The problems that I have with Schiff's book about Social Security are as follows:

1) It has too much filler material about how Social Security is unworkable. Even without reading this book the average John Q. American citizen already knows that.

2) He never covers the jurisdiction of the Social Security Act. The United States Congress has limited jurisdiction in which its law are applicable. Get a copy of the Constitution for the United States of America and read Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, which clearly states the legislative authority of congress:

"To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, byCession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;"

In other words congress (which is the opposite of progress!) only has jurisdiction in the above defined areas, not in the 50 union states! And it cannot force people in the union states to join it.

Here's an interesting United States Supreme Court case that should help you see the light on jurisdiction:

"The power of the United States to tax is limited to persons, property, and business within their jurisdiction, as much as that of a state is limited to the same subjects within its jurisdiction."

- United States v. Erie Ry. Co., 106 U.S. 327, 333, 1 S.Ct. 223 (1882)

Do a search on google under "federal jurisdiction" to find out more.

3) Schiff never informs the reader about 42 USC § 405 which has the requirements for obtaining a SSN. NOWHERE DOES IT STATES THAT ANYONE IS REQUIRED BY LAW TO APPLY OR POSSES ONE. Also see 20 CFR § 422.103(b). He never discusses how to deal with employers, banks, hospitals, and others when they ask for your SSN which no one is required to have. As an example 42 USC § 405(c)(2)(C)(i) allows the states to use the SSN "...in the administration of any tax, general public assistance, driver's license, or motor vehicle registration law within its jurisdiction,...." However if you keep reading § 405 you'll come across the following: "(vii) For purposes of this subparagraph, the term "State" includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands."

The 50 union states aren't included in the definition. That is because congress can only pass laws for its own jurisdiction!

Also see the definitions of "State" and "United States" at 42 USC § 410 (h) and (i).

Search the web for "SOCIAL SECURITY TAX AND TAX WITHHOLDING ARE VOLUNTARY WITHIN THE 50 STATES". There's more detailed information in this document about SOCIALIST INSECURITY than in Schiff's book. Read it!

This is an excellent book and is a great followup to Schiff's book "The Biggest Con, How The Government is Fleecing You." Once again Schiff exposes Government fraud and deceit by showing, with Supreme Court decision, that the Social Security Tax is just another Income Tax and is not earmarked for any special purpose, but goes into the general fund to be spent as Congress wishes.

I have being looking around for some quick ideas of making an effective presentation. However, this book is organised in chapters without clear descriptions of their content. It is definitely not a book for busy people.

don;t buy this book if you look for quickie tips; don;t buy this book if you look for "sales-talk" style self-help book; but do buy this book if you want a thorough lecture in presentation skills. It;s entertaining as a novel and yet informative as a lecture in presentation skills

Great for learning the basics of relational database design and the basic access object design and interaction. It is well written and the layout makes it an excellent reference book. If you are looking for a book that will help you to create a workable application from little or no knowledge of databases this is the best that I've seen.
The sections on ADO and VBA however do not contain enogh info on the basic Architecture of Access and Objects to make it useful to the beginner and are too sketchy to be of any real use to advance users or developers.

I previously bought the Access 2.0 Bible and thought it was excellent. I hesitated to buy this book thinking it might be the same but what I found was the same outstanding writing and detailed explanations of database design, queries, and events. I already knew how to use Access and simply skipped the real basics. Alot of new advanced material has been added to cover all of the new features of Access 2000. I use this book in my classes to teach new users who never saw databases. It is written in a wonderful tutorial style. I learn more each time I teach.

The book is an outstanding tutorial of all basic-intermediate Access 2000 features. I loved the example that was used throughout the entire book. The CD followed the example perfectly and included great free software amd additional examples. I especially liked the coverage of MSDE projects, Access Data Pages and other new features in Access 2000.

Before trying this course, I took the Berlitz introductory course and courses I and II by Pimsleur. I found both the Berlitz and Pimsleur courses better than this one. I agree with all the reviewers who didn't like it. This course is too heavy on discussing grammar and vocabulary and not heavy enough on practicing dialogue. It's easier to learn grammar and vocabulary from books. Audio tapes are more useful for practicing dialogue and pronuncation. The section in each lesson where you are asked to respond is too difficult for a beginner, and at the same time not very useful for an intermediate student, and it's much too short. Now I am trying Pasos 2 which at least has more dialogue to listen to, even though the speakers use slang and are difficult to understand.

This product is good for someone who has had an introductory course and understands how Spanish verbs are conjugated. It is a little more advanced than beginner's course helped me learn more!

