Easy 4 Life - Views and thoughts on finance, property & investment and other business matters

Motivation, Inspiration and Recognition

2012-02-05T15:36:00.001Z

One of the best inspirational songs ever? When I ruled the word -

2012-01-22T09:29:00.001Z

Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better

2011-12-27T23:23:00.003Z

Tony covers "Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better". This is a must
watch.

Shift Happens - A little dated now- but still great to watch!

2011-12-11T11:50:00.002Z

Brian Tracy Explaining the Winning Edge

2011-11-06T21:09:00.002Z

Press release statistics

2011-10-22T22:56:00.002+01:00

Google Plus - the way forward?

2011-07-03T20:30:00.002+01:00

Chris Brogan is a chap that I admire and have been following for a good while now, he is an Author and pioneer consultant in all things social media, website and technology. He has published a piece in his blog that I would suggest everyone who has an interest in such matters reads. I have publised a snippet of it here:

"If you’re curious about Google+, the new social network platform from Google, you’re not alone. I’ve logged several hours already on the platform, experimenting, testing, and observing. It sparks my attention from several angles: marketing, technology, community, media, mobile, advertising, and more. To that end, I wrote down 50 things to think about with regards to Google+, in no particular order:

The purpose of this list is to get you thinking about a bunch of different possibilities. You’re welcome to dispute them all, but that really wouldn’t be the point. Instead, make your own similar post and link back. People can compare

Google+ is built to take you away from either Facebook or Twitter (or both), and it could do it, in time.

If it seems like FriendFeed, and thus you worry it might burn out, know that Newt Gingrich has already joined.

With a G+ account, you get unlimited photo storage on Picasa. (Flickr feel threatened? FB photos?)

With Circles (how one groups people), you control privacy in a way that makes clear and obvious sense.

Your “about” section is rich, robust, allows links, photos, QR codes, and more. Marketers rejoice.

If Google+ starts influencing Page Rank (meaning, if a link shared on G+ is weighted more than others), it’s game on for SEO/SEM.

If Google Music integrates into this platform the way YouTube is now, it’s a powerful entertainment media platform instantly.

The Android integration for G+ is strong already in these early days. If the platform does take off in a big way, this could shift mobile OS choices, and spending. (very speculative, I admit)

You don’t need Quora, if you can ask detailed questions in G+ and share them with specific Circles, etc.

The live video chat feature is a powerful addition to collaboration and workshifting scenarios."

For the original blog - visit here and subscribe to the great man:
http://bit.ly/kZPTAN

Brian Tracy - Live in London "Leadership is a habit that can be learnt"

2011-06-18T13:17:00.003+01:00

Twitter users risk potential legal action

2011-06-09T16:39:00.003+01:00

In the UK the hot topic over the last few weeks has been all about Twitter Users risking legal action if they are not careful with some of their tweets particularly with regard to tweeting allegedly inaccurate information such as the case of breaching injunctions and the Britain's Got Talent fixing allegations .

In one recent case- @fahmi_fadzil was ordered to tweet an apology 100 times when he claimed that a friend had been treated badly by her employers. The tweet below is his 100th message:

@fahmi_fadzil
100/100 I've DEFAMED Blu Inc Media & Female Magazine. My tweets on their HR Policies are untrue. I retract those words & hereby apologize

Very interesting development!

Talent Management and Apprenticeship Programmes

2011-06-05T14:06:00.004+01:00

Talent Managment is a one of the many buzz words that is thrown around frequently by many business & management gurus. The nuts and bolts of it are that it refers to the needs of attracting highly skilled workers, or integrating new workers and developing and retaining current workers to meet sustainable future business objectives.

Talent Management focuses on potential- meaning an employee's future performance if given the proper development of skills and increased responsibility.

Apprenticeship schemes meet all the above statements - so why aren't employers engaged?

Any thoughts?

http://www.facebook.com/apprenticeship

Gold - the best preserver of wealth?

2011-05-21T22:32:00.002+01:00

There has been an interesting news story (reproduced below) recently about a gold find in London. The story focuses on the historic and human element however there is a very important lesson that can be taken from the story that is the greatest presever of wealth has been gold and even after years - gold still looks to retain its title.

