough to give you a general view from which you can then dig deeper.



5. I have been a big fan of dividend investing for years. Generally its not exciting but its dependable. Its often the only money you get to see in a share for a long time.
   
   A plus is as the writer states is the market goes down the shares rarely drop that much as it reaches a point where people will buy it just for the dividend rate.
   
   Having made this one observation, a few times in his book, you will find that if you know something about shares then there is little new or orginal here.
   
   By the way the negative about dividend investing is what this writer does not tell you is if the company has a bad year and cuts its dividend, then the price can drop dramatically. So you still can get burnt badly.

1 comments about The Lean Primer: Solutions for the Job Shop.

1. THE LEAN PRIMER fills a void in the plethera of Lean books in the market. The simple explanation of Lean tools, as well as the actual plant examples, allow you to see these tools in action. What I really like about this book is the photos from shops that you can tell are in the midst of implementing Lean. No staged photos here in this book! Great job in making the bridge from all the other books on the tools and concepts to actual demonstrating it through examples.

5 comments about The Compleat Day Trader II (Compleat Day Trader).

1. Having read many books on Day Trading and attended courses and seminars, this book added "confidence". It gives you simple systems to work with, 30MBO, InsideDays, Gaps, etc.. It also tells you what the indicators lack and what most traders lack to succeed, discipline. Use the 30MBO but don't change the method. Stick to it. Be disciplined. Aimed at the futures and commodities traders, these methods also work with fast high volume, high votility stocks. I emailed Jake with a question on the 30MBO and got a reply in hours, that's value. I have ordered his next book, "The Complete Guide to Day Trading Stock". Can't wait. I cannot see how anyone (who is not a beginner) would not benefit from this book.



2. Reading this book is purely a watse of your time. Buying it is absolutely waste of your money.

   The only thing you can learn from it is that the author probably makes more money by selling hot topic books than from trading.




3. Mr. Bernstein writes a book almost every month. He certainly is a prolific writer--my question is when does he have time to trade??



4. I feel that Day Tader II is really a rip-off as it basically just reguritates most of the material found in volume one. THIS is typical Bernstein -- the goal is dollars from book sales, not educating the reader. Mr. Bernstein does not respect his readers, and this is the sad part because he obviously is a highly intelligent man who probably could contribute a lot to the field of daytrading education if he weren't so needy and greedy. I wouldn't go so far as to call him "Jake the Snake", but I do think he should put more care into the content of his books.



5. Save your money. Never, never waste your funds on the drivel this author produces!!
   
   A profitable trader would never have time enough to write even one tenth the quantity of words this person produces.
   
   Find traders that actually make money to learn from. There are a few that have written good books.
   
   As starting points:
   For equities traders try: Professional Stock Trading
   For futures traders try: Trading Day by Day
   
   These are simply starting points, but are written by REAL traders, not worthless-book producers.

No comments about Introduction to Macroeconomics.

5 comments about Critical Chain.

1. This book is well written; easy to read and to understand. It includes a bunch of useful concepts in a smooth way, so you assimilate the almost without effort.
   
   Since it is written like a novel, rather than a textbook, I found myself reading it eagerly and I finished it in very few days. On the other hand, it is not suitable as a reference book.
   
   In conclusion, if you want to introduce in project managing from a practical point of view just buy it, it really pays off



2. Like "The Goal," by the same author this book is excellent. If you don't think that you can learn about business from a novel, then you are wrong. I have probably learned more from this novel than most of the business books that I have read. This book will transform your business practices.



3. You're a project manager? This book is good.
   
   You're not a project manager? You can learn from this, as being a single mom is being a project manager as well. It doesn't have the magic though if you can't transform knowledge to wisdom and that's where this book comes up short.
   
   Although TOC is taken one step further, this book is on the edge of the four star rating. It does give manager some valuable insights which were missing in the previous books and is still fun to read and maybe it makes me long for not having read the previous books yet...



4. This book is about applying TOC to project management. After reading this book I understood why TOC for project management is not as straight forward as it might first appear. Not only are projects not repeatable like production assembly lines buts in a multi-project environment you need to take shared resources into account. This is even more difficult when the managers for each project are different people. Lessons learned:
   
   - Estimates should be "In X days with 50% chance of completion"
   - Cut estimates in 2 or 3 if suspect that tasks have padding
   - All the padding should go for the project but less than sum of padding
   - Add time buffers (at no cost) when paths merge with critical path
   - If a resource is shared between projects then it may be a bottleneck
   - Resource bottlenecks should be treated as such: identify, exploit, subordinate, elevate...
   - No due dates so as not to encourage the "student syndrome"
   
   Of all the business novels by Eli Goldratt, I think that this is the one that I have learned the most from. As with all his novels, it's easy and fun to read with the added benefit that you will have learnt to better manage your projects. A must.



5. Stories are one of the best ways to teach and Eliyahu Goldratt is a master story teller! In Critical Chain Goldratt weaves a tale to teach concepts to project managers on how to drive down schedule time, and reduce product cost using Theory of Constraints (TOC). It is an extension of the concepts taught in the Goal, but this time for project management rather than process management.
   
   The problem management (at a factitious company) face in this book is their products have a short life span (6 months), but a long development time (2 years). Consequently they have to continually develop new products. To compound their problems, if they miss picking a good product, or launch an inferior product they could loose significant market share. Company loyalty just isn't what it used to be.
   
   Fortunately, management realizes it is not a matter of "if" but "when" they will stumble. They assign a tiger team of young blood to drive down development time. This team has no idea where to start, and this book is the story of their journey of discovery.
   
