Despite its somewhat misleading title, this is an excellent book for all kinds of people, gay, lesbian, or straight, who are involved in estate planning and settlement. The examples are useful and the information is presented clearly. Excellent resource for a difficult task.

This book does a brilliant job of categorizing the basics of money and investing. Simply answering complex questions when it comes to Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds, Retirement, and more, I have found this book indispensible when it comes to explaining to others about the basics of investing. It is a MUST read for any investor who is completely clueless when it comes to investing.

healthy food for all catagories people from CNI

As a CPA I know nothing about car repairs or servicing. I have always trusted the industry to take care of me. Now I know how they have been ripping me off and because of this book I have the confidence to have my vehicle serviced and know I will never be scammed again. It is very enlightening and well worth the money spent.

When I first read Tending Your Money Garden, I really didn't understand many financial concepts and terms (I had no idea what a mutual fund was!) The book explained many terms in a way that I could relate to, and made me giggle sometimes too. I really liked his analogy of the Three Selves, Past, Current, and Future, sharing the finances and making the best decisions based on all of their needs. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is ready to learn more about finances and gain awareness of their own situation. I am using the workbook section so that I can make a realistic plan for ways to achieve my dream!

Worth the wait to receive this awesome book of poetry, prose, and pictures. An excellent Christmas gift for anyone who knows what it's like to work hard for the money.

I bought this book hoping that it would give me some indication of what kinds of things I could ask for when negotiating a new job. I am not at the level of an executive that could be offered stock options and signing bonuses. But I do want to look out for myself. This book provided information that I found to be basic common sense for negotiation that was good, but it did not answer questions I have about what kinds of different "benefits" I could ask for, such as, car phone, portable laptop, telecommuting, etc. Also, what does a written offer look like? Samples would have been great.

This book helped me negotiate a great deal. I can't recommend it enough. It is very readable and offers useable advice.The chapter offering advice for women was particularly helpful.

Yes! The book is as good as everybody is stating here. I was impressed, as it is primarilly a negotiating book that stresses a soft hand. The author clearly states that using tough approaches will doom your career, even if you get the job. He even provide examples of soft (but powerful) phrases, for example: "I really want to come to work here but ... I don't think the company's management understand how important this issue is to me..." (chapter 9). The author is a highly experimented labor lawyer, and almost all of his suggestions are usefull. One weak point is the transition between the "principles" and the body of the book. I got a little lost here. But soon after I understood what he was trying to do, as he references back to these principles all of the time. The book is excellent. It is a negotiating book, no doubt about it. And I believe it teaches how to negotiate in a "friendly" manner with results. Of course, the negotiating techniques are applied to job offers scenarios. But I 100% believe I will be able to use his principles in many other scenarios. I have read a review below, stating that the book does not give ideas about what to ask for. This is not true, the author does speak about different aspects of a compensation package. What is true is that some of the elements of the compensation packages he talks about apply to more senior positions. But the book is not about how to get a particular benefit, its negotiating techniques will apply to many lower level positions and can prepare the reader to future senior level position negotiations.

In a clear and concise manner, Swedroe shows, no, convinces the reader, of the superiority of asset allocation and passively managed index funds.

With complete explanations and interesting examples the reader is taught the basics of the efficient market and modern portfolio theory. Using the principles described in this book, an individual investor can both "eat well and sleep well", that is, can achieve excellent investment returns while actually lowering the risk in his portfolio.

Even if one chooses not to implement the complete strategy outlined by Swedroe, the book offers insights into investing that cannot help but improve portfolio performance.

This book is suitable for the beginning investor as well as the sophisticated person that makes his living from the market. Read it!

If you are an investment neophyte or an index fund guru, this book will expand your knowledge. The research is in and the results are unequivocal, indexing beats active management over time and by a significant amount. The only people who contest the evidence are active fund managers who don't want to lose their paying customers. Larry Swedroe provides the evidence in a fully documented book that explains not only why index investing outperforms active fund management, but also how you can put the information to work for you. In eleven easy to read chapters, Mr. Swedroe explains Modern Portfolio Theory, research that won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1990. But this isn't an economics book. It's a book written for the layman that explains index mutual fund investing and how to do it most effectively. Information you don't know can cost you dearly. Be an informed investor and stop paying high fees to fund managers who can't outperform their comparable indexes. Read the book today, you can thank me later.

After reading Larry Swedroe's excellent second and third books I felt compelled to return and read this, his first book. My urge to do so has been more than adequately rewarded by this excellent text.

Larry Swedroe lays strong foundations by focusing on three major areas. First, he summarizes the results of several studies indicating that passive investment strategies outperform, over time and by a wide margin, active investment management. Second, Mr. Swedroe offers the individual investor a through overview of Modern Portfolio Theory and its subset, Efficient Markets Theory. Third, Larry provides a guide to the construction of a portfolio and discusses the roles investment advisors may undertake for the individual investor.

While some of the material in this first book is duplicated and updated in the second and third books, I recommend all three of these texts to individual investors. Larry Swedroe possesses the knack to take recent academic research and pass it on in an understandable, common sense manner to the many individual investors who do not possess advanced degrees in statistics.