The full news story is reproduced as below:
http://apps.hackney.gov.uk/servapps/newspr/NewsReleaseDetails.aspx?id=1982

Gold coin donated to Hackney Museum
A single gold coin from the ‘Hackney Hoard’ has been donated to Hackney Museum. The $20 ‘Double-Eagle’ will join the hundreds of other Hackney objects telling the diverse human story of the borough through the ages.

The complete hoard consist of 80 coins, minted in the United States between 1854 and 1913. They are all $20 coins known as ‘Double-Eagle’ and the find is totally unprecedented in the United Kingdom. The hoard was discovered in the back garden of a property in Hackney and reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme but in a unique twist to the story a likely descendent of the original owner of the coins has been found.

The coins are thought to have been buried during the 1940s, when Mr Martin Sulzbacher and his family lived in the Hackney property. It appears his fortune had been buried in his back garden for safe keeping by his family members whilst he was interned in 1940. A German Jew who had fled Nazi Germany, Mr Sulzbacher was interned as an ‘enemy alien refugee’ on the Isle of Man. In the meantime, his house in London was bombed and his family killed, and on his release Mr Sulzbacher was unable to locate the coins despite a detailed search and subsequently moved to Australia However, the current case represents a second deposit of Martin Sulzbacher’s wealth. In 1952 as work commenced on a new building on the site of Mr Sulzbacher’s house, another hoard of 82 $20 American gold coins dating to 1890 was discovered in a glass jar on the same site. The hoard was awarded to Mr Martin Sulzbacher by the coroner at the time.

Mr Max Sulzbacher, his son said ‘I am surprised but delighted by the recent discovery, which has come to light almost 70 years after the coins were buried. I am very grateful to the finders for reporting the coins to the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the Museum of London, and to the member of the public who alerted the coroner to the 1950s discovery’.

Hackney Council Cabinet Member for Community Services, Cllr Jonathan McShane said: “This is an incredible story spanning over 70 years. Hackney has such a colourful history and this personal account gives an insight into how war affected families who had settled in the borough. Mr. Sulzbacher’s generous donation means the council can display it in Hackney Museum and keep the story alive for generations to come.”

On 18 April 2011 the Coroner for Inner North London resumed an inquest in relation to a hoard of American gold dollars found in Hackney in 2007. The Coroner decided that Mr. Sulzbacher has a superior claim to the coins meaning that they will not qualify as Treasure according to the terms of the Treasure Act 1996, on the grounds that in order for objects to be classed as such, their owner or his or her heirs or successors must be unknown. Mr. Martin Sulzbacher passed away in 1981 but the coroner’s office, the British Museum and the Museum of London have worked together to track down his son, Mr. Max Sulzbacher who lives abroad.

Max Sulzbacher has generously agreed that the hoard can remain on public display at the British Museum (Room 41) for a further week, giving visitors a further opportunity to see the coins. He also agreed to give an ex-gratia payment to the finders in recognition of their contribution to the discovery. It is anticipated that the remainder of the coins will be sold.

This represents the first time since the Treasure Act came into force in 1997 that an original owner or direct descendent has lain successful claim to an item that would otherwise have been ‘Treasure’ and the property of the Crown.

Dr Roger Bland, head of the department of Portable Antiquities and Treasure at the British Museum, said ‘The case of the Hackney gold coins is one of the most unique and compelling stories that we have been involved with. There is an incredibly human element to this story that is absent from many archaeological finds and we are pleased to see the coins reunited with their original owners after so many years. The finders are to be congratulated for acting responsibly and helping to add further vital information to the corpus of material about the Second World War, Jewish immigration, and the history of Hackney borough.’

Archaeologists from the British Museum and University College London have investigated the site to ensure that no further deposits remained.

Brian Tracy: Achieving Goals is Predictable

2011-05-15T19:08:00.002+01:00

Brian Tracy - My personal favourite Trainer

2011-05-15T18:42:00.002+01:00

7 Great Quotes from Brian Tracy:

The more credit you give away, the more will come back to you. The more you help others, the more they will want to help you.

Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.

We will always tend to fulfill our own expectation of ourselves.

No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals

An average person with average talent, ambition and education, can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society, if that person has clear, focused goals.

Be a lifelong student. The more you learn, the more you earn and more self confidence you will have.

Spend eighty percent of your time focusing on the opportunities of tomorrow rather than the problems of yesterday.

The UK Government changes its stance on immigration.

2011-03-26T21:28:00.003Z

The UK Government is looking at immigration in a new light. It is now opening the doors to the wealthy. From April 2011 multi-millionaires will be welcome with opne arms as they will find it easier to gain permanent residency in the country. People willing to invest £10 million into UK companies will get an "investor visa" and qualify for permanent residency in two years. Those who invest £5 million will get their residency in three years an those who come with £1 million can get in five years.

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/workingintheuk/tier1/investor/

Report: The World Economy in 2050

2011-01-29T14:59:00.004Z

60% of the countries in the global economic top 10 will be the now-developing countries by 2050 states PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in its latest report 'world in 2050'

It states that over the next 40 years, western dominance of the global economic league will end. The prediction is that six of the 10 largest economies will be now-developing countries, from just two today: China and Brazil. China will replace the United States at the top of the league, while the United Kingdom - now sixth will slip to 9th or 10th, outpaced by Brazil, Mexico and Russia.
However, it predicts that the UK will fare better than some of its european rivals: France, Italy and Spain who will be out of the top 10 altogether. It recommends that the UK should focus on exports. At the present moment- only 7% or so of UK exports go to the fast growing BRIC countries - it needs to do better here to save itself from too much of a slippery slide.

Innovation from British Law Firms

2010-10-23T09:03:00.000+01:00

Law firms are not generally known for innovation, particularly in property transaction. The financial crisis and thus increased pressure arising from this has stimulated some law firms to innovate and differentiate themselves from their competition.
A platform designed by TLT Solicitors is a good example, this platform cuts the replication of individual documents on block housing transactions and enables the client to efficiently track the progress of cases. Property Developers can potentially save 60% in legal fees by using the firms sales process online.
Addelshaw Goddard has found a business solution to disputes involving bankers, valuation firms and intermediaries. Addelshaw has offered clients a conditional fee arrangement for cases. The service is called Regain and helps lender-clients recover value lost in the falling property market. The firm finds new opportunities to force professional valuers to make up the difference.

212 degrees - The Extra Degree

2010-09-25T12:30:00.000+01:00

Changing Goal Posts – Bradford & Bingley sues solicitors over same-day remortgage deals.

2010-09-05T20:29:00.002+01:00

Bradford and Bingley – parent company to Mortgage Express who were UK’s largest buy to let lender is looking to pursue negligence claims against law firms over advice received on same day remortgage buy to let deals using the concept of a closed bridge. For the full news article that was published by FT please see:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2a0f9fa-ac7d-11df-8582-00144feabdc0.html

The practice of a close bridging loan being used to build a portfolio is common and was widely promoted pre-credit crunch by property related professionals including solicitors, mortgage brokers and other finance professionals. Bradford and Bingley is now alleging that legal firms involved in this activity breached anti-fraud guidelines and legislation as per the Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook. If you speak to with anyone involved in the buy to let property industry at the time, they will tell you that despite the claim now that the lenders were not aware of this practice, this is hard to believe as this was one of the main topics discussed by all in the industry at the time and lenders made adjustments to their lending criteria based on minimum ownership period which at a stroke stopped the same day remortgage practice. Mortgage Express were promoting their products to the broker community on the basis that they did not operate on a minimum period.

