Book Description
Millions of homes are financed each year and millions more are refinanced, a process that routinely leaves consumers dazed, weary, and paying more than they should.
For more than a decade The Common-Sense Mortgage has been a consumer staple, used by borrowers nationwide to find better home loan terms and lower costs. Written in plain language, clearly organized, and filled with tables and examples, The Common-Sense Mortgage shows how the lending system works, reviews dozens of individual programs, and raises the questions consumers should ask.
Customer Reviews:
Very good book.......2005-03-17
This book is a good, basic, organized introduction to the world of mortgage. This is a serious book. I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot from it.
I guess that even the title "save 50,000.00" can be considered correct. The mortgage is more expensive than your home. If you do not know what you are doing, you will pay a hefty price.
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The Mortgage Hunter (Serial)
Peter G. Miller
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0062733958 |
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Calculating risks. (management tools for effective loans and risk management): An article from: Mortgage Banking
Hunter W. Wolcott
Manufacturer: Mortgage Bankers Association of America
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Binding: Digital
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ASIN: B00092BDQ4
Release Date: 2005-07-28 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Mortgage Banking, published by Mortgage Bankers Association of America on May 1, 1991. The length of the article is 3801 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: Calculating risks. (management tools for effective loans and risk management)
Author: Hunter W. Wolcott
Publication:
Mortgage Banking (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 1991
Publisher: Mortgage Bankers Association of America
Volume: v51
Issue: n8
Page: p55(6)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Mortgage Banking, published by Mortgage Bankers Association of America on April 1, 1993. The length of the article is 3493 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: Managing a slippery asset. (mortgage banks' asset-liability management) (Cover Story)
Author: Hunter W. Wolcott
Publication:
Mortgage Banking (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 1993
Publisher: Mortgage Bankers Association of America
Volume: v53
Issue: n7
Page: p14(6)
Article Type: Cover Story
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Mortgage Banking, published by Mortgage Bankers Association of America on December 1, 1990. The length of the article is 3593 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: Many job hunters, fewer jobs. (mortgage bank management recruiting) (Cover Story)
Author: Janet Reilley Hewitt
Publication:
Mortgage Banking (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 1990
Publisher: Mortgage Bankers Association of America
Volume: v51
Issue: n3
Page: p22(5)
Article Type: Cover Story
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
Corporate CEOs are headline news. Stock prices rise and fall at word of their hiring and firing. Business media debate their merits and defects as if individual leaders determined the health of the economy. Yet we know surprisingly little about how CEOs are selected and dismissed or about their true power. This is the first book to take us into the often secretive world of the CEO selection process. Rakesh Khurana's findings are surprising and disturbing. In recent years, he shows, corporations have increasingly sought CEOs who are above all else charismatic, whose fame and force of personality impress analysts and the business media, but whose experience and abilities are not necessarily right for companies' specific needs. The labor market for CEOs, Khurana concludes, is far less rational than we might think.
Khurana's findings are based on a study of the hiring and firing of CEOs at over 850 of America's largest companies and on extensive interviews with CEOs, corporate board members, and consultants at executive search firms. Written with exceptional clarity and verve, the book explains the basic mechanics of the selection process and how hiring priorities have changed with the rise of shareholder activism. Khurana argues that the market for CEOs, which we often assume runs on cool calculation and the impersonal forces of supply and demand, is culturally determined and too frequently inefficient. Its emphasis on charisma artificially limits the number of candidates considered, giving them extraordinary leverage to demand high salaries and power. It also raises expectations and increases the chance that a CEO will be fired for failing to meet shareholders' hopes. The result is corporate instability and too little attention to long-term strategy.
The book is a major contribution to our understanding of corporate culture and the nature of markets and leadership in general.
