a website with lots of useful management book reviews

For peoples who like to browse through new management books to get new insights,
would like to recommend to you this website of "800 CEO read".
website

The website has a good collection of management book reviews, authors’ interview (video clips), relevant websites/links to the management book etc..

Daily blog, excerpt blog and audio blog are available too.

I have added this blog by 800CEOread into my "business... blogroll".
I am compiling "economist’s blogs", "quants’ blogs", "business.... blogs", "tech blogs" etc. Into my blogrolls.

This is a good way to know whether there are new posts on these experts’ (of their fields) blogs, instead of checking on the blogs one-by-one; much like "kanban" for blogs :-)

Feel free to check it out..
Better still if you can recommend more insightful blogs to me. :-)

Malaysia’s Ministry of Housing and Local Government

A forum friend has recommended this website of Malaysia’s Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
website

This is the Ministry governing housing developers in Malaysia.

Some information from the website which may be useful for housebuyers:
Guidelines: (some highlights)
1. Guideline on licensing
Can learn a great deal on licensing of housing developers and moneylenders.

2. Guideline on housing and you (important)
This is very useful. It tells potential housebuyer what to caution for when buying a house.

3. Guideline on landscape
This is government guidelines on aspects of landscape, public parks, greening of nations etc..

Services: (some highlights)
1. Licensing (important)
We can search for registered developers/housing projects, moneylenders here.

2. Tribunal for homebuyer claims (important)
An easier, cheaper and faster means of dispute resolution for homebuyers claiming compensation/damages from housing developers.
Conditions, procedures, forms etc.. are available in the website.

3. Housing Legal Clinic
Providing advise to resolve dispute between house buyer and developer, especially to those who cannot afford legal advice

4. Prosecuted & Fined Developers (important)
Good to know which developers (and projects) have bad reputations. Avoid buying house from them.

Great website...

Lehman Brother’s Minibond victims – associations, groups, blogs

Many Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan’s investors are affected by Lehman Brother’s Minibond or related products.

Some associations, groups, blogs are created to seek justice for the Minibond victims.

Among the groups, some main ones are listed below:

Hong Kong :
雷曼苦主大聯盟 (Hong Kong)
website
Read 苦主心聲 for the victims’ views.
There are many useful links inside related to Minibond groups/blogs.

Singapore:

Tan Kin Lian's blog

website

Taiwan:
连动债受害人权益促进会
website

The useful links of websites above will lead to more associations/groups/blogs.

OECD - The Current Financial Crisis – Causes and Policy Issues (2)

Article "The Current Financial Crisis – Causes and Policy Issues" in (OECD)’s website
PDF file

The second part of the report is on policy issues.
Some highlights:

Crisis Management
Three basic and separable steps to deal with a banking system solvency crisis:
1. Guarantee liabilities to stop bank runs.

2. Separate the good assets from the bad assets, and get the bad assets off bank balance sheets

method 1: ‘asset management’ approach to buying toxic assets
e.g TARP in its initial form; actions during Asia Crisis

method 2: nationalise banks, separate the bad assets, and then sell the cleaned-up banks back to the private sector.
e.g approach used in Scandinavia in 1991; Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) in US’s Savings and Loans (S&L) Crisis

Method 3: Encourage a large better capitalised bank to take over a smaller failing bank and absorb its losses

3. Recapitalise the asset-cleansed banks by finding new equity holders, via selling common shares or preference shares to private entities or government

Exit Strategy and Long Term Reform
3 areas:
1. Reform in incentive systems
2. Matching cost of capital to the risks that institutions actually take, by regulatory influence
3. Exit government bank ownership and insurance commitments through asset sales and debt management techniques.

Its "Figure 4. Incentive structure, influences and outcomes" shows main channels of influence. It is an insightful summary.

Some concepts that I think worthwhile to learn about and explore further:
Theory of the second best :
if market failures are present then reforms to improve pieces of the system (as opposed to reforming the global interactions between regulatory, tax, remuneration and other governance factors, etc.) may not help and indeed may make things worse.

Basel I and Basel II : to match capital regulation with the riskiness of bank lending
Capital rules : pro-cyclical
end result: not able to avert financial crisis.

OECD - The Current Financial Crisis – Causes and Policy Issues (2)

Article "The Current Financial Crisis – Causes and Policy Issues" in (OECD)’s website
PDF file

The second part of the report is on policy issues.
Some highlights:

Crisis Management
Three basic and separable steps to deal with a banking system solvency crisis:
1. Guarantee liabilities to stop bank runs.

