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The recent PBS/POV documentary “Wo Ai Ni Mommy” concerns the adoption of a Chinese eight year-old by an American family. More specifically, it’s a video chronicle of a slightly handicapped older child’s integration into the social milieu of a Long Island Jewish family. Most of the documentary can be rather uncomfortable to watch, in a creeply queasy way, the cringe-worthy kind reminiscent of family get-togethers, as viewers are treated to some possibly unflattering details which collectively seem to make the case for better pre-adoption screening beforehand.

It’s not known from the ninety minutes of screentime whether such matters were involved, as the filmmakers intent appears to be a simple record of what happens in such cross-cultural/racial/national adoptions. Nevertheless, even a psychological evaluation can only do so much, since it’s difficult to guage the subtle aspects of human motivation, which also usually happen to be those bearing the most weight.

In the documentary “Wo Ai Ni Mommy,” one such subtlety concerns the very fact of a cross-cultural/racial/national adoption. While the Sadowskys, the American family featured by this film, were asked why they happened to pick a Chinese girl as compared to any number of kids in the United States, there was never actually an answer given.

It was just love at first sight, claims the mother, which begs the question of why she had happened to select to view Chinese babies first. And even though one with an understanding of the wider context of the popularity of Chinese adoptions in turn-of-the-century America might point out that she had many pals who had also adopted girls from China, the ultimate question of just why China, of all places, remains unanswered.

A fine look into some of the nitty gritty details of older-child adoptions further complicated by language, cultural, and even physical barriers due to mild disformity, “Wo Ai Ni Mommy” is heartwarming while wistful, raising many more questions than it intends to answer, in the process highlighting just how complex an adoption could be.

Money management is a major part of running a business. Just talk to serial entrepreneur and success story Zalman Silber, who, after founding multiple businesses, is going into the money management field himself. After all, who better to teach such a subject than one who has successfully practiced it for years with his very own funds?

After first establishing a business, everyday finances are the next most critical component of a successful operation. Creating supply chains, sustaining inventories, attracting and maintaining the customer base – these are primary concerns, it’s true, but closely on their heels is the quotidian concern of cash flow and working capital.

To be a Zalman Silber, one will require a lot of skills, not the least of which is effective money management. On an individual basis, money management refers to such tasks as budgeting, handling taxes, and monitoring investments – all performed as efficiently as possible to yield the highest returns. For a company, money management often means cutting costs and getting rid of redundancy.

Money management is a phrase that is encountered under many circumstances, and believe it or not it is even something many professional gamblers talk about – and even then for some it simply refers to a betting system while for others it means something more like the kinds of practices found in the business world. That’s why it is often necessary to employ professional money managers, for theories abound and it can be hard for a layman to know which course of action is best.

But why is such a thing even necessary? After all, if you were a multi-millionaire, say with ninety million in cash, couldn’t you just park the money in the bank and live quite happily for the rest of your life?

Of course you can. But you may not want to – and it’s not simply a matter of greed, either. For money actually depreciates over time; the value or purchasing power of money is virtually guaranteed to sink. Prices only go up, not down, for the most part, over the long-term. True, the price of obsolete technology goes down, generally speaking, but that’s a special case, of which there are many but not nearly as many as to override the fact that for the overwhelming vast majority of the really vital things that could be bought in the world, prices tend to only go up. Housing. Transportation. Food. Education. Medical services. And more.

Much, much more. So money management is necessary if you want you money to keep up with inflation – the phenomenon where the same thing costs more and more – if not outright beat it. And one sure way of staying ahead of inflation is to just increase your money. Become wealthier.

Getting rich is one thing. Staying rich almost calls for getting even richer. And that’s where a good money manager can help.

A recent survey suggested that delinquencies are down just when they should have gone up, even during prosperous times. Is this the beginning of the long-awaited recovery?

A mortgage is a loan made to pay for a house. A house is the single most expensive purchase most individuals will ever make in their whole lives, and often costs well over several times one’s annual income. Thus, a loan is necessary, and mortgages are usually paid back over a long period of time, typically of up to thirty years.

However, if payments are not made, accounts are considered delinquent. Delinquency is a big problem for the industry, and no more so than right now, in the midst of an extremely severe economic crisis. Indeed, it was mortgage delinquencies which triggered the current disaster! As payments were missed on properties that lost value, homeowners wound up owing more than their houses were worth, an untenable situation whose vicious cycle seems to know no end.

