Book Description
In 1981, at the age of 29 the author of HOW TO RETIRE EARLY AND LIVE WELL WITH LESS THAN A MILLION DOLLARS (February 15, 2000; $12.95 trade paperback; 256 pages) began living off his investments of just several hundred thousand dollars. In the intervening years, Gillette Edmunds has made more than $5 million in investment profits. Edmunds was not an investment advisor or a commissioned mutual funds sales representative: he was a financial journalist and an individual investor.
HOW TO RETIRE EARLY AND LIVE WELL WITH LESS THAN A MILLION DOLLARS describes step by step how a retiree can live comfortably on $500,000 or less. Americans will discover that they can walk away from work in less than five years.
This is the first book to tackle these topics that is written by an actual retiree. Using simple, original investment strategies and formulas, the book shows how to assemble your nest egg and achieve steady, tax-advantaged returns every year for the rest of your life.
In Part One, the reader is shown step by step how to determine if they have enough money to retire, and if not, how to get enough. For those that have enough, Part Two shows how to divide their money into different asset classes like stocks, bonds, real estate, foreign stocks, and small business interests so they will achieve steady high returns every year. Then for each asset class, they are shown how to get the highest returns with the lowest taxes. Part Three shows those still saving for retirement how to quickly amass their nest egg. Finally, for the rare years when all asset classes go down, The Epilogue shows the reader how to prosper emotionally while waiting for the markets to come back.
Customer Reviews:
A valuable addition to your retirement library.......2007-10-16
I read some of the other reviews but to me this is a 5 star read.
Covers in simple and understandable terms the common mistakes that most retirees make.
Asset allocation is the biggest mistake that retirees make!!! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that speculation in unsuitable to those retiring.
If you cannot afford to lose capital, then don't play the game.
Laddered municipal bonds, treasuries, cd's and money markets are my preferred investment model.
Laddering will provide you with steady monthly income and all of these will provide safety.
A book well worth having.
Interesting Read and Predictions .......2007-07-23
This book was written in 1999 and published in 2000. My hat is off to the author for retiring at age 29 back in 1981 and living off his investments.
The first thing that surprised me about this book was the author's acceptance and recommendations for using 8, 10, and even 12% SWR's (Safe Withdrawal Rates).
Bengen's and Bierwirth's studies back in 1994 were seminal events in financial planning in that they found 4% was the maximum SWR. If the stock market experiences a prolonged drop early in a retirement period, SWR's higher than 4% will cause the retiree to exhaust his portfolio before this death.
In 1998, the Trinity Study also found the same basic results as Bengen and Bierwirth.....and recommended a maximum SWR of 4%.
The author retired in 1981, so these studies were not yet done. Conventional wisdom back in 1981 was that if the stock market returned 10% per year on average, then you could withdraw up to 10% per year and not exhaust your portfolio.
It is puzzling to me why the author ignores the 1994 and 1998 studies since his book was written in 1999. Conventional financial planning practices today would frown upon a financial advisor recommending any SWR greater than about 4%.
I did enjoy the accuracy of most of the author's predictions back from 1999:
Foreign stocks will do well......U.S. stocks will not do well..................Correct
REIT's are a good investment.....................................................Correct
Housing prices will decline due to aging Baby Boomers.....................Incorrect
The author also suggests that U.S. bonds are too correlated to U.S. stocks and therefore bonds should not be in a portfolio. I checked the long term and short term correlations using Callan's Periodic Table of Returns:
1991 to 2006 correlation of U.S. Stocks to U.S. bonds......R squared = 3%, R=17%
2000 to 2006 correlation of U.S. Stocks to U.S. bonds......R squared = 66%, R=-81%
Defining correlation as R, the long term correlation of U.S. bonds to stocks was relatively low at 17%. From the time the author's book was published in 2000 thru 2006, there was a negative 81% correlation. This data disagrees with the author's comments that you should not use bonds because they are too well correlated to stocks.
The author recommends using 3 to 5 asset classes.....and advocates the use of index funds. I interpreted the author's writings to indicate he holds zero percent bonds.
I was a little surprised at the author suggesting for the first year or two, it will take you 100 man-hours per every 10% of asset allocation to get your finances in order. After the first year, he says 10 hrs/week is enough. I use mostly index funds, so it took no where near this many man-hours for me to set up my asset allocation and investments.