Customer Reviews:
A landmark look at the Cult of CEO.......2005-01-20
A brutally honest look at what is wrong with how CEOs are chosen in America today. I read an advance copy of this book and could not believe it was allowed to go to press. Dr. Khurana certainly has put his professional aspirations on the line to be so bold, but this is the kind of book that makes a difference in the world.
This book presents what I considered some amazing and enlightening information not normally available to ordinary people. We can read about the stupefying emoluments, titanic disasters, and spectacular firings of CEOs in the popular press, but it is hard to find out the inner workings of how these people got into these positions of influence to begin with. Many of the academic treatises on management I have read seem like distant observations from an ivory tower. Refreshingly, parts of this book sounded to me like the information came from furtive phone calls late at night.
Of course, part of the problem is that the foxes are already in charge of the chicken coop. I, too, would recommend this book to members of corporate boards responsible for the performance of top executives. There are plenty of brilliant executives who should be promoted based upon sound character and true leadership ability. Everyone knows that in many cases this is not happening, but Dr. Khurana has identified the defective process that underlies the problem. It is up to boards of directors to learn about and correct their mistakes.
The final page of the book uses an analogy from the Wizard of Oz about drawing back the curtain to shed light on the inner workings of power, and Dr. Khurana has done a good job of this. His book is to CEO succession as Sinclair Lewis' "The Jungle" was to the meat packing industry--it will turn your stomach and make you cry out for change if you read it.
Study this book if you are looking for a CEO.......2004-01-30
The selection of a new CEO can be as mysterious as the election of a new Pope, the opacity raising questions about the efficiency and legitimacy of the decisions reached. Because external CEO searches are generally undertaken by companies in the throes of a real or perceived crisis, stakeholders hope the outside CEO will be their savior. Because single-handedly saving a troubled corporation is no ordinary job, boards bent on finding a corporate messiah are not interested in ordinary qualifications but a person who is thought to possess charisma. Enron's Skilling offers a dramatic and instructive illustration of the perils of charismatic corporate ladership. Corporations would do well to reconsider their models of leadership and ways of choosing leaders.
In the decade following McCoy's appointment as CEO, Chicago's Bank One Corporation acquired over 100 banks, moved from 37th largest bank to fourth, and stock increased 500%. In 1999 Bank One began to falter, the stock fell, integrating First Chicago was more difficult than expected, the conservative style clashed with the entrepreneurial culture and McCoy's management style, which was included in the Harvard Business School's required general management course, was seen to be a liability rather than an asset. A revolt gathered steam and a generous separation agreement was negotiated. Stock jumped 11% on the announcement but became volatile with media coverage of the high-profile search for the best person in the US to lead Bank One back to the top with the leadership as the overriding principle guiding the search. Dimon was top of the short list. "In late February, Dimon flew into Chicago to deliver a two-hour presentation to the Bank One search committee. By this time, he had decided he wanted the job. Dimon's presentation seemed to leave his audience breathless. He talked about his philosophy of management, covering such topics as his leadership style and the importance of clearly articulating to people their roles and responsibilities. He also spoke about the importance of instituting a more extensive stock-option plan to better align the incentives of the executives with those of the shareholders. Dimon's bluntness and self-confidence impressed the committee." He wasn't afraid to lead, he said all the right things, he had a plan, he was prepared to make the tough decisions that others wouldn't make. In one brief appearance that Dimon himself largely orchestrated he met Bank One's high standards of leadership. Dimon was appointed over insider Istock and stock soared 30%.
Bank One's CEO succession process followed a familiar script with little emphasis on the company's strategic position and whether the candidate's background was appropriate. If the new CEO is unable to deliver quickly, the wisdom of the selection is questioned. This is the first thread of irrational behavior in what should be a carefully considered process. The leadership school believes that CEOs play a critical role in a firm's performance, while the constraint school believes that internal and external constraints limit the CEO's ability to affect performance. A third school suggests that the pertinent question to answer is 'When does leadership matter?' rather than 'Does leadership matter?' as the leader's impact is highly case-sensitive. "As the Bank One story illustrates, however, it is not only the criteria directors use in choosing a new CEO that calls into question the efficiency and overall rationality of the external CEO market. So do many other features of the search itself." Not only was the initial boost to the stock price short lived, but the board was questioned on its control over the CEO after five directors, including the internal candidate for CEO, "volunteered" to retire from the board after five months. Whether the benefits would be worth the price agreed by the board would remain an open question for an unforeseeable length of time.
