Saturday, November 13, 2010

personal finance books

Yesterday, Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) announced that he is going to challenge Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) for the chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee. “I think we need a strong chairman in this position,” Royce told Bloomberg News. “I discussed this earlier today with Spencer Bachus and I shared with him that this is nothing personal.”


The prospect of a challenge to his committee leadership may explain why Bachus has been going gangbusters with his rhetoric regarding dismantling the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. And he kept it up yesterday, sending a letter to the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council scaremongering about the effects of the Volcker rule, which is meant to prevent banks from engaging in risky trading with federally insured dollars:


Bachus says that a ban on proprietary trading – known as the Volcker rule – that was included in the new Dodd-Frank financial reform law will “impose substantial costs on the American economy and market participants” with “doubtful” benefits.” “Depending on how US regulators choose to implement it, the Volcker rule may spark a mass exodus of clients from US banks to banks based abroad.”


In the letter, Bachus casts doubt on the very notion that risky trading had anything to do with the financial mentldown of 2008. But as the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts pointed out “risky proprietary investments by investment banks, along with trading for clients whose decisions were influenced by these banks, was one of the main forces that sustained upward pressure on securities prices in the bubble…Indeed, by running large trading books, banks had inside information on client trading patterns and could use that information to front-run, and thereby help sustain market trends.”


Royce, for his part, is no more sympathetic towards the Dodd-Frank law. Last week, in fact, he said that he would allow bank regulators to have direct veto power over the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. During the financial reform debate, he was also one of the foremost promulgators of the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the housing bubble. It should come as no surprise that he has raised far more money from the finance industry than any other business sector during his career.


Even the likely Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), is getting into the anti-financial reform game, saying that under his watch, “not only will the Congress understand, but the American people will understand, just what this bill will do to our financial services industry.” So, no matter who takes over the Financial Services Committee, as Barry Ritholz wrote, we should expect “new hearings, new subpoenas, and general harassment of regulators by the House of Representatives.”





Launched 3 days ago by Abraaj Capital one of the world’s 50 biggest private equity groups Riyada Enterprise Development (RED) has $500 million in cash to invest on around 100 SMEs over the next 2-3 years. And they’ve kicked it off with investing in 5 already.


If your wondering what an SME is exactly, RED defines it as any company with an enterprise value of less than $50 million. That provides good reason to make your mouth water.


The industries they cover include process food, pharmaceutical, diapers, media, it services, medical testing, educational products and services, , media content, construction material, specialized logistics, child support solutions, clean energy can and should be addressed by SMEs in the region.


Some of their local partners are in Palestine the Palestine Investment Fund, in Jordan it’s Jordan Enterprise, in Lebanon it’s CISCO, and Banque Nationale d’Algérie in Algeria to name a few.


The people from Abraaj Capital successfully attempted to put the money together by contacting developmental finance institutions around the region along with a $50 million they put forward since last year. One of which was OPIC: United States Overseas Private Investment Corporation.


The OPIC allocation following president Obama’s 2009 speech was a $500 million tender for development in the Middle East, which RED received the largest single chunk of, which is $150 million. They added another $200 million from their investor base. And before you know it, they got the local funds to chip in getting it up to $500 million.


They started screening companies, 180 companies in total from around the region in 4 months. 160 of them weren’t of interest, the remaining 20 were. As a result they ended up investing in 5:



  1. E3 is a regional medical IT Services company

  2. Egypt-based integrated agriculture company which specializes in Artichoke growing/producing

  3. Egypt-based regional IT services firm OMS

  4. Kuwait-based Teshkeel Media Group lead by Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa creator of The 99 comic book

  5. Jordan-based Arabic online portal d1g.com


D1g.com is obviously the most interesting investment to us because it not only represents in an investment in an Arabic online portal, but an investment in digital Arabic content as well.


Having Usama Fayyad’s Yahoo!’s former Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President of Research & Strategic Data Solution as Executive Chairman of D1G encouraged us to attend a presentation of his during the Celebration of Entrepreneurship in Dubai and the numbers are staggering.