For those of you who could do with some background information; a number of innovative property entrepreneurs created the concept of the Below Market Value (BMV) / No Money Down (NMD) deals as well as coining phrases such as motivated sellers. These property entrepreneurs worked out that the if you could persuade somebody – to sell a property cheaply enough, you could buy it for effectively no money down and even take money out from the deal. The concept used to finance this below market value deals was a closed bridging loan. This allowed the purchaser to effectively use the property’s own equity as the deposit. This created the boom and suddenly property investment became a viable option for all and sundry!
A number of people set about buying property at an unsustainable pace, with one or more purchases per week not being uncommon. The real problem was that these new property investors were taking as much money as possible out of the deal where the rental income was not supporting the mortgage interest, effectively creating a pyramid where the only way to support the deal was by doing more deals.
The reality of the situation was that a motivated seller becomes so, because he is threatened with repossession. Cue the BMV investor who wants to buy their home from them at a substantial discount and allow them to stay in it in return for a rent lower than their mortgage had been. Considering the alternative for the homeowner is repossession and then sale by the original lender at an even lower price, with the lender then pursuing the homeowner with the loss incurred by the lender. Therefore the BMV investor has done the motivated seller a favour. The lenders’ indirectly benefit by this system as well, as they have not needed to repossess and have earned fees from continuing to sell their mortgage products as well and thus creating an all-round win/win situation.
In theory this is fine but what has happened since it that the people who were buying as BMV investors where often financially naive themselves and there was no contingency plan to their business and unfortunately sizeable losses have been made by individuals and subsequently the lenders themselves.

The lenders now are denying all knowledge of all such practices and the law suits will be of interest to many and definitely this is a story that I will be following.

Another view - How Wall Street Lied to Its Computers

2010-04-10T10:31:00.001+01:00

An article originally written in September 2008 - I've just come across this and thought at least it offers a different perspective on the events of the past few years.
Please see link below :

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/how-wall-streets-quants-lied-to-their-computers/

How Wall Street Lied to Its Computers
So where were the quants?

That's what has been running through my head as I watch some of the oldest and seemingly best-run firms on Wall Street implode because of what turned out to be really bad bets on mortgage securities.

Before I started covering the Internet in 1997, I spent 13 years covering trading and finance. I covered my share of trading disasters from junk bonds, mortgage securities and the financial blank canvas known as derivatives. And I got to know bunch of quantitative analysts ("quants"): mathematicians, computer scientists and economists who were working on Wall Street to develop the art and science of risk management.

They were developing systems that would comb through all of a firm's positions, analyze everything that might go wrong and estimate how much it might lose on a really bad day.

We've had some bad days lately, and it turns out Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and maybe some others bet far too much. Their quants didn't save them.

I called some old timers in the risk-management world to see what went wrong.

I fully expected them to tell me that the problem was that the alarms were blaring and red lights were flashing on the risk machines and greedy Wall Street bosses ignored the warnings to keep the profits flowing.

Ultimately, the people who ran the firms must take responsibility, but it wasn't quite that simple.

In fact, most Wall Street computer models radically underestimated the risk of the complex mortgage securities, they said. That is partly because the level of financial distress is "the equivalent of the 100-year flood," in the words of Leslie Rahl, the president of Capital Market Risk Advisors, a consulting firm.

But she and others say there is more to it: The people who ran the financial firms chose to program their risk-management systems with overly optimistic assumptions and to feed them oversimplified data. This kept them from sounding the alarm early enough.

Top bankers couldn't simply ignore the computer models, because after the last round of big financial losses, regulators now require them to monitor their risk positions. Indeed, if the models say a firm's risk has increased, the firm must either reduce its bets or set aside more capital as a cushion in case things go wrong.

In other words, the computer is supposed to monitor the temperature of the party and drain the punch bowl as things get hot. And just as drunken revelers may want to put the thermostat in the freezer, Wall Street executives had lots of incentives to make sure their risk systems didn't see much risk.

"There was a willful designing of the systems to measure the risks in a certain way that would not necessarily pick up all the right risks," said Gregg Berman, the co-head of the risk-management group at RiskMetrics, a software company spun out of JPMorgan. "They wanted to keep their capital base as stable as possible so that the limits they imposed on their trading desks and portfolio managers would be stable."

One way they did this, Mr. Berman said, was to make sure the computer models looked at several years of trading history instead of just the last few months. The most important models calculate a measure known as Value at Risk — the amount of money you might lose in the worst plausible situation. They try to figure out what that worst case is by looking at how volatile markets have been in the past.