"How are we to account for these remarkable, ultimately disquieting features of the external CEO search: the overestimation of the CEO's role and the fixation on charisma; the somewhat Byzantine nature of the search process itself, simultaneously closed to many presumably qualified candidates and open to the influence of many external actors; and the questionable outcomes that this process often produces? This book is an attempt to answer this very question." Boards seriously underestimate the damage that outside succession entails and if the firm is already in trouble, hiring an outside CEO might threaten the survival of the organization itself. A remarkable feature of the Bank One search was that the board passed up an experienced, highly qualified executive who knew the company and its business well. The airplane interview technique in which the incumbent CEO conducts a surprise interview with successor candidates individually and asks who should lead the company assuming both are killed provides very interesting information about the chemistry of the group. Repeating the process three months later when candidates are better prepared but only the incumbent CEO is killed, provides further valuable information. All information is shared with those involved in the final decision. If the process is initiated early enough, the shortlisted candidates can be moved into testing situations that may help the final decision.
Kurana, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Harvard Business School wrote this book based on a study of hiring and firing of CEOs at over 850 of America's largest companies. Anyone who is involved in the selection process of a CEO would be wise to study his findings.
Important piece of work.......2003-11-10
In this important work, Khurana focuses the spotlight on the high-risk dynamics of CEO recruiting - particularly in cases where a company has not been doing well, and its former CEO has been disposed of. He demonstrates that this drama is being played out with increasing frequency in the large corporations which play a major role in our economy.
He finds that a pattern has begun repeating itself in such situations: Boards of directors don't usually take action until a company situation has been deteriorating for a while, so even when they begin the recruiting process, they are already under pressure to take bold and decisive action. This impels them to begin by rejecting any current inside candidates who are felt to be part of the problem, thus incapable of breathing new life into the organization. Underlying this "explanation" is the fear that the press, investors, and the media might not applaud a less-than-spectacular candidate such as any merely competent insider. Such lack of enthusiasm by all these onlookers might well lead to further erosion of stock which has probably already suffered. Thus the directors embark on a quest for some outside candidate who might possess the magic powers to provide salvation. The rejection of inside candidates and the quest for some superstar who can pull a rabbit from the hat are, Khurana asserts, the first steps down a slippery slope that frequently end in tragedy. The book describes the descent and how it has and will affect American business.
This is a fine book that presents a number of fresh insights about a critical issue in the world of large corporations. It is written cogently, with erudition, by an author who is rightfully passionate about his subject. Of the hundreds of management titles published in recent years, this description wouldn't apply to more than a handful.
It is interesting to compare Khurana's findings with those described in the book, "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. Collins reports on a number of companies that outperformed their competitors by huge orders of magnitude. According to Collins the CEOs of these spectacularly performing companies (a) were, with one exception, recruited from within and (b) were definitely non-charismatic leaders, selected for their capabilities with no expectation that they would perform miracles or provide instant cures. These findings certainly lend support to Khurana's assertions. The fact that one of Collins "Good to Great" companies, Gillette, ended up as a Khurana case when its CEO was forced out of his position in 2000 suggests that any generalizations in this field must take into account the rapid changes in the world.
In a final chapter, Khurana attempts a description of some possible solutions to the problems he has identified. His main prescriptions are that the CEO job market be opened up and that some more professional recruiting and evaluation processes be created for CEOs. These are rather weak palliatives for the seemingly intractable trends Khurana has described. The book's strengths lie in its portrayal of the way the CEO labor market is operating, the insights into why it is working that way and its portrayal of implications for the future of large American corporations if the trends continue.