Since Arabic Internet content is less than 1% of all Internet content yet the Arabic language is ranked second according to the number of native speakers of that language after Mandarin, the crisis is offline as much as it is online. Another interesting fact is that only 2% percent of Arabic speaking Internet users are comfortable with doing their business/personal matter in English.


So if 98% of Arabic speaking people can’t comfortably access the content online, the Internet revolution is actively leaving them behind.


Now if we consider the offline Arabic content dilemma it’s also rather concerning. 330 books get published per year, when comparing the number of ‘quality articles’ on D1G.com, the amount of content would be equivalent to 368 books per year. And that is more than the entire book industry in the Arab world for one year.


It appears RED has made a successful investment, at least in the Arabic content generation industry we hope will catch on to other platforms and online industries.






eric seiger

Supreme Court Ruling Keeps Ban on Gays From Openly Serving in the <b>...</b>

FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

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Facebook acquires FB.com domain name. Ending months of speculation, it's now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name. The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook's name and nameservers for the ...


eric seiger
Yesterday, Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) announced that he is going to challenge Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) for the chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee. “I think we need a strong chairman in this position,” Royce told Bloomberg News. “I discussed this earlier today with Spencer Bachus and I shared with him that this is nothing personal.”


The prospect of a challenge to his committee leadership may explain why Bachus has been going gangbusters with his rhetoric regarding dismantling the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. And he kept it up yesterday, sending a letter to the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council scaremongering about the effects of the Volcker rule, which is meant to prevent banks from engaging in risky trading with federally insured dollars:


Bachus says that a ban on proprietary trading – known as the Volcker rule – that was included in the new Dodd-Frank financial reform law will “impose substantial costs on the American economy and market participants” with “doubtful” benefits.” “Depending on how US regulators choose to implement it, the Volcker rule may spark a mass exodus of clients from US banks to banks based abroad.”


In the letter, Bachus casts doubt on the very notion that risky trading had anything to do with the financial mentldown of 2008. But as the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts pointed out “risky proprietary investments by investment banks, along with trading for clients whose decisions were influenced by these banks, was one of the main forces that sustained upward pressure on securities prices in the bubble…Indeed, by running large trading books, banks had inside information on client trading patterns and could use that information to front-run, and thereby help sustain market trends.”


Royce, for his part, is no more sympathetic towards the Dodd-Frank law. Last week, in fact, he said that he would allow bank regulators to have direct veto power over the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. During the financial reform debate, he was also one of the foremost promulgators of the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the housing bubble. It should come as no surprise that he has raised far more money from the finance industry than any other business sector during his career.


Even the likely Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), is getting into the anti-financial reform game, saying that under his watch, “not only will the Congress understand, but the American people will understand, just what this bill will do to our financial services industry.” So, no matter who takes over the Financial Services Committee, as Barry Ritholz wrote, we should expect “new hearings, new subpoenas, and general harassment of regulators by the House of Representatives.”





Launched 3 days ago by Abraaj Capital one of the world’s 50 biggest private equity groups Riyada Enterprise Development (RED) has $500 million in cash to invest on around 100 SMEs over the next 2-3 years. And they’ve kicked it off with investing in 5 already.


If your wondering what an SME is exactly, RED defines it as any company with an enterprise value of less than $50 million. That provides good reason to make your mouth water.


The industries they cover include process food, pharmaceutical, diapers, media, it services, medical testing, educational products and services, , media content, construction material, specialized logistics, child support solutions, clean energy can and should be addressed by SMEs in the region.


Some of their local partners are in Palestine the Palestine Investment Fund, in Jordan it’s Jordan Enterprise, in Lebanon it’s CISCO, and Banque Nationale d’Algérie in Algeria to name a few.


The people from Abraaj Capital successfully attempted to put the money together by contacting developmental finance institutions around the region along with a $50 million they put forward since last year. One of which was OPIC: United States Overseas Private Investment Corporation.