The author suggests that the dollar will continue to decline against both foreign and emerging markets. He advocates up to 33% of your portfolio be invested in foreign or emerging market stocks. He rationalizes that foreign investors are more likely to buy stocks in their own country. He predicts Baby Boomers will be able to find buyers for their foreign stocks much easier than for buyers of their U.S. stocks.
The epilogue section is a good example of Socrates' famous quote "Know Thy Self". It is extremely difficult for us humans to understand what drives us and how we can make more rational decisions.
The writing style in this book is of medium quality with some annoying grammatical errors, but it was not a major distraction.
I found the book an interesting read.....primarily because it was written from the viewpoint of someone who has "walked the talk" and lived off his investments since 1981.
Index Mutual Funds: How to Simplify Your Financial Life and Beat the Pro's
Are You Using the Right Rules to Plan Your Retirement?
The Richest Man in Babylon
Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor
The Millionaire Next Door
The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition
The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
Disappointed.......2007-06-20
This book is clearly intended for East-Coasters or, more specifically, people who have lived their adult lives in New York City. Believe me, you cannot sell your home in rural Iowa and take the proceeds to buy another house in a cheaper, but fun, retirement area with the bonus of having money left over to invest and live on. I was disappointed that most of the suggestions in this book assume that the reader is currently spending like a madman and not too bright about ways to save. Also, for those of us living a conservative lifestyle, the savings he outlines are nonexistent.
Oh well, no book is completely bad...
Great Advice and Comforting to Boot.......2007-01-22
This is a great book. I recommend it highly to those planning to retire or to those who have involuntarily retired before they planned to.
Not the Only Investment Book You Need, But in the Top 3.......2006-11-22
I decided to give this book 5 stars because I decided it was worthwhile enough to buy, even after I'd already read a library copy. I usually don't re-read books. This one I have.
The main strength of this book is that it ties a lot of things together. It gives you a realistic way of developing a plan for the amount you need to retire. It then walks you through the amount of risk you need to take to achieve this amount, and realistic asset allocation to reduce the risk. He recommends keeping no more than 1/3 in US stocks, and having 1/3 in foreign stocks. As the world is becoming increasingly globalized, this is important advice. It was also pretty good advice since it was written right before the US market crash in 2000.
I agree with people who gave the book a lower rating. There are plenty of holes, and there are parts I don't agree with. This is not the only book you need to read. I recommend Bernstein's Intelligent Asset Allocator in addition to this book. Bernstein's book will help with the details. Edmund's book will give you practical advice to implement the details into a plan.
And if you don't have enough to meet your goals - Edmunds tells you to go back to work.
Book Description
For author and real estate owner Elaine Zimmerman and for an ever-increasing number of individuals especially women this grim reality has been all too familiar. For Elaine, left with little money and no financial plan after divorce, a comfortable retirement seemed an impossible dream. She realized, as we all do eventually, that Social Security and company retirement plans aren't sufficient to ensure financial secruity. So Elaine followed a friend's example and took the first step toward controlling her financial future. She found a bank that financed her postdivorce home at a lower interest rate and, within three years, owned three houses worth a half million dollars. Now, with Elaine's practical, detailed, step-by-step plan for financial security through real estate investing, every woman and man can do it, too.
If you run a household, bargain-hunt and know how to stretch a dollar, you can start with the plan.
Work on real estate investing on weekends and during the evenings, while keeping your regular jobPurchase homes far below market valueBuy in the best part of town for higher long-term appreciationRent your houses for the amount of the mortgage with taxes and insurance or greaterAssume fixed-rate mortgages for no more than 15 years in length
From start to finish, How to Retire With a Million Dollars covers the important topics and questions, including determining your monthly income goals; how much cash you'll need to get started; getting bank loans; down payments and financing your first house; the major tax benefits of owning rental properties; selecting neighborhoods and real estate agents; how to utilize your shopping skills to purchase properties; why choosing a house is like choosing a husband (good foundation no major structural defects; repairs what to fix what to forget); refinancing and financing house two, three, etc.; building your real estate portfolio; foreclosures, bargain homes and other deals; tenants and leases.
Complete with a glossary of mortgage-related terms, this indispensable book offers an easy-to-follow strategy to get you started in real estate investing and keep you motivated, whether you're working alone or with the help of a partner. Start building your financial future now one house at a time!