Moreover his findings raise two fundamental issues which, though clearly beyond the scope of this book, must be dealt with in any quest for amelioration.
First issue: When things are going well, boards of directors play very stereotypical and structured roles that rarely include in-depth managerial initiatives. The chances that a board of directors, could, once it becomes evident that a company needs new leadership, mobilize itself into an effective working group and then put in the time and energy to (1) decide why the company is in trouble (2) sketch some of the remedial actions that are needed to cure it (3) set out a rational professional search and bring in new CEO in circumstances in which he or she might succeed and (4) have the patience to permit a new CEO to effect a transformation, is virtually zero. Thus a realistic conclusion from the book's findings is that the chances of success in such a venture are so slight as to be not worthy of the attempt. And if that is the inescapable conclusion, then some solutions more drastic than Khurana's may be called for. One example might be consultants who are dedicated to filling in some sort of CEO role during a transitional year or two in such situations, working with the board to evolve a strategy. I am not recommending such a step - merely suggesting that some new thinking is required.
The second issue -- again assuming that the risks in CEO recruiting will continue to be unacceptably high -- concerns a board's responsibility for making certain that they are never forced to undertake the impossible search. Instead of focusing on what boards have to do to improve their techniques for replacing the CEO, it might be more useful to ask whether it shouldn't be a responsibility of boards to ensure this doesn't happen. What mechanisms need to be built in for boards to assess managerial performance on an ongoing basis and to take prompt action when performance is not satisfactory.
While these are important issues that need to be dealt with, I do not criticize Khurana for not dealing with them in his very fine book. He has done yeoman service in identifying the issues and, in that respect, has hit a bull's eye.
fun but flawed.......2003-09-25
I really enjoyed parts of this book, but the broader points he was trying to make fell flat. The thesis, that we should be wary of charisma and value competency more, is welcome to most people-perhaps everyone sufficiently detached-and his anecdotes provide interesting and powerful support.
For example, as a former banker I appreciated the point he made that big NYC bankers tend to be investment bankers, which is different than commercial banking, which is different than retail banking. It may seem like inside baseball to outsiders, but that's exactly the point: if you don't know the difference, you shouldn't be a bank director. Thus my conclusion would be that instead of telling current board members to be less foolish, it would be more practical to focus on reforming the way board members are chosen. In my experience, most bank board members were absolutely incapable of judging competence on the essential technical issues to sound banking (eg, how credit quality, spread, and volume are related), and choosing board members based on some objective criteria would seem to advance the search for a good CEO better than telling the current board members to not fall for the next empty suit.
But more broadly, is the flawed method of picking a CEO worse than before? Khurana's own data suggests that new CEOs don't matter much, which mean they aren't worse either. And the issue of arbitrariness is somewhat overstated, compared to a platonic ideal that has never existed. Picking any manager, such as a head of IT, raises the same example of cliquish, suboptimal groupthink. The same could be said for how collectives choose politicians, pundits or professors. In the words of Flaubert, "our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this."
Lastly, he relies a lot on outdated sociological treatises (C Wright Mills, Weber, Whyte), and the idea of a WASP closed society. For example, at one point he mentions that in 1950 most CEOs where white, male, and Protestant, and the same is true today. But as pointed out it in Brook's Bobos in Paradise, you would be remiss not to mention the dramatic change over the past 50 years. For example, back then the Kennedy family were considered outside the establishment. Jews are now around 20% of Harvard's undergrad, and 13% of the Fortune 500 CEOs, even though 3% of the US population. The WASP elite have given way to a much more meritocratic elite, and the fact that it extends to the boardroom is partially a result of the new process for choosing CEOs. In predictable sociological fashion his straw man argument is the dopey institution-free economist, that conventional wisdom that Keynes and Galbraith effectively invoked, but which is now a tired parody of current economic thinking. In the end, there is nothing really deep here, just a fun book highlighting the current foibles of specific group of people trying to deal with incomplete information and coalition building.