Thus it was that the slight decline in the rate of delinquency late last year caught many industry observers such as Isaac Toussie by surprise. A recent industry study found that at a time when delinquency has normally risen, even in good years, due to increased expenses associated with winter heating and holiday shopping, the rate at which mortgage payments have fallen behind has slowed down a bit during the fourth quarter of 2009. Optimists hoped that this could be a sign that the foreclosure crisis may be finally attempting to timidly come around to something of an end.

Well, don’t you believe it. Remember that economists predict that foreclosures could reach their highest levels by the end of this year, especially if unemployment rates peak in the middle of the year. Worse yet, foreclosure rates will likely stay at those elevated levels as borrowers continue to struggle in regions where drastic price declines have made many homes worth far less than the money owed on them. Also, the big problem is that way too many people have missed at least three payments, and these are precisely those who are least amendable to the variety of mortgage relief programs available. These are the very people who will be going into foreclosure. In fact, many borrowers have problems that cannot easily lend themselves to tidy remedies.

Of course, there are also those economists and other such experts like Isaac Toussie who believe that the situation is still extremely grave as there are still record numbers of homeowners in financial distress. In recognition, the government has again stepped in on behalf of those with little or no equity in their homes, extending a refinancing program that has posted little progress in over a year. Many experts express skepticism. After all, it’s been well over two years into the economic debacle and still no one has any evidence at all as of yet that the end is in sight, or even could be right now.

Numbers improve, to be sure, and trendlines offer some cause for hope. And surely the proverbial sun will rise again – but in the here and now, there is a lot more “night” to get through before that “morning.”

Working capital is one of those business school topics that has real-world relevance for the small business owner with no formal training, operating mostly on his or her own common sense, such as Zalman Silber, serial entrepreneur and success story. In business management theory, working capital is a way to measure finances, in particular those readily available to a business. Working capital is hence an indication of operational liquidity, as simply derived by subtracting the amount of current liabilities from the amount of current assets. When current assets are less than current liabilities, a condition of working capital deficiency exists, also known as a working capital deficit.

All such individuals know about working capital, however, comes from having dealt with inventory and accounting day in, day out. But when these small-time businessmen and women think of the matter, they are likely only imagining two things, borrowing money or putting more equity in their business – the traditional sources of business capital.

Yet most business owners don’t understand that one of the greatest ways to get working capital is to let their suppliers do it for them! There’s no need for a small business loan when the money is already there. One must “think outside the bank” to use this strategy, but if you think about it, working capital finance is effortless when carried on the backs of your suppliers.

Frequently, banks are not the most appropriate options for problematic situations concerning working capital. They can really jam up the works when all you want is to know whether they will lend you money. Bureaucratic red tape is inevitable, as is being nickeled and dimed on every little thing when it comes to banks. And now in these recessionary times, the typical business will also find whole lines of credit eliminated outright.

Instead, why not simply let your suppliers finance your needs? If you think about it, suppliers typically finance working capital already, insofar as they provide and deliver supplies but only receive payment for them at the end of the month (or even later, in some cases). Such a situation in effect frees up your money for other purposes, money that is literally working capital!

They’re already participating, whether they’re aware of it or not, and since you’re only taking advantage of something that’s already in place, you don’t have to worry about any legal issues. What you do have to do is find a way of establishing your supplies-to-finances ratio right now so that you can increase and maximize it to your benefit. One easy-to-understand formula for supplier-financed working capital is to multiply your total assets by a hundred (to generate an answer in percentage form) and then divide by the amount of your accounts payable (whether monthly or whatever terms you have secured).

Then you too can be a Zalman Silber!

Is it possible to use an online course to get the kind of knowledge a developer like Isaac Toussie has regarding real estate?

The information superhighway will soon be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. It took several decades for the web to percolate out from a fairly small coterie of research scientists and other academics into the wider general population, but once it did, our world was changed forever: It was wired.

And so practically everything is on the internet these days, and almost everything is done through it – even sex! And the once near-exclusive province of worthless diploma mills, so-called distance learning has really come of age with a vengeance with the advent of the worldwide “w.” And now, in this age of Web 2.0 going on 3 or even 4, it seems like every corporate body and its subsidiary is getting in on the action.

Bah, humbug, some are tempted to say. No mere Luddites, these, some people just wonder whether e-learning can ever truly replace the face-to-face interactions of traditional modalities. In this article, we shall be taking a look-see at the issue for ourselves. Due to issues of legal liability, we shan’t name any names, lest we libel the guilty – wink, wink. But a brief survey of three of the most widely advertised such courses online has revealed to this author at least that business fundamentals can indeed be properly passed along online. These courses will never compare to actual field experience, lending anyone the knowledge of an Isaac Toussie, but then again nothing ever can.