My own library of "good books" on investing has grown to nearly 20 different texts. All three of Larry Swedroe's texts make my "good book" list. (I have rejected over 100 other texts and not included them on my "good book" list.) I highly recommend all of Larry's books, together with additional texts by Burton Malkeil, Peter Bernstein, John Bogle, Bruce Temkin, Roger Gibson and others. Larry's three books greatly assist the individual investor to build a solid base of knowledge to understand what works (and the many things that don't work) in investing. I highly recommend this book, and all three of his books, as key additions to every serious investor's library.

A scorching story centered round the concept of a dishonest, unprincipled White House regime. (Nothing new there, you might say!) Where this book makes the difference is that Eric Burton's grasp of political chicanery MUST come from an inside knowledge. I'm not suggesting that the author of $oft Money was involved in anything, but either he's an even better writer than his book suggests (which, in my view, would be difficult, since $oft Money is extraordinarily well written), or he knows something the rest of us don't.

The political 'truths' in $oft Money read like you would imagine a Tom Clancy book to read if Clancy took up writing political thrillers instead of war/army type books - they seem to be well-researched and factual. Money-laundering, double-dealing, power struggles - it's all been seen before in USA (think Watergate, think Monica, think this is not good for America!) and Burton's book brings it right to our living room. Here, though, we see one man torn between loyalty for his president and loyalty to his principles. Well, okay, what would YOU do? There's your conflict and, since conflict makes a good plot, there's your plot.

Eric Burton has made a great start to his writing career. Long may he continue.

Words as sharp and accurate as a rapier, a storyline as intriguing as a spider's web. E.L.Burton's $oft Money is a dazzling study of the abuse of power that has blighted America since Watergate and before. In it, he relates one man's struggle against his conscience when a former associate is elected President.

More than just a floral use of words and a sharp sense of timing, Burton brings us a sense of realism that can best be described as on-the-spot. In dialogues, his choice of phrase says as much about his ability as a writer as his knowledge of political America. He doesn't seem to feel the need for 'he opinioned', 'she screamed', or 'he blustered'; the discourse does it for him. The sure sign of someone who knows how to wield a pen.

In his biography, the author claims to have worked in 'Corporate America'. Methinks he stretcheth the truth a little. Only an insider could have written with Burton's amazing breadth of knowledge. He is surely the Tom Clancy of political novelists and I look forward to his next book with eager anticipation.

As the author of Strike Hard, I found this book to be one of superb quaity in the aspect of frighteningly realistic. $oft Money explores the dark and twisted underbelly of political campaign contributions that are in the forefront of today's headlines.

Currently, there are a number of debates on Capitol Hill concerning campaign money and the format by which it is contributed. Many times over the years, we have seen news articles that talk about corruption and scandal associated with the so-called "soft money" of politics. E.L. Burton has taken this and turned it into a story that shows all of the implications involved with these monies, and how even those who go to Washington with the best intentions can come out being on the wrong side of the corruption fence.

"Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely", and "Money is the root of all Evil", are catch phrases that everyone associates with government politics today. This book explores how one man can be held in thrall by these two "magic potions" - power and money, and how another can be torn between friendship and duty.

E.L. Burton has managed to tell a story that is one of the best new novels of this millennium, and shows promise of being one of the stalwart authors that will dictate the basis for corruption/suspense novels for years to come.

This brand new 223 page book teaches you how to easily and successfully use E-trading to your best advantage. There's not a whole lot of technical jargon or theory and detail that you probably wouldn't use anyway, but it provides you with the ammunition to help you succeed. It provides guidance on buying the right computer, how to use it, Internet Service Providers and goes on to help you set up your account, participate in short and long-term plans, bonds, stocks, futures, options and mutual funds. You'll be shown how to use your computer for setting up your best financial plan. This is something beginners really need and often fail to take the time to do. The book is very informative and fun to read. Along the way Mr. Cotsakos throws in some commercials for his own products, but they don't have to be purchased for successful trading. Overall, this book is an up-to-date, valuable source of information that can only benefit your successful E-Trading. Most investors can benefit by this book, even those who think they know it all.

This may be the first, and is certainly one of the first books to spell out the process of online investing, and as such it is a valuable resource for the "layman" investor. As a reader with minimal knowledge of the stock market and online transactions, I was particularly impressed on three counts. First, Cotsakos has written the entire volume in an flowing, easily understood style, sort of as though he were just talking you through the process. This is helpful for those of us who don't really understand much of the typical jargon, and it also makes it easier to remain interested in what could be a very dry subject. Second, he goes back to the very basics of computer usage (purchasing the right machine with the right capabilities, etc.), which still could be quite mysterious for some people. By doing this he has anticipated and already answered some of our potential questions. And third, the book really progresses in a step-by-step fashion, with refreshers at the end of chapters, and many helpful side-notes. I think the final thing to recommend this book is that although it is, of course, written from the standpoint of E*Trade (an online trading provider), Cotsakos has avoided making it one big commercial for his company. This book is a "must read" for anyone who wants to start trading online, and also for those who already trade in this way and want to hone their skills, regardless of the service provider they choose.

I bought this book because I had been investing off-line for some time, but the thought of actually trading over the Internet terrified me. This is the perfect book for anyone in that situation: Cotsakos does not assume that you know anything at all about computers, or about investing, for that matter. He walked me through the basic steps (finding an Internet Service Provider, for example) with idiot-proof instructions.

In addition to being extremely useful to novice online investors, the book is a pleasure to read. My sister, who has never bought a stock in her life, read most of it simply for amusement value. I recommend this book to everyone.