Packed with Knowledge!.......2002-10-12
Charisma and reputation have replaced management experience and industry expertise in the corner office. Certainly that's not news to anyone who has read the business press at any time in the past decade, but the trend is certainly important enough to warrant the comprehensive examination provided by Rakesh Kurana. Starting with an analysis of the increasing power of activist institutional investors, Kurana traces the process through which boards of directors have forsaken mature managers for media darlings in their CEO searches. In light of the spate of embarrassing and enraging CEO scandals, we from getAbstract recommend this book to all readers.
Book Description
Destined to become the guide of choice, Mapping the Sky is a glorious survey for the lay astronomer. Written with beginners in mind, it sets the stage with a history of the science and outlines the basics of stargazing, from choosing the right telescope to taking photographs of the stars. Readers discover how to tell a star's magnitude by its color, find the most famous constellations, and much, much more. Featuring a handy star wheel, entertaining text, and page after page of illustrations, photographs, and diagrams, Mapping the Sky is a volume as rich and vibrant as its subject.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book.......2007-01-19
Great all around book of how everything got discovered and how everything works.
Average customer rating:
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Split and Splitless Injection for Quantitative Gas Chromatography: Concepts, Processes, Practical Guidelines, Sources of Error (4th, Completely Revised Edition)
Konrad Grob
Manufacturer: Wiley-VCH
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 3527298797 |
Book Description
This comprehensive and unique handbook of split and splitless injection techniques has been completely revised and updated. This new edition offers:
- New insights concerning sample evaporation in the injector
- Information about matrix effects
- A new chapter on injector design
The real processes within the injector are for the first time visualized and explained by the CD-ROM included in the book. Furthermore the reader will understand the concepts of injection techniques and get a knowledge of the sources of error. The handbook also includes many practical guidelines.
From reviews of former editions:
"This substantial book is on injection techniques alone, which...demonstrates this can have many pitfalls...no one should be allowed to direct a laboratory doing quantitative analysis by GC without first being thoroughly familar with this book..." --The Analyst
"This is a detailed reference volume filled with practical suggestions and techniques for managing split and splitless injection in the day-to-day world of the working gas chromatographer. It will be useful...for anyone who must work hands-on with GC." --Journal of High Resolution Chromatography
Customer Reviews:
Overpriced.......2004-06-26
This book is available at www.restekcorp.com for $135, which is a whole lot less than Amazon's price.
Average customer rating:
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Causes of Evolution: A Paleontological Perspective
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
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ASIN: 0226728234 |
Book Description
By studying evolution across geological time, paleontologists gain a perspective that sometimes complements and sometimes conflicts with views based solely on studies of extant species. The contributors to Causes of Evolution consider whether factors exerting major influences on evolution are biotic or abiotic, intrinsic or extrinsic.
Causes of Evolution presents a broad sampling of paleontological research programs encompassing vertebrates, invertebrates, and vascular plants; empirical work and theoretical models; organisms ranging in age from Cambrian to Recent; and temporal scales from ecological time to hundreds of millions of years. The diverse array of research styles and opinions presented will acquaint scientists in related fields with the strengths and weaknesses of paleontology as an approach to evolutionary studies and will give evolutionary biologists of every stripe new bases for evaluating the scope and bias of their own work.
Average customer rating:
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Best of Soviet Semiconductor Physics and Technology: (1987 - 1988) (Key Papers in Physics, No. 3)
Manufacturer: American Institute of Physics
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ASIN: 0883187825 |
Book Description
Culled from the thousands of papers published in American Institute of
Average customer rating:
- Rich, Brilliant, Beautiful, Mysterious
- Easy to appreciate
- Literary Narcissim
- Beautifully Written, But Too Remote and Inaccessible
- Couldn't finish it...