No, the main attraction for these courses – their competitive advantage, to borrow an economist’s term, if you will – is that they are extremely accommodating of your schedule. With most such courses, you can attend class whenever you want – and certainly in whatever you want, including your birthday suit! Convenience is their number one draw, and this kind of accessibility is not to be discounted, especially since it is not necessarily any more costly than the kind of learning offered by a traditional classroom setting. In fact, these courses can cost rather less money, especially if you think about factors like time, such as the time it takes to commute to a brick-and-mortar school.

More problematic is the hands-on approach that is probably necessary for a really good grasp of how the real estate business works. Learning about the relevant laws is important but not quite what one actually does in real estate. What’s really necessary is a way of cultivating the mindset of a real estate tycoon! Perhaps one of these internet real estate courses, possibly offered by a “real” school such as a government-supported local community college, may involve an actual internship as a part of the experience, which would go a long way towards just that end of teaching real-world knowledge.

Now even with all that said, however, we must end on this note, that of the legal disclaimer: Neither the author nor the publisher shall be held liable for the content of this article, which is mere opinion only and should not in any way be misconstrued as professional advice of any kind whatsoever! Always consult the relevant professionals, properly licensed and/or otherwise qualified, when making business decisions of any financial consequence.

Who in the world types terms like “high risk bad credit loans for business” on the search engines? It appears to be one of the most well-known keyword phrases stumbled upon daily by them, as scored by volume reported, but who are the people that write – and therefore think – this way? So ungrammatical, so casual, so carelessly…entrepreneurs?

It seems like as if almost every independent business is in dire need of Small business financing or if not, then gives a distinct silent cry for a loan. Of course if anyone falls inside of a financial pit, there’s almost no escape nor is there any strength to fight back, sequencing fatal results for this business. Shame on those clumsy enough to have not learned anything about sustaining their business, I fault personal and emotional interference.

And just what does it say about business people that they are given over to such conceptual mash-ups like “high risk business loans bad credit” anyway? Talk about stream-of-consciousness writing! Joyce would be proud, in all likelihood. Yet that’s precisely the mindset of a success story. While there are numerous highly intelligent and highly literate successes in business, there are vastly more who succeed despite, it would seem, themselves – that is to say, you needn’t be an intellectual in order to make big bucks. You simply need to know how to make big bucks and go about doing it.

If that means being literate, being an intellectual, then so be it. But one really has nothing to do with the other. That’s why we find people Googling high risk business loans bad credit on a daily basis. These are obviously businessmen and women who are in need of money and yet are high risks themselves! Additionally, consider that they realize that they are precarious propositions and yet half-expect, at the very least, to find someone willing to lend them money. What audacity in fact – the same rough thick-skinned nerve that’s in the DNA of most any entrepreneur, only exponentially increased!

It’s a great thing, such cheek, such gall, such moxie, such temerity. It’s this kind of gumption that got you to be an entrepreneur in the first place, after all. But several of your peers have it in abundance – and that’s truly an understatement! So they go around scouring the web for all signs of a business loan for those with poor credit, fully expecting that where there’s a need there’s a businessman or woman who has figured out a way to meet it!

And indeed, such intuition is proven right: there is certainly a way for those with bad credit histories to get money for their businesses. Furthermore, they can pay back the funds over time, practically taking their sweet time to do so! This is no loan, however, but cold hard cash that’s advanced against anticipated credit card sales. You would only pay back a certain previously agreed upon percentage of the monthly receipts – that’s it!

To make money by blogging, you’ll want to find explosive niches to blog, topics folks care about – lots of folks. The easiest thing to do, if all you really care about is money, is to start up an MFA website. No, this isn’t a Master of Fine Arts website, but a made-for-Adsense website. A website designed specifically for Google’s Adsense program, where you place interactive ads that pay you for each click made on them!

Each click from a unique visitor, as determined by a unique IP address, normally. That’s why it’s so essential to find explosive niches to blog about, since you will only be making money if enough people click on the advertisements you put up on your website. Of course, you now come to the next problem to be solved: how to attract all those people?

First off, know that you should attract tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of visitors to your web site – every day. That’s right; each day, your web site needs to have enough traffic for you to make money, since every click will typically only yield pennies – yes, pennies! So you’ll need thousands of people clicking those ads in order to make a decent amount of money every day. That is how you blog residual cash to your business, by getting commission off of referrals!

But conversion rates, the number of folks who really generate income for you, are generally around three percent. That means for every hundred visitors, chances are only three or four – or two or one! – will really click on an ad, netting you less than ten cents, normally. That is why it is so important to find topics which will interest the greatest number of people! Blogging popular television shows is a good way to go in many instances.