2. Separate the good assets from the bad assets, and get the bad assets off bank balance sheets

method 1: ‘asset management’ approach to buying toxic assets
e.g TARP in its initial form; actions during Asia Crisis

method 2: nationalise banks, separate the bad assets, and then sell the cleaned-up banks back to the private sector.
e.g approach used in Scandinavia in 1991; Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) in US’s Savings and Loans (S&L) Crisis

Method 3: Encourage a large better capitalised bank to take over a smaller failing bank and absorb its losses

3. Recapitalise the asset-cleansed banks by finding new equity holders, via selling common shares or preference shares to private entities or government

Exit Strategy and Long Term Reform
3 areas:
1. Reform in incentive systems
2. Matching cost of capital to the risks that institutions actually take, by regulatory influence
3. Exit government bank ownership and insurance commitments through asset sales and debt management techniques.

Its "Figure 4. Incentive structure, influences and outcomes" shows main channels of influence. It is an insightful summary.

Some concepts that I think worthwhile to learn about and explore further:
Theory of the second best :
if market failures are present then reforms to improve pieces of the system (as opposed to reforming the global interactions between regulatory, tax, remuneration and other governance factors, etc.) may not help and indeed may make things worse.

Basel I and Basel II : to match capital regulation with the riskiness of bank lending
Capital rules : pro-cyclical
end result: not able to avert financial crisis.

Real Estate Malaysia - The Board of Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents Malaysia

Found this website of The Board of Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents Malaysia :
website

Quite a useful website to know more about Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents.

The Board of Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents Malaysia, under Ministry of Finance, Malaysia, is regulating the Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents practising in Malaysia.

Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents in Malaysia are governed under Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents Act 1981.

Some highlights from the website:
1. Qualifications
We can know what are the academic qualifications, professional qualifications and test of professional competence for registration as a Valuer or an Estate Agent.
Maybe we can search further to find out the body of knowledge to be a Valuer or an Estate Agent.

2. Fees
We can find out how much are the fees for valuation services, property management and estate agency, at least we can know whether we are overcharged.

3. Code of conduct
Great. Can find what are not allowed on Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents.

4. Search
Good to confirm whether your Valuer, Appraiser and Estate Agent hired are a legally registered one.

5. Role/Role of Negotiator
We can learn what are the roles of Appraisers, Estate Agents and Property Management and Negotiator.
It also shows current number of firms, registered members & probationary members.

6. Publications
A number of publications listed, with their price.
Most are not expensive. Of interest is "Malaysian Valuation Standards" (RM15).
Will this teach us "how to evaluate real estate in M’sia" ?

Note:
Do check out my other posts on Malaysia investment and real estate.

OECD - The Current Financial Crisis – Causes and Policy Issues (1)

Found an article "The Current Financial Crisis – Causes and Policy Issues" in (OECD)’s website.

Some highlights from the article on causes of the current financial crisis:

Current financial crisis as being caused at two levels:
1. by global macro liquidity policies
2. by a very poor regulatory framework

Global macro liquidity policies that causes global liquidity distortion,s,
including interest rates at 1 per cent in the United States and 0 per cent
in Japan, China's fixed exchange rate, the Sovereign Wealth Funds.

The poor regulatory framework, far from acting as a second line of defence, actually contributed to the crisis in important ways.

Area: mortgage securitisation and off-balance sheet activity

Year of causality: 2004
Things happening in 2004:
1. The Bush Administration ‘American Dream’ zero equity mortgage proposals

2. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) imposed greater capital
requirements and balance sheet controls on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,

3. The Basel II accord on international bank regulation was published and opened an arbitrage opportunity for banks that caused them to accelerate off-balance-sheet activity

4. SEC agreed to allow investment banks (IB’s) voluntarily to benefit from regulation changes to manage their risk using capital calculations under the ‘consolidated supervised entities program’; from 15:1 debt to net equity ratio to allowing them to increase their leverage ratio towards 40:1 in some cases.

On Investment Banks:

• Banks created their own Fannie and Freddie lookalikes: SIVs and CDOs.
• They move their business model towards equity culture (focus on share price growth, earnings expansion, becoming "growth stocks") and based on securitisation. Compensation evolves to bonuses based on up-front revenue generation, options, employee share participation schemes.

On Basel II:

• Basel II makes mortgages more attractive (capital weight given to mortgages fell from 50 per cent to 35 per cent, makes greater concentration in low-capital-weighted mortgages improves the overall bank return ).
• Portfolio invariance (riskiness of an asset like a mortgage is independent of how much of the asset you add to your portfolio) becomes an arbitrage opportunity. To illustrate its points, some case studies are used: Citi, Northern Rock and UBS.

A great read on what happens on these companies.
There is also a corporate governance comparison.