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The Thin Place: A Novel
Kathryn Davis
Manufacturer: Little, Brown & Co.
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The Last of Her Kind: A Novel
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The Accidental
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Hell: A Novel
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Black Swan Green: A Novel
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The Road
ASIN: 0316735043 |
Book Description
The prize-winning author of Versailles tells the story of a small New England village unsettled by a young girls unearthly gift. In Varennes, a town near the Canadian border, three girls come across the body of a dead man on the local lakes beach. Two of them run to get help, but twelve-year-old Mees Kipp stays with the body and somehow, inexplicably, brings it back to life. Her mysterious gift is at the center of this haunting and transcendent novel. THE THIN PLACE is the story of these girls, their town, and the worldly and otherworldly forces that come into play there over one summer. Writing at the peak of her powers, Kathryn Davis draws on commonplace formspolice blotters, garden almanacs, Sunday sermons, horoscopes, and diariesto convey the rich rhythms of life in Varennes. From the ladies in the old-folks home to trappers, lawyers, teachers, ministers, drug addictseven the dogs and cats, beavers and bearsshe peoples this novel with astonishingly vivid beings. The extraordinary comes to visit an ordinary town.
Customer Reviews:
Rich, Brilliant, Beautiful, Mysterious.......2007-09-11
I absolutely adored this book. I was very surprised seeing all the negative reviews here at the Amazon reviews area; I had no trouble at all becoming immediately and totally absorbed in Ms. Davis's ravishingly beautiful prose, from page one to the end. In my enthusiasm I even read chapters of it aloud to some friends (we all particularly loved Margaret's chapters!) Reviewers who did not 'get' the book must be dullards or morons. Ignore them.
Easy to appreciate.......2007-09-07
Many times during the reading of this book - I considered putting it down and getting rid of it. It's not exactly an easy read - and I can't say that I was very engrosed in it - nor was I especially concerned about finding out how it ended. I had a hard time keeping track of who was who...but when I was in a character's mind - I did enjoy being there. I liked seeing, smelling, feeling the world through someone else's senses.
Though the flow of action was hard for me to get a grip on - the flow of the world, the feel of the season (summer) was very vivid. This is the 2nd book of Davis's that I've read - and as with the first one (The Walking Tour) - I spend most of the time feeling lost and as if I am walking around with blinders on - but what I can see is like a painting; true to life but larger than life. Dripping with color and texture and emotion, Davis's books are easy for me to appreciate but far more difficult to lose myself in.
Literary Narcissim.......2007-08-12
I struggled through this book hoping it would come together at some point, but concluded that this author belongs to that university-bound school of literati who write to demonstrate their own brilliance with the language. She does not love her character and considers story beneath her. If you want to ponder this book to prove you are brilliant, good luck.
Beautifully Written, But Too Remote and Inaccessible.......2007-07-04
The Thin Place is beautifully written, but I can't recommend it. The novel is too remote and too inaccessible.
Because I appreciated Davis's craftmanship, I plowed through. But while I admired The Thin Place, I can't say that I enjoyed most of it.
For those who want a thumbnail, think Thornton Wilder's Our Town with much of the likability stripped out. Davis crafts several characters who arouse sympathy, but because she has chosen a broad palette, they don't stand out sufficiently to make you care about the novel as a whole.
My two stars are for Davis's prose. Had her prose been less luminous, this review would have been one star and I would have branded the book unreadable. Like other under-whelmed reviewers on this site, I agree with the poster who felt that a novel that demands so much work of the reader is more of a household chore than a good book.
Couldn't finish it..........2007-07-02
I couldn't make heads or tails of this book and more importantly I couldn't stay awake. This book didn't make much sense to me and life is too short so I didn't bother to finish it.
I realized when I was on page 70 something and I couldn't even write a one sentence summary on the book that it was probably time to move on.
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