But since the markets were placid for several years (as mortgage bankers busily lent money to anyone with a pulse), the computers were slow to say that risk had increased as defaults started to rise.

It was like a weather forecaster in Houston last weekend talking about the onset of Hurricane Ike by giving the average wind speed for the previous month.

But many on Wall Street did even worse, as Mr. Berman describes it. They continued to trade very complex securities concocted by their most creative bankers even though their risk management systems weren't able to understand the details of what they owned.

A lot of deals were nonstandard in many ways, "so you really had to go through the entire prospectus and read every single line to pick up all the nuances," Mr. Berman said. "And that slows down the process when mortgage yields looked very attractive."

So some trading desks took the most arcane security, made of slices of mortgages, and entered it into the computer if it were a simple bond with a set interest rate and duration. This seemed only like a tiny bit of corner-cutting because the credit-rating agencies declared that some of these securities were triple-A. (20/20 hindsight: not!) But once the mortgage market started to deteriorate, the computers were not able to identify all the parts of the portfolio that might be hurt.

Lying to your risk-management computer is like lying to your doctor. You just aren't going to get the help you really need.

All this is not to say that the models would have gotten things right if only they were fed the most accurate information. Ms. Rahl said that it was now clear that the computers needed to assume extra risk in owning a newfangled security that had never been seen before.

"New products, by definition, carry more risk," she said. The models should penalize investments that are complex, hard to understand and infrequently traded, she said. They didn't.

"One of the things that has caused great pain is complex products," Ms. Rahl said.

That made me think back to some of the great trading debacles of the last century, such as the collapse of Askin Capital Management, a hedge fund that fell apart because of complex mortgage security investments gone bad. Wasn't the moral of those stories that you shouldn't put your money (or your client's money) in something you didn't understand? Furthermore, even if you are convinced you do understand it, you're not going to be able to sell it when you need the money if no one else does.

"In some ways there is nothing new," said Ms. Rahl, who helped investigate what went wrong at Askin. "The big deals are front-page news, then they go into the recesses of people's memories."

And, ultimately, the most important risk-management systems are the ones that have gray hair. "It's not just the Ph.D.'s who must run risk management," Ms. Rahl said. "It is the people who know the markets and have lifelong perspective." And at too many firms it is those people who failed to make sure the quants really did their jobs.

connect with me http://www.safaraz.co.uk

Continued Optimism for Buy-to-let Investors: An Update

2010-04-02T12:14:00.001+01:00

The depressive state of the economy for the few years has wiped out the ‘get rich quick’ investors, who plunged into buy-to-let expecting overnight returns. The experienced and the more cautious among us, who took a longer-term view, have survived the worst of the recession and are beginning to feel more optimistic about the future.

There are a number groups representing agents and landlords that have reported an increase in demand for rental accommodation with demand outstripping supply in certain parts of the country, rents have also said to be improved and this may be due to the effect of the Local Housing Allowance. Having spoken with a number of property investors as well as property and finance professionals at various events over the last month or so, many are indicating that they are still feeling discouraged by the lack of credit they are still of the opinion the buy-to-let mortgage market is expanding modestly again.

It seems that even though the press are getting all excited again regarding property prices a full recovery may be some way off however the long-term prospects for the market remain strong and investors with money in the bank are taking advantage of reduced property prices and low interest rates to expand their portfolios.

Best Wishes for 2010

2010-01-10T12:27:00.004Z

2009 has mixed year - many businesses have failed, some have relaunched again immediately under various initiatives including pre-pack administration deals and we will see more of these to come in 2010. There also been a significant increase in new start ups and many individuals who have been redudant in 2009 have taken the opportunity of starting a business.

I am looking forward to this year and would expect most people to be more optimistic but still take a more business like approach to their lives and careers back up planning and risk awareness.