Harvard Business Review (HBR) – 2009 the list in brief (2009: 哈佛20大创见)

Found this Harvard Business Review (HBR) – 2009 the list in brief (2009: 哈佛20大创见), in chinese.

PDF file of summary

It has a list of 20 insights, on 5 areas:

consumer trends, economy, interpersonal, cross-discipline and alternative new ideas.

Articles titles, authors and summaries are included.
Worth further explore..

Real Estate Malaysia - Valuation and Property Services Department – Ministry of Finance, Malaysia

A forum friend has mentioned about this website of Malaysia’s Valuation and Property Services Department – Ministry of Finance, Malaysia :
website
(in Malay, it is "Jabatan Penilaian dan Perkhidmatan Harta" (JPPH) )

I think it is a great resource to read about Malaysia’s Real Estate.

JPPH has 3 programmes:
1. Valuation and Property Services
2. National Institute of Valuation (INSPEN)
3. National Property Information Center (NAPIC)

Information by NAPIC is good for Malaysia Real Estate industry analysis.
Its quarterly Property Stock Report and Property Market Status Report are particularly useful.

Property Stock Report:
Inside the Property Stock Report, there is a summary of existing stock, future supply of residential property, commercial property, industrial property and leisure property in different states of Malaysia. Occupancy rates are also available. More detailed tables are also available for different types of property.

Property Market Status Report:
Inside the Property Market Status Report, there is a summary of new launches, property overhang, unsold not constructed property, unsold under construction property and commercial complexes vacancy. (Definition of what these include are in Technical Notes.)

Information on types, unit launched, sold and sales performance are available too. More detailed tables are available. It has details to the level of district, price ranges etc.., cool.

Group of Thirty (G30) – Financial Reform: a framework of financial stability

The Group of Thirty (G30) has published a report titled "Financial Reform: a framework of financial stability".
PDF file

This report may be an influential one. It may give a glimpse of what will happen in near future.

Take a look at who is inside current Group of Thirty (G30).
G30 list

Some important names of G30 members are in current US Obama "economic team":
Paul Volcker
Timothy F. Geithner
Larry Summers

Many central bankers, leaders in important organizations and financial companies are inside G30 too.

A summary of recommendations and its area. (Read the report for details)

Core Recommendation 1
Gaps and weaknesses in the coverage of prudential regulation and supervision must be eliminated.

1. Prudential Regulation and Supervision of Banking Organizations
2. Consolidated Supervision of Non-Bank Financial Institutions
3. Money Market Mutual Funds and Supervision
4. Oversight of Private Pools of Capital
5. Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs)

Core Recommendation 2

The quality and effectiveness of prudential regulation and supervision must be improved.

6. Regulatory Structure
7. Role of the Central Bank
8. International Coordination

Core Recommendation 3
Institutional policies and standards must be strengthened, with particular emphasis on standards for governance, risk management, capital, and liquidity.

9. Regulatory Standards for Governance and Risk Management
10. Regulatory Capital Standards
11. Standards for Liquidity Risk Management
12. Fair Value Accounting

Core Recommendation 4

Financial markets and products must be made more transparent, with better aligned risk and prudential incentives. The infrastructure supporting such markets must be made much more robust and resistant to potential failures of even large financial institutions.

13. Restoring Confidence in Securitized Credit Markets
14. Rating Agency Reforms
15. The Oversight of Credit Default Swaps (CDS) and Over-the-Counter (OTC) Markets
16. A Resolution Mechanism for Financial Institutions
17. Improving Transparency of Structured Product Markets
18. Sharing Market Activity and Valuation Information

Some organizations, standards mentioned in the report, may worth exploring:
1. Counterparty Risk Management Policy Group (CRMPG)
2. Institute of International Finance
3. Basel Committee Principles

The proposal to re-regulate global finance is indeed drastic and all-encompassing !

US Stimulus Package - Bush's TARP/EESA; Barack Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill

For investors who wish to look at details of US Stimulus Package:

Bush’s Stimulus Package
Name: Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) under Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA)

Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) under Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, is passed and became Public Law No: 110-343 (H.R.1424 prior to enactment)

H.R. 1424 (from Library of Congress)
link

H.R. 1424 pdf file (from GPO)
PDF file

Public Law No: 110-343
PDF file

Obama’s Stimulus Package
Name: American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill
Summary of American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill (from Committee of Appropriations) – (as passed by the house on 28 Jan 09) (refer to Committee of Appropriations for updates)
PDF file

Full text
PDF file

Note:
If you like this post, you may be interested on my other posts on US and fiscal stimulus.
Feel free to check them out and comment.