AC Interpreting

Archive for the ‘Finance and commerce’ Category

How do you achieve excellence in any area within a short period of time? The key is through modeling. Modeling is the technique of finding role models who are the best in their field and then studying and distilling the mental models and strategies that make them the best in what they do. By learning and applying their strategies, you will be able to produce the same phenomenal results they do, or maybe even better. While the role model may have taken thirty years of trial and error to find the winning formula and perfect his strategy, you will be able to shorten your learning curve considerably by replicating his winning patterns.

In fact, if you study the most successful people in history, they all employed the power of modeling. They believed in standing upon the shoulders of giants rather than to re-invent the wheel. The Wright Brothers and early flight pioneers got their ideas of aircraft design by modeling the body structure and flight movement of birds. Ancient Chinese monks developed the art of Kung Fu by observing, modeling and imitating the fighting techniques of animals (tiger, monkey, snake and bear) and insects (praying mantis).

The government of Singapore managed to turn a ‘dot’ on the world map, basically a trading port, into a first world economy with a GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita ranked 18th in the World (World Development Report, 1993) in just 28 years! This was achieved by modeling the best practices of countries like Switzerland (governance and banking), Israel (warfare), the United States (Commerce) and the United Kingdom (law and education). As you can see, modeling is not just about copying someone else. It is about distilling the best practices of a whole range of excellent role models, taking the best from each of them and developing an even more powerful strategy.

So if you want to be an excellent investor, who better to model than Warren Buffett, the world’s greatest investor? Warren Buffett is currently the second richest man in the world with a personal fortune of $42 billion (second only to Bill Gates $46 billion). The amazing thing about Buffett is that he made all his money without making or selling any kind of product or service. He made it entirely by investing in the stock market. Over the last 49 years, he managed to achieve a 24.7% annual compounding rate of return, which means he made his money double every 2.9 years! How does he achieve this remarkable feat when 97% of professional fund managers cannot even beat the S&P 500 consistently every year? That’s exactly what got me so excited to study and model this genius a few years ago.

By reading every single book written about Buffett as well as his own personal writings, I found that the beliefs he has about the stock market and the strategies he uses go completely against what mainstream finance teaches and what professional fund managers do.

If you learn and use the same recipe, you are going to produce the same cake. So, let’s get started! Before modeling someone’s strategies and techniques, it is first important to understand and model the person’s beliefs. A person’s beliefs is what drives their decision-making patterns and the actions they take. The reason why Buffett is able to make more money than any other investor in the worlds is because he has very different beliefs about how the stock markets acts and how to buy stocks. If you want to model his success, an important step would be to adopt his beliefs and strategies.

New York is a bustling metropolis and a global center for finance, commerce, culture, fashion and entertainment. As such, many New York attractions draw both locals and tourists. Here are just a few things to do in New York this month.

New York Restaurant Week

It is restaurant week again in New York City; and that means the New York City Restaurant Week Truck will be bringing soups from 24 New York restaurants to three New York street corners. The soups will cost around $6., and for every New York Restaurant Week Truck purchase, $1 will go to The Haiti Relief Fund.

Black History Month

February is Black History Month and it is that time of the year for people to remember the past and look forward to the future. New York City is one of the first to break the racial barriers; the first to pass a law banning race-based housing discrimination. New York City is also the site of historic movements from civil-rights rallies to speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King. New York City is also home to several establishments where African-American music legends such as Elle Fitzgerald got their breaks.

In celebration of this meaningful occasion, many of New York’s cultural institutions such as New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Apollo Theater, will stage exhibitions, film series, musical performances and a lot more.

Oscar Night America Comes to NYC

Oscar Night America – a nationwide Oscar-viewing fund-raising gala – is coming to New York City. New York City has a long-standing relationship with the silver screen with many Oscar winning movies showcasing New York’s iconic landmarks.

Oscar Night and the City-NYC’s official Oscar Night America benefit gala, guests will be treated to a reception with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall of the Lincoln Center, followed by a live-broadcast viewing of the 82nd Academy Awards at the Grand Concert Hall. Tickets are available for $150, while a limited number of premium tickets (which grant guests access to the VIP lounge and exclusive screening) are available for $225. All proceeds will be donated to the NYC and Company Foundation.

New York City, sometimes popularly known as “The Big Apple” or “The City That Never Sleeps” is not only the most populous city in the United States of America, but has also earned the reputation as one of the most exciting US cities to visit. Of course, New York is an important center of commerce and finance, so many people visit for business reasons, but if you are able to visit on vacation, you will have a lot more time to enjoy the sights and attractions of this amazing city.

Some places that you are sure to want to visit in New York include:

* The Empire State Building – Since the 9/11 attacks (which of course destroyed the World Trade Center’s twin towers), this has been the tallest building in the city, and the second tallest in the United States (it was also the tallest building in the world from 1931 until 1972). There is an outdoor observatory on the 86th floor, and an observation deck on the 102nd.

* Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum – The is a museum that includes the retired aircraft carrier USS Intrepid (with many aircraft on deck), a submarine (USS Growler), an a Concorde airliner.

* Statue of Liberty – This world famous statue was given to the United States by France, and stands on island near the mouth of the Hudson River.

* Theater – There are numerous theaters in New York, especially around Broadway – so why not try to catch a show?

* Times Square – Most people have heard of Times Square (even if you never visited, you have probably seen it in a number of movies) – it’s one of the most famous locations in New York, and is of course known for the many animated neon and television signs that surround it.

I sat wordless in my overstuffed chair as I read with concern the recent news feature regarding the man in Canadian that attempted to pay his tax bill with 200,000 Canadian pennies. It seems that the gentleman was a bit feed up with the persistent increase in his tax liability and this was his approach to challenging the situation. Mr. Normand Czepial’s has complained that his property tax allegedly has increased by roughly $4,000 dollars within the preceding several years. Can’t say I blame the gentlemen at all.