I have over the festive and holiday peiod been busy browsing and just reading and searching what information for new start-ups is available. I have come across a number of sites that are useful and worth bookmarking and are listed below:

http://www.cobwebinfo.com/
Cobweb publishes a unique range of information packages to help you start and grow a business.

http://www.scavenger.net/
Part of Cobweb publishing, Scavenger has over 800 reports and guides to help research a business idea or market, write a business plan, and start up a small business. This is a pay as you go site.

http://www.bestforbusiness.com
This is a free portal to thousands of links and many fact sheets covering all apects of business.

Wish you all well for this year.

National HUNTER the anti-fraud system

2009-10-18T20:36:00.002+01:00

The National HUNTER system is an anti-fraud data sharing system for use by members of the Financial Services Industry

When a financial institution rejects an application for credit, they usually advice you to contact the three credit reference agencies; Equifax, Experian or Call credit to find out the information they have on you. This can be obtained for £2.00 by post or slightly more expensive if you require an instant online copy.

What can be difficult to understand is when your credit record with these agencies is clear and you have still been rejected! This could be as a result of the individual financial institution’s credit scoring policy however this also could be due to a search conducted on the National Hunter system

National Hunter is run by Lenders and does not assess credit in the same way as the other credit reference agencies; its sole aim is fraud prevention. National Hunter warns a lender of a potential application fraud.

Application fraud is when an individual or group of individuals apply for financial services and knowingly misrepresents facts within their application. The Case can be declined as suspect for things like:

An application is made and the applicant deliberately fails to disclose previous address information as they have adverse financial information present at that address
An applicant inflates their annual income to obtain additional borrowing.
An applicant impersonates another person after obtaining personal information about them and applies in their name.
An application submits Inconsistent applications to different lenders
If there are a number of changes of salary or employer over a short period of time
An applicant uses different spellings of names and/or there is a change of dates of birth

As with all the other reference agencies, you do have a right under the Data Protection Act to know what information is held about you on file. There is a cost of £10.00 for this. Information on how to obtain a copy of your file can be found on www.nhunter.co.uk

Safaraz Ali

2009-09-04T12:57:00.001+01:00

Safaraz Ali "NVQ Training Provider, Pre-employment Training, Worklessness Programmes, Flexible New Deal,Work Choice, Golden Hello, NVPT+, Specialist Support Provider, NVQ Assessing Vacancies, Assessors Training, A1 Training, V1 Training, PTLLS training, IOD" - Business Networking on Ecademy

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The property slump- It’s not over

2009-08-30T20:43:00.000+01:00

The property slump- It’s not over.

After taking heavy losses in the dot com crash, many investors moved their funds and efforts into the commercial property sectors, believing their asset allocation would be diversified and that this would be a much lower risk asset to hold. For several years this move paid off handsomely. Capital Values and rents were also pushed up. The global financial; crisis and that came about from mid 2008 and the subsequent recession has hit commercial property hard.

There are many global property projects that have put on hold; many landmark buildings that have been put on sale have had considerable reductions in price to secure a sale. There is presently a murmur in the media of some green shoots of recovery and that the worst is over.

I think that the opposite is in fact more probable; that the worst is yet to come. The trouble that is brewing for the sector is the financing issue for the commercial property sector. There are many deals that are taken on initial commercial bridging or short term rates of around 2% above bank base rates and these deals will need to refinanced over the next year or so. The issue is that the value of the property is significantly below the value of the debt outstanding – a negative equity situation which will clearly mean that the borrowers will be unable to refinance their deals. The banking sector could be hit further if they do not allow the loans to roll over on their current deals.

Private Landlords National Register

2009-08-09T23:49:00.003+01:00

Every private landlord in England will have to sign up to a national register before they can let their properties to tenants. The Department of Communities and Local Government plan to take forward a number of proposals from the independent review into the private rented sector carried out last year for the government, known as the Rugg Report.

One of the main aims of the legislation is to crack down on rogue landlords who fail to undertake essential repairs or improperly not returning deposits would be struck off the register and barred from letting their properties. Another main advantage of the legislation is that Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will be given access to the database , which will included the names and addresses of the landlords and all their properties therefore cracking down on the tax evasion that is widespread in the private rented sector.