Having read the previous reviews of this CD set, I wonder if I'm the only one who has enjoyed it. What excited me most about All-Audio Spanish was when I had listened to all 6 CDs and restarted Disk 1. I had felt a bit frustrated as the CDs progressed, feeling, as some other reviewers apparently have, that it was really fast. But when I started CD 1 again, and was able to speak along fairly well for the first few lessons (there are 35 total), I was really excited. I just completed a 17-hour drive, listening to the CDs the whole way, which was enough time to listen to all CDs twice. While I'm not nearly fluent, I'm amazed at how much of the conversation in the CDs I can actually understand. Particular features I like about the set:

The book: since it's all-audio, the book isn't much; it basically lists the words used in the CDs (listed by lesson), along with their translations. There's also a section on the grammar rules discussed on the CDs. The reason I like the book is because it's concise, and makes referencing from the CDs easy. It's not necessary to reference the book while listening, but I have found it helpful to review the words of a lesson in the evening when I'm not driving.

The organization: Each lesson is divided into lettered sections (i.e., Lesson 1a), from A to H. Each sub-lesson has it's own focus, such as new vocabulary words (A), or Hispanic cultural information (G).

Depth of language coverage: As the lessons progress, the narrator always teaches new vocabulary, but goes through all modes of language use, such as past tense, future tense, subjunctive, etc., making each lesson valuable. Other language books I've read separate subjects out without integrating necessary information, so if you're not interested in learning about riding trains, for example, you can just skip the section. But in this set, a lot of what you learn in each section applies to all parts of the language.

Difficulty format: What I mean by this is that the difficulty level goes up dramatically in the first 5 lessons (CD 1), and then stays there. Although you continue to learn new things, and there is necessarily some building on earlier lessons, the difficulty level stays about the same. Having said that, it's also wide open for continual learning. Since I'm not worried about completely understanding each lesson before tackling the next, it leaves me something else to learn when I come back to this lesson again. This also helps me retain the information that I do learn.

Things that bugged me about All-Audio Spanish:

Packaging: The CD holder in the box is not convenient for changing CDs when driving. The plastic is too stiff, too tight, and doesn't have a slit to make it easier to pull out the CD, making it necessary to touch front and back of the CD to pull it out (something I hate to do).

Overlooked words: This is minor, because you pick it up as you go through the lessons, but it bugged me. First, at the beginning, when the linguists are demonstrating how to pronounce the alphabet, they skip the letter "K". Also, as they're going through the numbers, they skip 11 and 12.

I highly recommend this CD set. I think that if you put any effort into it, you will reap huge benefits.

what a waste.if your new great buy it. if not a total rehash of basics.i was quite dis appointed.

I'm the type of buyer who will do LOT's of research before I make a decision (to make sure that my decision is correct). I have a pretty good selection of 'How To' books, as this is my first house purchase, however the one book that had the most answers to my questions was this one. I highly recommend it (5 out of 5 stars obviously), and have already loaned it to my brother who will be buying a house next year.

This book is very useful. It showed us how to find and then buy a home in a market where prices were going up and there were many multiple offers. It had tips that our agent never told us about (I suspect she didn't know) that allowed us to lock up two houses and then get out of the deals when we decided we didn't like them. The third try was the charm and we got the house, even though there were other offers. We give this book a recommendation of 5 out of 5.

Tried using this turgid volume for 1999 CFA level 1. It is appalling. Technically the authors know their stuff - as one would hope - but they make it as dull as ditchwater. Very hard to read without feeling a pressing need to do something, anything, else. I only give it 1 star because I cannot give it none. AIMR have reverted to the Sondhi & Fried book for L1 and L2. Thank you thank you thank you.

Anyone want to buy a doorstop? One careful owner.

I read this book because it was the official textbook for CFA Level 1 test. AIMR later dropped it and returned to White and Sondhi for the year 2000. Personally, I agree.

This should be a fairly good financial analysis book, but because of its uncommunicative wording, it is not appealing indeed. Agree with a reader from England, it is dull.

If the authors add their comments and pour some additional opinion and insights, this book will be much better.

It appears that the book lost its good image (since 1973?) because most of its current readers have read the White & Sondhi's book. If they not read the White & Sondhi before they read this book, they might viewed this book much much better. In my opinion, the readers will get relatively the same knowledge from both books.

First published in 1973 and used from inception by the initial CFA program this classic text has been used by many thousands of students and professionalsthrough 6 editions. Please judge this text on its merits and be wary of planted sour grapes comments of a competing text which lost out.