I can merely imagine the spectacle of this man hauling 200,000 pennies with him to city hall. Supposedly he required the use of a child’s swimming pool in order to transport his 213,000 plus pennies to the city hall offices. Even though he was denied the use of the pennies to fulfill his debt obligation under the Canadian Currency Act, I believe the authorities may have gotten the hint.

Here in America we currently do not have similar currency laws as Canada when using pennies to pay a bill. Canadian law clearly specifies that you can use no more then 25 pennies to pay any bill. The gentleman was clearly over the Canadian limit and the local mayor promptly refused his payment, while suggesting alternative means of settlement. I would venture to say that after this episode in Canada, it will not take our state legislatures long to pass a duplicate bill in their respective states.

Even though the law states that pennies as well as our other American currencies are legal tender for any sort of debt, it is more or less left at the discretion of the various businesses as to whether they wish to accept them in payment or not. In fact, I personally encountered a situation with a Delaware State Revenue Office which refused to accept any sort of cash. I had to either submit a check or obtain a money order so that I could pay for the needed business license.

As times get worse and our economy starts to bottleneck at all levels of management we are apt to see some frightening changes occurring. The recent bill which our elected representatives so generously past has some very serious repercussions awaiting us in the future. This un-needed overhaul of financial regulations is merely another socialistic scheme to gain unlimited control over commerce. Now not only is our government in control of the automotive industries and the mortgage and banking institutes but it seems like any sort of financial transaction will now fall under the scrutiny of the federal government. These established rules have managed to touch just about every aspect of finance and displays the largest abuse yet of a federal power grab.

Granted this is not the first time that the federal government has seized control of private industries in fact this administration continually displays such reckless endeavors. One can only imagine that even though we give these new regulations ample opportunity to work their magic, the chances of this new set of power conventions may not provide enough of a stimulus to kick start our ailing economy. The federal agencies involved may still not be able to prevent any upcoming financial crisis nor to improve our current fiscal tribulations. It is highly likely that this bill will push our financial conditions back by 40 years. Who knows, perhaps in the near future after our government completes their trials of those new finance rules, businesses might be inclined to accept their payments in pennies or for that matter as barter for cattle and grain.

Copyright @2010 Joseph Parish

By Joseph parish

www.survival-training.info

Many firms wish to offer a customer finance program but do not have the necessary skills and capital to offer such a service. A properly run customer finance program can increase sales, improve cash flow by 100%, eliminate customer objections, and also allow your customers to work within their budget and approval cycles. Those reasons are clearly powerful for any firm considering a customer financing strategy.

Most customers know that some of the world’s largest corporations such as IBM, GM, CATERPILLER, etc offer very robust customer finance programs for their customer base. They offer such a program to ensure that they can reach maximum customer penetration within their markets – they don’t want to lose a sale just because the customer was unable to finance a product or service.

Companies who wish to start a customer finance program should explore the resources of an experienced third party. This, as stated previously ensure the program will have the technical, credit and financial backing that such a program provides.

The major reasons that customers look at using a third party can be summarized as follows:

No in house credit and leasing and documentation expertise

Lack of funds for a large program

Desire not to take credit risk inherent with long term financing

They feel they are not large enough to consider such a program.

Leasing and equipment financing is a highly specialized area – it also requires significant accounting skills with respect to the types of leasing that is offered. Firms considering such a program should ensure that they have the ability to offer lease to own leases (capital leases) operating leases (customers use but don’t own the equipment) and also short term rentals if that is applicable to their product or service.

Such a customer finance program requires a significant amount of capital – as such it makes sense to utilize the resources of a third party with unlimited ( or close to unlimited!) capital. Some companies might find that their borrowing power to support such a program does not allow them to offer competitive rates, terms, and structures.

Some firms that consider customer finance and leasing programs do not wish under any circumstances to take back product at the end of the lease. They want to sell more new product!! That reason alone drives many firms to utilize the services of an experienced third party.

There are a number of different third party ‘types ‘that a company can partner with. These include leasing intermediaries, banks, and other independent lease firms. A leasing intermediary, experienced in the industry, is quite often a great choice as they have significant expertise in a variety of industries, they have access to unlimited funding through their funding sources, and they are not constrained by deal size or credit quality of any one individual deal. They also can assist the customer in making sales calls to complete sales and financing scenarios.

A customer finance program, offering lease financing to your customers is a powerful sales and marketing tool, and within the reach of all firms who wish to increase revenue and profits by offering financing in their sales ‘ toolkits’.

Further education is often vocational or work based with emphasis on the needs of employers. It provides general education for individual of all ages. People use further education to explore certain subject knowledge and upgrade their work skills. In recent years there has been a big increase in business and management education.

There are a wide range of business studies and management courses which are highly valued by employers. A standard course in business usually covers the following subject areas:

- human resource management,
- economics,
- information system management,
- strategic management,
- organisational behaviour,
- marketing,
- finance, and
- international management.

Most management education is provided by universities and management or business schools. Almost every university is offering business and management courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Some business schools also offer short management training courses. Most of the colleges also developed links with universities. Students can have the opportunity to study certain courses at a further education college, many courses lead to internationally recognized business qualifications that are awarded by independent examining bodies, for instance, the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry International Qualification (LCCI IQ). LCCI IQ provides a range of business qualifications in finance, secretarial, marketing, languages and information technology.

Further education courses may be studied full time or part time. Many colleges and universities now offer the option of online learning on some courses. However students are advised to check the quality and reputation of online educational providers before signing up for any courses.