Customer Reviews:
A great place to start in the real estate investing business........2006-03-09
This is my "baby" book. I literally cut my entrepreneurial teeth on this one. If you are looking for a simple direct plan for retiring with $1m without changing your whole life, this is it. Thank you Elaine
Easy reading.......2004-01-30
This book is VERY easy to read and informative. It points out what to look for in an investment home. The author shares some of the mistakes she has made in hopes that you avoid them.
As a friend told me "You can choose to learn by trial and error & lose thousands of dollars, or just read a book. It's your choice".
I highly recommend you read this if you are serious about entering the house rental business.
Not A Millionaire Yet..........2001-06-24
...but on the other hand, I haven't bought my first property yet. What I'll grade on is readability, timeliness, and feasibility. Mrs. Z obviously knows her real estate, and I never thought about living in the property first before you make it a rental. Makes sense, why rent out to someone else a house you wouldn't want to live in yourself? I give her high marks for the checklist to go through for in searching properties, and she recognizes the fact that not all of us WANT to be millionaires. It's a very readable book that doesn't get lost in jargon, but doesn't ignore the terminology a real estate investor is going to need, either. I also found the analogy for shopping for a house/husband very cute. I'm leery of the more creative financing ploys, though. I think her method is doable, but I'd also investigate the book Rental Houses for the Successful Small Investor by Suzanne Thomas and then compare the two outlooks.
Good book for beginning real estate investors.......1998-07-29
I thought the book was very elementary in the information it provided. The author did an excellent job identifying the various real estate investment options but did not provide enough details about each one. The book is a great starting point for understanding what real estate investing is all about and identifying potentially satisfying fnancial returns; however, it doesn't provide enough details to make it a true "how to" book because you will definitely need more information to perform or practice any of the techniques described.
A great book for women who are new to the real estate game........1998-05-27
This book is excellent for single women who want to secure their financial future without tying up all of their available liquid assests today. The author clearly shows how good judgement and elbow grease can help you work for a secure retirement. By utilizing capabilities that all of us have, we can make our money go further and still maintain a comfortable cash flow. The statistics on women living below the poverty level after retirement are staggering. With the information in this book, it is possible not to fall into that category.
Average customer rating:
- Shadow Lady=sexy, fun, and all around entertaining!
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Shadow Lady: Sudden Death
Masakazu Katsura
Manufacturer: Dark Horse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Shadow Lady: Awakening
ASIN: 1569714770 |
Book Description
The fate of the world depends on Shadow Lady finding and sealing up the dreaded Demon Stones, but first she must vanquish the evildoers corrupted by their demonic power. But Aimi Komori has very little left of the magic eye shadow that transforms her into Shadow Lady, and she must transform for perhaps the final time to face the hideous Zera, Arch-Demon of Destruction. If Shadow Lady can`t reseal the Demon Stones, Zera will transform into the Demon of Final Destruction, and mankind and demonkind will both buy the farm! Of course, the citizens of Gray City think that Shadow Lady is actually Zera`s master, so they`re after Shadow Lady`s head, too! Collecting issues #19-24 of the series, plus the Shadow Lady Special!
Customer Reviews:
Shadow Lady=sexy, fun, and all around entertaining!.......2003-02-26
I read this a few years ago and loved it. I own the entire series of Shadow Lady and never get tired of reading them. I must warn you, there is some nudity (nothing explicit) and some weird humor (not off-color, but not kiddie fare either). If you don't mind seeing a little flesh or reading a sexual-related sentence, then by all means, go for it! You won't regret it!
Customer Reviews:
The biggest triple-threat since Bobby Darin.......2004-11-13
He can write. He can dance. And after 2 cans of beers, he can eructate a heart-rending belchadelic rendition of THE WAY WE WERE. I can't believe I'm living in a world where every goddam Salvation Army store contains 937 copies of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and not one copy of FRESH LIES. As Kenneth Tynan said, it's enough to make a Manichean of me.
You have a decision to make, Smedley. You can either buy FRESH LIES---or I can program my Orson Welles android to sit on your face. The choice is yours.