It's so annoying to read about graphs and figures that appear on the next page. If the authors are going to cite these visual tools have them on the same page whenever possible. Of course it is unrealistic to expect that everytime but in the K&R book this occurred 90% of the times. It's annoying when you have to flip the pages. This annoyance knocked 3 stars from what would have been a 5-star rating.

What's right about the text?

The economics is sound and the teaching is concise. Bravo in that regard.

Is it: a)wordy, b)understandable, c)good in explaining concepts? All three, interestingly.

I've seen better (Mankiw) AND worse (the name slips my mind, but it was from a professor in Iowa) microeconomics texts. The main problem is that in striving to explain the concept (which the author does very well), he really beats it in. But if you miss lectures (or have a new prof who teaches from the book, as was my case), then you should do no wrong with this book.

This is a very well written textbook. There are many textbooks out there on the markets and this one has been written with the beginning reader in mind. It is just too easy to scare the beginner with too-serious, too-academic dry language. Economics is fun to learn and the first textbook a student ever keeps in hand should make him interested, curious, wanting more and more, and of course, amused. The language of Katz and Rosen's textbook is by no means frivolous, but it is entertaining. They do not pull the rabbit out of the hat and startle the reader. Instead, they guide readers from familiar environment towards the unknown, always being down to earth and somehow, interestingly, economic theory sneaks in - in the meantime.

The order of theory presentation and the structure of the book really facilitate learning. I have used this book with the introductory microeconomics course, along with a few other ones - just for a test. They all preferred this one so we stuck with it for the remainder of the course.

In the middle of the book one finds a transparency with a graph, which, when applied, shows the effects of some parameter change. Excellent idea, as the student can see dynamically what happens with the application. It's like a hand-operated video... It's a pity that there is only one such transparency.

In summary, recommended for most introductory courses in microeconomics. it will keep students interested and will not scare them at all. Why want anything more?

I found this book made me cry & laugh and anticipate what would happen next. The book carries you from one page to the next. It is an easy captivating read. The internal struggle that the heroine faces, having to love a step child who comes between her husband & her, and overcoming the fear of the unknown is evident and could pertain to anyone of our lives. I enjoyed this book and will recommend it to my friends.

Y2K Blackout is a book about disaster as seen through the eyes of a woman. She tries to cope with the impending threat of not knowing what will happen in the new millenium by taking some precautions, even risking scorn by members of her family. There is a second disaster brewing on the horizon and that is the one in her relationship with Jessica, a step daughter. While both disasters build and finally explode, the reader is taken on a very exciting journey as the heroine tries to cope with the things being thrown at her. At one point she reaches out to her creator and asks for help. The help is given on a daily basis and she deals with each crisis as it arises. This book is a picture of how crisis can be overcome, no matter how severe, when connected to the One who holds you in the palm of His hand. The greatest victory in this book is not that the heroine survives Y2K, as terrible as it was, but that she survived the war with a daughter and won. It is a book of hope. Good Book!

What a roller coaster ride! As I read, the scenes just came to life for me. Julia is an honest woman who is easy to relate to. Ms. Irwin has captured the essence of a woman's struggle to be loved and to love. I loved the way the characters evolved into better people because of the hardships of what very well may happen. What a lovely ending!

Unless you go to Haaaaarvaaard (I always forget how many A's to put), you are probably going to be a bit perplexed by the content of this book.

The cases go WAY beyond what is covered in the Chapters, and its up to the instructor to try to fill in the gaps (hopefully your instructor realizes this).

I have found myself referring to my textbook from my intro accounting course more often than this book itself in order to grasp the concepts at hand. Seriously, this book is a punishment to anyone who has to buy it for school. And its FREAKIN heavy to haul around across campus.

'Nough said.

I used this book for my MBA and found it to be lengthy and dense. One would be lost if he has no basic accounting knowledge. I spent more time looking up other books in the book shop for my revision.

It's not that bad as other reviews say it is, but it is definetely such a heavy book to carry around.

I've had the misfortune of having this book as a required text for two second-year circuit analysis courses. The book is poorly laid out, and difficult to follow. Concepts are spread out, and hidden in dense sections of text. Much flipping is required to understand what the authors are trying to say.

One slightly redeeming point is the large number of problems in each chapter, but this hardly makes up for the lacking of the rest of the book.

If you're stuck with a course that uses this book, hope that you get a good prof who gives great notes (I got lucky).

The book is very unclear in many areas. My professor's notes are better than this book.

I feel like this book was very nicely put together. Those who believe otherwise are just slackers that have been given everything they needed in high school. This book is a GREAT book for a electrical engineering major, but just having this book will not make you more intelligent, you will need to take the time to read it to understand what's going on.