Credit is essential in the modern world and creates wealth, provided it is used wisely. The Global Credit Crisis during 2008/2009 has shown that sound understanding of underlying credit risk is crucial. If credit freezes, almost every activity in the economy is affected. The best way to utilize credit and get results is to understand credit risk. Advanced Credit Risk Analysis and Management helps the reader to understand the various nuances of credit risk. It discusses various techniques to measure, analyze and manage credit risk for both lenders and borrowers. The book begins by defining what credit is and its advantages and disadvantages, the causes of credit risk, a brief historical overview of credit risk analysis and the strategic importance of credit risk in institutions that rely on claims or debtors. The book then details various techniques to study the entity level credit risks, including portfolio level credit risks. Authored by a credit expert with two decades of experience in corporate finance and corporate credit risk, the book discusses the macroeconomic, industry and financial analysis for the study of credit risk. It covers credit risk grading and explains concepts including PD, EAD and LGD. It also highlights the distinction with equity risks and touches on credit risk pricing and the importance of credit risk in Basel Accords I, II and III. The two most common credit risks, project finance credit risk and working capital credit risk, are covered in detail with illustrations. The role of diversification and credit derivatives in credit portfolio management is considered. It also reflects on how the credit crisis develops in an economy by referring to the bubble formation. The book links with the 2008/2009 credit crisis and carries out an interesting discussion on how the credit crisis may have been avoided by following the fundamentals or principles of credit risk analysis and management. The book is essential for both lenders and borrowers. Containing case studies adapted from real life examples and exercises, this important text is practical, topical and challenging. It is useful for a wide spectrum of academics and practitioners in credit risk and anyone interested in commercial and corporate credit and related products.

"Parker's Paradise" is the author's fifth book, and yet it is about the beginning of his writing career. It's a story about the audio-visual business, sight and sound media that takes place in 1950, at WWII's end. Socha got a lucky break after graduation from college and looking for writing jobs. There weren't any. It was a period where America was getting back into peacetime activity, building new automobiles and replenishing consumer products that were rationed and scarce during the war. And the whole world was rushing into competition for our market. So selling jobs were much in demand. Fortunately, an opportunity opened in the sales training and promotion business. They needed a writer-trainee in the audio-visual industry, someone who would work cheap and learn the business. Joe Socha by-passed a fine paying job as a salesman and took on that trainee position. And that's what this book is about.
A special talent is involved in sales training and promotion work. It's not just a matter of writing words. There is the need for applied psychology, being aware of the psychological reasons why people buy. There is knowing how to write copy that is VISUAL, not so easy to do. It is an acquired skill. There is another element involved which separates the men from the boys, as they say. That is to deliver acceptable copy to meet hard deadlines. The author watched many exceptional writers fail because they could not cut the deadlines. Where creativity is involved, it's not a matter of putting in more time to do the job because the mind often tends to rebel when pressure is applied. It's a tough combination. A tired mind tends to respond with dull, unacceptable copy.
In Parker's Paradise the author tells a story honest with his experience. He started as a trainee at age 30, for gosh sakes. Most people his age were locked into careers already. In the book you see how the business is run, creating copy, surviving the politics of the business where those in power make a lot of money and resist losing that power.
And how do you handle the client who often does not really have a good idea what he wants in the programs he pays for. It's a matter of communication, trying to read the client's mind, and handling his insecurity and indecision when meeting those deadlines is endangered. A lot of ulcers in this business. And a lot of quitters who just can't handle the heat.
Bear in mind that the story is about the 1950s era when we used TYPEWRITERS. Made duplicate copies with carbon paper. Used erasers to correct mistakes. No word processors in those days.
So what's this Paradise thing? The paradise idea is something anyone can make use of to control stress. Could help the man who is under a lot of pressure on or off the job-to survive that pressure. I think even housewives can use this Paradise system. They work hard at the family business and feel unappreciated.
Read the book. You will find it interesting, very informative, and maybe even cast new light on your "tough" life, and how to handle it.

By examining theological and literary narratives through an engagement with well-known theorists of reading and religion, this collection of essays, international in perspective, brings together varied, refreshing, and provocative responses to well-established literary and critical theories.

By examining theological and literary narratives through an engagement with well-known theorists of reading and religion, this collection of essays, international in perspective, brings together varied, refreshing and provocative responses to well-established literary and critical theories.

Lucile Garrett is just thirteen when she meets Clint Palmer, a charismatic stranger who will forever change her life. The year is 1934, and as the windblown dust of the Great Depression rakes the Oklahoma plains, Palmer offers Lucile and her father, homeless and hungry, the irresistible promise of a better future. But when they follow Palmer to Texas, Lucile's father mysteriously disappears, launching man and girl on an epic journey through the American Southwest: a spree of violence and murder that culminates in one of the most celebrated criminal trials of the era. Based on a true story, Hard Twisted is a chilling tale of survival and redemption, and a young girl's coming of age in a world as cruel as it is beautiful.

In 1964, newly-minted physician Joseph, just out of his internship, undertakes a two-year assignment as the Peace Corps Physician in Nepal. Many lessons not learned in medical school challenge his ingenuity and inexperience.