Mr. Lileks is among the very best.......2002-08-07
A few deserving authors on the Right have really made their bones in the wake of 9-11.Ê Bernard Lewis went from being well-regarded in the ivory towers to a prominent place on magazine covers as the leading public voice in the West on Islam.Ê Victor Davis Hanson went from being a distinctive but little known military writer to one of the most popular geopolitical columnists in America.Ê Christopher Hitchens was saved from a life of thralldom to the tenets of Marxism as he became a leading, if improbable, defender of Western values.Ê Daniel Pipes became just as much the celebrated scourge of Islam as his dad had been the scourge of the Soviet Union.Ê And, on the comedic front, we all "discovered" James Lileks.
If you've ever looked at a blog, particularly a war blog, you'll have seen--and hopefully followed-- innumerable links to Mr. Lileks's Daily Bleat.Ê But he's no recent phenomenon, as this collection of columns from 1994 shows.Ê Mr. Lileks has been toiling away in the vineyards for many years now, or in his case the pages of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.Ê The older satire here is just as funny and just as politically incorrect as his writing over the past few months has been, including rants about NPR, women's hair dye, the metric system, and the Taster's Choice couple.
Columnists, especially those who write humor columns, have a tough task, called on not only to be consistent but consistently funny.Ê Mr. Lileks is among the very best.
GRADE : A
So smart.......2001-10-24
Lileks is one of those guys who can put such a unique top-spin on mundane matters that it's transformed into the most clever, hilarious topic imaginable.
Short and snappy, Fresh Lies' essays and stories embody a respectable variety, from the silly to the artfully sincere. Keep it in your bag, for waiting in line or riding the bus, or the patio. Hell, keep it wherever you want- just keep it!
Hip, yet midwestern.......2000-04-17
James Lileks is like a younger Garrison Keeler--and I mean that in a good way. He has the same smart sense of humor and the same midwestern sensibility. Lileks takes on everyday life writing about his fear of his espresso maker, shampoo, rock music, and all sorts of other things in the world around him in a way that is fresh and frequently hilarious. I read this book on the train and people kept staring at me because I was laughing so hard. The chapter entitled "Turn That Racket Down" (about pop music) in particular brought tears to my eyes. Lilieks writes from the point of view of those of us who missed out on being boomers (thank god), but who are to old to be part of Gen X. If it amuses you that the song "Instant Karma" ws used to sell shoes, but you don't understand rap music, you are the right age to enjoy this book
LILEKS IS GOD.......1999-07-03
Mr. James Lileks is a genius. A literary colossus (well a lilliputian collossus but a collosus nonetheless). Heartily recommended.
Average customer rating:
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Cinema and the Sandinistas: Filmmaking in Revolutionary Nicaragua (Texas Film and Media Studies Series)
Jonathan Buchsbaum
Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0292705247 |
Book Description
The book provides an invaluable resource for Latin American film scholars, scholars of contemporary Nicaraguan state formation, and cultural studies scholars intrigued with larger questions concerning the relationship between the arts, social change, mediation, and globalization.
—
The Journal of Latin American Anthropology
"This is the only major study of Nicaraguan cinema and, as such, it is invaluable not only to film students, but also to third world studies and cultural work. . . . In a world dominated by corporate culture, the effort by a small, poor, underdeveloped country to construct a national film project has importance as a model despite its failures."
—DeeDee Halleck, author of
Hand-Held Visions: The Uses of Community Media
Following the Sandinista Revolution in 1979, young bohemian artists rushed to the newly formed Nicaraguan national film institute INCINE to contribute to "the recovery of national identity" through the creation of a national film project. Over the next eleven years, the filmmakers of INCINE produced over seventy films—documentary, fiction, and hybrids—that collectively reveal a unique vision of the Revolution drawn not from official FSLN directives, but from the filmmakers' own cinematic interpretations of the Revolution as they were living it.
This book examines the INCINE film project and assesses its achievements in recovering a Nicaraguan national identity through the creation of a national cinema. Using a wealth of firsthand documentation—the films themselves, interviews with numerous INCINE personnel, and INCINE archival records—Jonathan Buchsbaum follows the evolution of INCINE's project and situates it within the larger historical project of militant, revolutionary filmmaking in Latin America. His research also raises crucial questions about the viability of national cinemas in the face of accelerating globalization and technological changes which reverberate far beyond Nicaragua's experiment in revolutionary filmmaking.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Cineaste, published by Cineaste Publishers, Inc. on June 22, 2004. The length of the article is 1759 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Cinema and the Sandinistas: Filmmaking in Revolutionary Nicaragua: 1979-1990.(Book Review)
Author: Ana M. Lopez
Publication:
Cineaste (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2004
Publisher: Cineaste Publishers, Inc.