   The reader is taken on the journey with the team and learns about resources, bottlenecks, buffers, critical paths, constraints and more. By learning how to apply The Theory of Constraints the team (and the reader) is able to discover ways of reducing product development time significantly.
   
   Overall, this is another excellent book by Eliyahu Goldratt. I learned a great deal from the Goal and Critical Chain. Goldratt is on a mission to change project management (and process management) from an art to a science. He does a great job at providing the tools and techniques for anyone willing to learn and apply these powerful concepts!
   
   The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide to: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking
   
   The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

No comments about Stop Debt Collectors.

5 comments about Investing Without Fear: Protect Your Wealth in all Markets and Transform Crash Losses into Crash Profits.

1. This arrogant self-promoter acts like he's right and everyone else is wrong. He's be justified in acting that way if he were right. But he's wrong at least as often. He tries to scare people into buying his books, his newsletter, and (worst of all) his high-priced "trading services". He called for a real estate crash in 2003, a bond crash in 2004, and he's called for a stock crash every year for the past decade.



2. Go hide in a cave, put all your money in US government bills, bonds, and hord gold and wait for the financial nuclear winter to clear up. There..., now you don't need to buy this book.
   This book originally came out at about March 2003, at the end of the recent bear market, and was titled "Crash Profits..." at that time.
   The whole financial world did not end and the book was retitled to "Investing Without Fear...." so that more copies can be sold.
   Weiss is like a broken clock, always predicting that one thing or another is about to crash. He has been wrong so often. Even a broken clock is right twice in any given 24 hour period.



3. Given the way the economy is going, this book is a must read. There is a possibility that there will be a stock market crash in the near future: given the unfolding of the subprime mortgage crisis and untold numbers of foreclosures; banks that dabbled in hedge funds and subprime mortgages beginning to feel the pinch; the dollar spiralling downward; and the price of oil skyrocketing. Somewhere in all of this, one gets a distinct feeling of instability, and that is where Weiss's book comes in.
   
   His knowledge of the investing environment is refreshing and at the same time disturbing. He equips the average investor with knowledge that will help him/her in the coming difficult times. This is not a light read, yet the way he weaves story lines through the book, it places the reader comfortably into the investing environment. He gives worst-case scenarios and asks hard questions that makes the reader think. He also reveals astute insight and provides solutions to problems that help the reader feel equipped to tackle the upcoming turmoil in our economy.
   
   The most valuable parts of the book (I think) are
   where he mentions that he rates bank and brokerage firms and includes the websites. I felt as if I was reading the consumer report for banks! We actually visited a library and looked up Weiss's bank ratings books there. They rate banks on a quarterly basis, and include a thorough list of banks in every state, their rating and safety (some banks even get A+). We checked out the banks with the higher ratings in our state.
   
   This book provides peace of mind to the average investor trying to save and invest for the future when the economy looks dismally bleak.



4. This book is a must read for veteran or new investors. It tells a lot about the markets and how they operate. It warns about improper practices of some stock brokers. Included is advice on better stock trading.



5. This book has a great deal of valuable advice and Martin Weiss is an extremely reliable expert. HOWEVER -- This is the EXACT SAME book as his previously published "Crash Profits." They simply changed the title! I can find absolutely no updated or new information in this one. There is a mention of this on the back cover but you normally only get to see that until you've bought the book.
   
   I really hate when publisher's do this!

5 comments about The Independent Medical Transcriptionist, Fifth Edition: The Comprehensive Guidebook for Career Success in a Medical Transcription Business.

1. This book can be informative at times but most of the time, I felt like I was reading the book version of the home shopping channel. If you're already a transcriptionist, you don't need this book. And if you're a newbie, The Medical Transcription Career Handbook has more and better eye-openers to help you get started.



2. I read this bokk, this to to let all you people related to Medical Transcription that this book is great. Has useful material for Medical Transcriptionists. Book gose into details on setting up and becoming a good Medical Transcriptionist. This book is being kept in our library and we will ask all our Trsnscriptionist to read it and but it, as it has useful tips. ...



3. Despite being revised in 2002, much of the information in this book is still quite dated. For example, it still assumes WordPerfect is the standard for word processing software, and it talks about upgrading your computer to a 486!! Not sure what they did in that 2002 revision... Given how behind the times the book is, it is of limited usefulness. However, there are some good sections and it is a reasonable general overview of setting up your own independent transcription service.



4. Probably the most common reason to purchase this book is to gain information about becoming an independent medical transcriptionist, but I really was disappointed with this book as far as that is concerned. Technology and medicine both advance and change on a daily basis which leaves this book, printed in 2002, in somewhat of a dark age, especially now that the most cost effective, time efficient, and popular way of transferring all sorts of data is electronically.
   
   While there is some good information in this book, I don't think the amount of information that is relevant is worth the price. Most of this stuff can be found on the internet more accurately than in the pages of this book.



5. I've been an MT for years, and even worked as an IC for many of those years, but needed new information on contracts, liability insurance, and HIPPA compliance. Found it all in this book....and more. I think it's a great reference!

No comments about Harvard Business Review on Managing Health Care (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series) (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series).

1 comments about Administrative Excellence: Revolutionizing Our Value In The Workplace.

1. So often, a book for Administrative Assistants has the "same ole stuff." While this book certainly covers some of the basics, there is a new and fresh approach to the profession. It is written as if the PA (Professional Assistant), as she calls us, is indeed a partner with their manager. The accountability and responsibilities are spelled out in a very professional manner. I truly enjoyed the read.