federal-loan

This book is a good book for young readers. If you relly like baseball and reading relistic-fiction this is a good book for you

I think this book was very informative it realy helped me to understand alot of what the guidence counslors had been saying for my last two years of high school. it helped me understand what the standards were for financial aid was. and how to apply for grants and loans i never even knew existed. also helped me find i was eligible for a military grant through my fathers sevice record. thank you amizon . com for helping those who are physically challenged have acess to all of thes wonderful books. without having to go from store to store looking for the book you want or need shandra cdoughman2@cinci.rr.com

Thinks he knows everything. Full of hot air.

Seidman uses the above quote in the chapter where he apportions blame for the S&L fiasco. This book contains a lot of entertaining passages, and considering it is a book about finance written by an accountant, that in itself makes the book unusual.

I found the book to be well written, and very up-front about the authors biases. It was refreshing that the hidden agenda was right out in the open for everyone to inspect, just the way the author maintains that good government should operate. As Seidman states in his introduction:

"Why write about these experiences?" Of course, I share the goals of most memoirists: to immortalize my contribution to society; even scores with my enemies; provide financial security for my old age, confirm the taxpayers worst suspicions about their government; and generally leave a record of my adventures for the benefit of future historians".

The CDROM is essentially a dump of the information found on government websites such as SBA, SEC, etc.

The information is voluminous so if you have a slow modem, there may be some value in purchasing the info on the CDROM for the sake of having it consolidated in one place. You will learn little new if you have already been to the websites.

Also, some of the links on the CDROM do not work properly. You open the page in Adobe Acrobat and receive and error message saying the page has to be opened in a browser. You open the page in a browser and you get a message saying the page has to be opened in Adobe Acrobat.

That kind of foolishness more or less sums up the value of the CDROM from my perspective.

Not only is all of this info available online, but the CD gives you a collection of non-indexed, gigantically HUGE Acrobat PDF files, some about 100MB in size. Navigating a 5MB text PDF is painfully slow - try 100 MB. Finding what you're seeking is practically impossible, and navigating PDFs of that size takes an eternity. Even a fast machine takes a couple minutes just to load the files into Acrobat, never mind doing searches, etc.

If they had broken up the files and named them logically (instead of titles like A1, B1, etc.), and provided some kind of indexing application or document that would point you to specifically what you wanted, then, yes, it might be handy to have. Otherwise, go online, and find answers 100 times more quickly. This is a ridiculously poorly done CD-ROM in this day and age. Big waste of $, in my opinion. If you have a slower/older computer without much memory, you'd REALLY want to avoid this thing like the plague.

This disc contains pdf files downloaded from government web pages. Save yourself the money and go to the SBA, GSA, SEC web pages yourself and look up the information that is relevant to you.

I wish I had seen these reviews for this book. It is worthless in terms of information on obtaining funds for small business. If your handicapped or a minority it might be of some use for loans. Nothing relevent for myself as an individual with no startup capital.

I rarely rate a book as one star. This book is the exception.

My favorite gripe about books is that some of them have misleading titles designed to make them more appealing to book buyers. That certainly describes this book. The bulk of the programs listed in the book are LOAN programs. I don't think loans are a source of free money. Do you? The author never explains why these are sources of free money.

Usually, when I find a misleading title, I still find a mostly worthwhile book underneath. This book is the exception. Almost all of the programs listed come from either the Small Business Administration, the Agriculture Department, or Housing and Urban Development. Each of these organizations will help you over the telephone or send you material on the programs they make available. Web sites are also available.

Why, then, is the book so thick? That's because it lists the same agencies at the same address over . . . and over . . . and over . . . and over. You get the idea. Properly organized, this book could have been condensed to about 20 percent of its size, and would have been easier to use. That would have reduced the costs to the readers and the profits to the publisher and author. Can't have that, can we?

Let's look at the next problem. This book was published in this edition in 1996. There's been a lot of change in government programs since then. So undoubtedly, a lot of this information is out of date. A book like this should be updated at least every two years.

Finally, once you find out who to talk to or write to, what do you do? The book claims to help you design your application and use your grant properly. I found the material on that subject to be very brief and general. Few would find it adequate to succeed in even getting an SBA loan. Lengthy books are written on that subject alone!

If you want to get help from these agencies, find someone who has experience with them to help you (like your banker, attorney, accountant or neighbor). Even if you need to call information in your state to get the telephone number of the relevant governmental agency, that will still cost a lot less than this book.

Do not buy, and do not read this book.

If ever I have seen an example of a miscommunication about how to improve a business, it is in the form of this book. I encourage you to consider ways to redesign your business's basic operating model (perhaps through more outsourcing) as a way to reduce your need for capital, as a substitute to taking on loans from the Federal Government.

I was very disappointed in this book because I felt like the title itself is very misleading. The title of the book is called "FREE MONEY From the Federal Governement for SMALL BUSINESSES AND ENTREPRENEURS" By Laurie Blum. The book description clearly states that there are hundreds of millions of dollars available FREE! to small business and entrepreneurs, when in fact the only thing that I found in this book pertaining to small businesses were LOANS and ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS, and the last time I checked LOANS are not free. This book description needs to be more clear as to what kinds of grants are available and the title "FREE MONEY" should not be used when this book is filled with mostly loan options. From reading the book description I was under the impression that this was a book filled with nothing but grant information! I was very disappointed and unsatisfied with this book. If I'm wrong or misunderstood this book please fill free to correct me and direct me to the pages where the business grants are supposed to be located.

One of the reviewers's mentioned the URL where the contents are. where can I find the contents on the web? What is the URL?

I thought this was a book, not a CD-ROM only! Here I was waiting for a book that was never coming. This merchandise should not be in the "book" section of Amazon. This information is available on the web for free (I wanted a bounded hard copy)...

I would love to give this ZERO stars if I could!

I had bought this cd in the hopes that I might find some grants that I could not find anywhere else. Instead, this cd had an Adobe document with a list of the 16,000+ grants, loans etc. The contents of the cd itself on took up perhaps 1/10(if that much!) of the actual cd.

On top of that, the contents of the document were those of a website I had visited days before! That site is [URL] if anyone wants to find it.

Just so anyone out there wants to inquire, save your money and visit the web site instead. Don't be a fool like I was and find out the hard way.

You live and learn I suppose.

Warning! This is nothing but a reproduction of thousands of government agency WEB PAGES, all available FOR FREE to anyone with internet access. It is NOT INDEXED, meaning you have to search the entire disc for words or phrases you're interested in JUST LIKE YOU WOULD ON THE INTERNET. I am returning this at once!

This steaming heap of information was UNcarefully gathered from the Internet (by some type of automated, grab-it-all crap program) ... dumped UNedited into giant PDF files and burned to CD. It is less useful than a simple hyperlinks to HUD, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I can't begin to tell you how ugly this is. I haven't seen information this DISorganized since the streets of NY filled with paper showering down from the horrific World Trade Center disaster. Absolutely worthless. Trash. Avoid this at any cost.