The OPIC allocation following president Obama’s 2009 speech was a $500 million tender for development in the Middle East, which RED received the largest single chunk of, which is $150 million. They added another $200 million from their investor base. And before you know it, they got the local funds to chip in getting it up to $500 million.


They started screening companies, 180 companies in total from around the region in 4 months. 160 of them weren’t of interest, the remaining 20 were. As a result they ended up investing in 5:



  1. E3 is a regional medical IT Services company

  2. Egypt-based integrated agriculture company which specializes in Artichoke growing/producing

  3. Egypt-based regional IT services firm OMS

  4. Kuwait-based Teshkeel Media Group lead by Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa creator of The 99 comic book

  5. Jordan-based Arabic online portal d1g.com


D1g.com is obviously the most interesting investment to us because it not only represents in an investment in an Arabic online portal, but an investment in digital Arabic content as well.


Having Usama Fayyad’s Yahoo!’s former Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President of Research & Strategic Data Solution as Executive Chairman of D1G encouraged us to attend a presentation of his during the Celebration of Entrepreneurship in Dubai and the numbers are staggering.


Since Arabic Internet content is less than 1% of all Internet content yet the Arabic language is ranked second according to the number of native speakers of that language after Mandarin, the crisis is offline as much as it is online. Another interesting fact is that only 2% percent of Arabic speaking Internet users are comfortable with doing their business/personal matter in English.


So if 98% of Arabic speaking people can’t comfortably access the content online, the Internet revolution is actively leaving them behind.


Now if we consider the offline Arabic content dilemma it’s also rather concerning. 330 books get published per year, when comparing the number of ‘quality articles’ on D1G.com, the amount of content would be equivalent to 368 books per year. And that is more than the entire book industry in the Arab world for one year.


It appears RED has made a successful investment, at least in the Arabic content generation industry we hope will catch on to other platforms and online industries.






eric seiger

Supreme Court Ruling Keeps Ban on Gays From Openly Serving in the <b>...</b>

FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Domain Name Wire » <b>News</b> » Confirmed: Facebook Acquires FB.com <b>...</b>

Facebook acquires FB.com domain name. Ending months of speculation, it's now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name. The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook's name and nameservers for the ...


eric seiger

eric seiger

Books 1 by Matt and Julie Carpenter


eric seiger

Supreme Court Ruling Keeps Ban on Gays From Openly Serving in the <b>...</b>

FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Domain Name Wire » <b>News</b> » Confirmed: Facebook Acquires FB.com <b>...</b>

Facebook acquires FB.com domain name. Ending months of speculation, it's now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name. The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook's name and nameservers for the ...


eric seiger
Yesterday, Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) announced that he is going to challenge Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) for the chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee. “I think we need a strong chairman in this position,” Royce told Bloomberg News. “I discussed this earlier today with Spencer Bachus and I shared with him that this is nothing personal.”


The prospect of a challenge to his committee leadership may explain why Bachus has been going gangbusters with his rhetoric regarding dismantling the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. And he kept it up yesterday, sending a letter to the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council scaremongering about the effects of the Volcker rule, which is meant to prevent banks from engaging in risky trading with federally insured dollars:


Bachus says that a ban on proprietary trading – known as the Volcker rule – that was included in the new Dodd-Frank financial reform law will “impose substantial costs on the American economy and market participants” with “doubtful” benefits.” “Depending on how US regulators choose to implement it, the Volcker rule may spark a mass exodus of clients from US banks to banks based abroad.”


In the letter, Bachus casts doubt on the very notion that risky trading had anything to do with the financial mentldown of 2008. But as the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts pointed out “risky proprietary investments by investment banks, along with trading for clients whose decisions were influenced by these banks, was one of the main forces that sustained upward pressure on securities prices in the bubble…Indeed, by running large trading books, banks had inside information on client trading patterns and could use that information to front-run, and thereby help sustain market trends.”