Volume: 29
Issue: 3
Page: 63(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Average customer rating:
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I'm a Man: Sex, Gods, and Rock 'n' Roll
Ruth Padel
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0571175996 |
Book Description
Turn your home page into a microportal with fresh content that will keep readers coming back. The first hands-on book on building blogs, this is an excellent tutorial for new bloggers, and includes many advanced techniques for veteran bloggers. Simply put, web logging, known as blogging, is an easy way of updating a web page via a browser without the hassle of launching an FTP client or HTML editor. With all the templates, add-ons, and extra features associated with building this microportal, the blog is a new take on the home page. The blog brings the voice of its creator to the surface, builds it into the design, and keeps the content fresh and meaningful. This book features hands-on tutorials for building a blog, adding a user based commenting system, adding team members, syndicating with JavaScript, adding searches to a site, and much more. This is the book for creative web-enthusiasts looking for the "next thing" and it's the first book of new ideas and advanced tutorials for bloggers already numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
Customer Reviews:
simple usage.......2005-09-23
Stone takes us on a tour of what is available for you to start and run your own blog website. A lot of it is surprisingly easy to master. Many content management packages have been written specifically for blogging, and come free or cheap.
He also offers suggestions about financing your site with ads; perhaps using Google. Plus ways to publicise your content. Notably by using RSS so that others coming to your site can readily subscribe. He does not go into the full details of RSS. You need a more technical text for that. But the example RSS file given here is simple enough to convey the essence of what is involved.
Unfortunately, he does not discuss blog spam. Where a spammer or a bot might write spam articles on your site. On some large blog sites, this has emerged as a problem, as spammers try to manipulate search engines to up the rankings of the spam sites.
Showing its age but still very relevant........2005-09-20
Even though this book is showing it's age, like in the prices for some of the software, it is still a very good primer for getting to know Blogging. It is complete with basic HTML advise and good reviews on software. It also has good advice on layout and making a Blog look good and readable.
Blogging Incomplete.......2005-09-12
The range of products reviewed is impressive; however, the information on each of the products is incomplete. For example, Xanga is mentioned to have a comfy community, but no where is it mentioned that with Xanga it is impossible to get outside of their community. And the Xanga community consists of hundreds of thousands of tweens who want to know whether or not Bobby really ate a worm. Not for serious bloggers. It seems designed for and catering to Junior High School aged kids.
ok-ish but do you really need this book?.......2005-04-18
This book is neither bad or great.
If you are new to blogging mess around, see how it works with a free blogger. If you need more you can move over to the likes of MovableType or wordpress. If you use blogger, Elizabeth Castro has a new book about a specific solution "publishing a blog with Blogger" which goes into more actual detail about getting blogger to work for you. It is better. Mess around and read lots of other blogs. This book is really worth a miss.
A blogging overview.......2005-01-04
For beginners, a good overview of the blogging phenomenon and a primer for what you need to get one going. The book is an easy read and should get you up and running before you're done.
The author is excited about blogs and brings it to a head with practical steps. It does concentrate on the Blogger family of software, but does mention some of the other options, plus quick overviews on HTML and CSS.
Get learning on blogs. With this book and the web on your screen, you'll find ideas on on how to integrate this phenomenon into your business marketing strategy.
Books:
- Income for Life-From Real Estate: How the Tortoise Got Rich with CDROM
- Instant Tax Relief for Real Estate Agents
- International tax reform an interim report (SuDoc T 1.2:R 25)
- International taxation taxes of foreign- and U.S.-controlled corporations : fact sheet for the Honorable Byron L. Dorgan, U.S. Senate (SuDoc GA 1.13:GGD-93-112 FS)
- International taxation transfer pricing and information on nonpayment of tax : report to congressional requesters (SuDoc GA 1.13:GGD-95-101)
- International Taxation U.S. Taxation of Foreign Persons and Foreign Income Second Edition Volume 2
- International Transfer Pricing: Perspectives on Trade Between Australia, New Zealand and China
- J K Lasser Pro Real Estate Investment Trusts
- Lend Your Way To Wealth: Private Lending In Real Estate--Make Big Profits Lending Money for Bridge Loans
- Making Big Money Investing in Foreclosures: Without Cash or Credit
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