Royce, for his part, is no more sympathetic towards the Dodd-Frank law. Last week, in fact, he said that he would allow bank regulators to have direct veto power over the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. During the financial reform debate, he was also one of the foremost promulgators of the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the housing bubble. It should come as no surprise that he has raised far more money from the finance industry than any other business sector during his career.


Even the likely Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), is getting into the anti-financial reform game, saying that under his watch, “not only will the Congress understand, but the American people will understand, just what this bill will do to our financial services industry.” So, no matter who takes over the Financial Services Committee, as Barry Ritholz wrote, we should expect “new hearings, new subpoenas, and general harassment of regulators by the House of Representatives.”





Launched 3 days ago by Abraaj Capital one of the world’s 50 biggest private equity groups Riyada Enterprise Development (RED) has $500 million in cash to invest on around 100 SMEs over the next 2-3 years. And they’ve kicked it off with investing in 5 already.


If your wondering what an SME is exactly, RED defines it as any company with an enterprise value of less than $50 million. That provides good reason to make your mouth water.


The industries they cover include process food, pharmaceutical, diapers, media, it services, medical testing, educational products and services, , media content, construction material, specialized logistics, child support solutions, clean energy can and should be addressed by SMEs in the region.


Some of their local partners are in Palestine the Palestine Investment Fund, in Jordan it’s Jordan Enterprise, in Lebanon it’s CISCO, and Banque Nationale d’Algérie in Algeria to name a few.


The people from Abraaj Capital successfully attempted to put the money together by contacting developmental finance institutions around the region along with a $50 million they put forward since last year. One of which was OPIC: United States Overseas Private Investment Corporation.


The OPIC allocation following president Obama’s 2009 speech was a $500 million tender for development in the Middle East, which RED received the largest single chunk of, which is $150 million. They added another $200 million from their investor base. And before you know it, they got the local funds to chip in getting it up to $500 million.


They started screening companies, 180 companies in total from around the region in 4 months. 160 of them weren’t of interest, the remaining 20 were. As a result they ended up investing in 5:



  1. E3 is a regional medical IT Services company

  2. Egypt-based integrated agriculture company which specializes in Artichoke growing/producing

  3. Egypt-based regional IT services firm OMS

  4. Kuwait-based Teshkeel Media Group lead by Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa creator of The 99 comic book

  5. Jordan-based Arabic online portal d1g.com


D1g.com is obviously the most interesting investment to us because it not only represents in an investment in an Arabic online portal, but an investment in digital Arabic content as well.


Having Usama Fayyad’s Yahoo!’s former Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President of Research & Strategic Data Solution as Executive Chairman of D1G encouraged us to attend a presentation of his during the Celebration of Entrepreneurship in Dubai and the numbers are staggering.


Since Arabic Internet content is less than 1% of all Internet content yet the Arabic language is ranked second according to the number of native speakers of that language after Mandarin, the crisis is offline as much as it is online. Another interesting fact is that only 2% percent of Arabic speaking Internet users are comfortable with doing their business/personal matter in English.


So if 98% of Arabic speaking people can’t comfortably access the content online, the Internet revolution is actively leaving them behind.


Now if we consider the offline Arabic content dilemma it’s also rather concerning. 330 books get published per year, when comparing the number of ‘quality articles’ on D1G.com, the amount of content would be equivalent to 368 books per year. And that is more than the entire book industry in the Arab world for one year.


It appears RED has made a successful investment, at least in the Arabic content generation industry we hope will catch on to other platforms and online industries.






eric seiger

Books 1 by Matt and Julie Carpenter


eric seiger

Supreme Court Ruling Keeps Ban on Gays From Openly Serving in the <b>...</b>

FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Domain Name Wire » <b>News</b> » Confirmed: Facebook Acquires FB.com <b>...</b>

Facebook acquires FB.com domain name. Ending months of speculation, it's now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name. The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook's name and nameservers for the ...


eric seiger

Books 1 by Matt and Julie Carpenter


eric seiger

Supreme Court Ruling Keeps Ban on Gays From Openly Serving in the <b>...</b>

FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Domain Name Wire » <b>News</b> » Confirmed: Facebook Acquires FB.com <b>...</b>

Facebook acquires FB.com domain name. Ending months of speculation, it's now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name. The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook's name and nameservers for the ...


eric seiger

Supreme Court Ruling Keeps Ban on Gays From Openly Serving in the <b>...</b>

FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Domain Name Wire » <b>News</b> » Confirmed: Facebook Acquires FB.com <b>...</b>

Facebook acquires FB.com domain name. Ending months of speculation, it's now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name. The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook's name and nameservers for the ...


eric seiger

Supreme Court Ruling Keeps Ban on Gays From Openly Serving in the <b>...</b>

FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Domain Name Wire » <b>News</b> » Confirmed: Facebook Acquires FB.com <b>...</b>

Facebook acquires FB.com domain name. Ending months of speculation, it's now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name. The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook's name and nameservers for the ...


eric seiger eric seiger
eric seiger

Books 1 by Matt and Julie Carpenter


eric seiger
eric seiger

Supreme Court Ruling Keeps Ban on Gays From Openly Serving in the <b>...</b>

FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Domain Name Wire » <b>News</b> » Confirmed: Facebook Acquires FB.com <b>...</b>

Facebook acquires FB.com domain name. Ending months of speculation, it's now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name. The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook's name and nameservers for the ...



My dad was always surprised that public high schools didn´t teach basic finance classes. Here are 7 things that he taught me about making money and saving the money you have.

Education is a good investment. College is expensive, and not all of us have the spare change to pay out of pocket. Taking out loans is never a good feeling, even when you know it´s for a good cause. Think of student loans as an investment in your education, and work hard to make sure it pays off.

Save for retirement now. You don't need to wait for a 401K to invest for the future retirement. Even if you don´t have a full time job with company benefits, you can still save for retirement with a Roth IRA: You can contribute up to $5,000 annually and withdrawals are tax free if you absolutely need to take out money.

Coupons are not a waste of time. The five minutes you spend clipping coupons in the Sunday paper are worth it. Not only will you save money on commonly purchased items, but you can also help out a retired neighbor or relative by giving them the coupons you won´t use. Restaurant coupons are also a good opportunity to try new places with the family without spending full price.

Watch your credit score. The recent economic crisis has proved that credit card scores count. So if you can go online and sign up for an automatic pay feature for your credit card, you´re safer than trying to remember to pay off the balance every month. This way if you forget to pay you will still be taken care of.

Sometimes spending more is worth the community investment. Even though you might save money by buying that screwdriver at Walmart, sometimes it´s worth spending the extra dollar on a local business. You´re investing money in your own community, and those little girls selling lemonade on the corner will appreciate your business more than a huge corporation!

Go to tag sales. If you´re looking for furniture for a new home, children´s toys, paperback books, or used jewelry, you won´t find better deals than yard sales. Garage sales are a great way to recycle goods families don´t use anymore and put them in the hands of people who are looking for a bargain.

Look for discounts online. Never pay for anything online without looking for an online discount code. You can do a simple google search for coupon codes which you then insert at payout if you qualify. If you´re looking to purchase a big ticket item, do some online browsing to see if the Super Sale at your local store is really giving you a deal.


eric seiger

Supreme Court Ruling Keeps Ban on Gays From Openly Serving in the <b>...</b>

FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Domain Name Wire » <b>News</b> » Confirmed: Facebook Acquires FB.com <b>...</b>

Facebook acquires FB.com domain name. Ending months of speculation, it's now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name. The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook's name and nameservers for the ...


eric seiger

Supreme Court Ruling Keeps Ban on Gays From Openly Serving in the <b>...</b>

FOX News covers politics on America's Election Headquarters. FOX News political coverage on elections, races, foreign policy, candidates, and national security.

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Domain Name Wire » <b>News</b> » Confirmed: Facebook Acquires FB.com <b>...</b>

Facebook acquires FB.com domain name. Ending months of speculation, it's now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name. The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook's name and nameservers for the ...


eric seiger

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