5 comments about You Got Screwed! Why Wall Street Tanked and How You Can Prosper.

1. Jim Cramer rules. Anyone who can mix schadenfreude (German for vicarious pleasure in others' misery), Pangloss from CANDIDE, sports analogies, and pop culture references with a straight shooting approach to finance and investing is cool. More importantly, he does a better, more readable job of dissecting big bad Corporate America than Michael Moore ever could (Cramer and Moore both got skewed in a bad-guy list of RADAR that stated the scariest facts about both, respectively, were "Is married and has children," and "Won an Oscar"). Jim Cramer isn't a get-rich-quick franchise.



2. James J. Cramer is responsible for much of what occurred during the tech bubble. He was a cheerleader for the tech boom and now says that others got screwed? HE WAS DOING THE SCREWING! This is hypocrisy at its best.
   
   From his near firing at Goldman to the collapse of his own company (TheStreet.com is down 90% plus from its IPO price) Cramer is a genius - at cashing in on his own failures.
   
   Do not touch this book with a 50 foot pole.



3. Don't get me wrong, I kinda like Cramer. He's entertaining. He's funny. He's run a successful Hedge Fund. He's made a lot of money. He's also often wrong.
   
   Here's my personal experience with Cramer. A few weeks before the collapse of Tyco, Cramer was hyping the stock on his Real Money radio program. If I remember the quote correctly he said, "I would be remiss if I didn't buy Tyco at these levels". So Tyco fell to $32, I bought 1,000 shares. Tyco went to $35 a week later, I sold and made a sweet profit. A week after that Tyco tanked. The rest is history.
   
   I got lucky.
   
   Even though I made money, I suddenly realized how foolish it is to buy stock on the advice of any pundit. I counted my blessings, thanked God I didn't get creamed, and learned a valuable lesson. I wonder how many others weren't so fortunate.
   
   This book fires bazooka rounds at the corporate excesses of the 90's and early years of the millennium. It lobs well deserved grenades into the boardrooms of the brokerage industry. Then it spits a pea shooter's worth of advice at how to avoid getting "screwed" again. Like I said, Cramer is entertaining.
   
   Clearly, Cramer is angry at something or somebody. Maybe he's feeling guilty about his own contributions to the largess of Wall Street and wants to make amends. If that's the case then I understand why he wrote this book. It's a laudable goal. Who knows?
   
   What I do know is there's nothing really new in this book. It provides some very interesting background information about a pivotal point in the country's financial history. It readdresses some of the deck stacking practices of the financial services industry, and it rehashes, in a minimal way, sage self-help advice that can be found in numerous other places for free.
   
   It's not a bad book. And Cramer is not a bad guy. I actually believe the Real Money Cramer is a far different man than the Hedge Fund Cramer. A man for the better in my opinion. So I give him the benefit of the doubt.
   
   If you know nothing about how corporate shenanigans work or how Wall Street works this book is a good primer. You'll just have to go elsewhere for the details.



4. In late December 1999/early January 2000 at the height of the tech bubble, Jim Cramer appeared on CNBC and screamed this mantra like a maniac at viewers, "If you don't buy ICGE now you are an idiot!! ICGE -- ICGE -- I SEE GE -- I SEE THE NEXT GE -- Get it -- Get it now!" If I remember correctly those were the words he screamed in a fury. The word "idiot" may have been "imbecile" but the point is he wanted to make you feel really stupid if you missed this golden opportunity.
   
   Shortly afterwards the stock started dropping like a rock and Internet Capital Group fell from something like $220 a share to half that in no time flat. Now check out a chart to see where the next General Electric is.
   
   How Jim Cramer got away with this is beyond me. I just found an article in my archives dated 12/20/1999 about "Why Jim Cramer is a Big Fan of Internet Capital Group" but because of copyright laws I don't believe I am allowed to post it here. In the article he stated that his hedge fund owned a large stake in the company and that he was looking to buy more on any pullbacks. What a load of bull. When he says BUY, you should say BYE as you switch to another TV channel.
   
   Good luck if you put your trust in this guy.



5. This short but very informative book gives you a history lesson on how companies have been screwing over the public for years to make a small group of people a lot of money, It teaches you how to watch for it and avoid becoming a victim of insider trading yourself.
   
   Worth every penny.

2 comments about Real Estate Investment Trusts: Structure, Performance, and Investment Opportunities (Financial Management Association Survey and Synthesis Series).

1. This book is the most authoritative analysis and synthesis of modern scholarly research on different complicated issues surrounding REITs. No currently available books can examine this investment vehicle as comprehensive and organised as this one.
   
   This book consists of 12 chapters that provide readers with full understanding on how to manage and invest in REITs. Chan et al suggest that REIT stocks are different from real estate investment because investors should judge the value of a REIT stock not only by the assets it holds but also by its organisational structure (traditional vs UPREITs), management style (externally advised vs internally advised REITs), and growth strategy (diversification vs focus). They conclude that equity and mortgage REITs remain an attractive long-term investment vehicles because of their high dividend-payout ratios that generate a more stable income stream when the overall stock market is down and interest rates are low. However, investors should avoid purchasing stocks in the IPO market because the initial-day return of REIT IPOs is far lower than non-REIT stocks. In other words, REIT stocks seldom perform well in the short run.
   
   Chan et al also suggest that REITs with significant investment from institutional investors and adoption of a focused investment strategy will offer more potential opportunities for investors to earn above-average profits. However, they do not recommend investors to buy captive REIT stocks because the sponsor-shareholder conflict will lower the value of the REIT.
   
   This book has its limitation because it was published in 2003. The REIT concept has been becoming very hot in overseas real estate markets, particularly in Europe and Asia. For instance, US REIT players such as GE Capital, ABM, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs have undertaken active property investments in Japan, China, and Hong Kong. I highly recommend Chan et al to add 1 or 2 chapters on investment strategy in emerging markets and the laws and regulations that circumscribe activities in these markets to their next edition.



2. This book provides a whole lot of data and facts and commented on them in a very objective manner. The analysis about various aspects of REIT investment is thorough and cautious. Highly recommended and hope to see an updated version addressing the issues and prospect after 2003. Today's crisis in housing and REIT investment had been mirrored in the one around 1974: nearly all the arguments there apply to today's market.

2 comments about The Great Housing Bubble: Why Did House Prices Fall?.

1. The author, Larry Roberts, is best known for his daily posts as IrvineRenter on the Irvine Housing Blog. Long before Lehman crashed, Fannie Mae was taken over, and even before home prices were dropping nationally, he was one of the few voices presenting real information on the housing bubble. I am very interested in finance, and I was drawn to the noncommercial site.
   
   Visitors to the blog avoided many of the hazards of researching real estate elsewhere: 1. Alleged economists from the National Association of Realtors putting out an endless stream of "real estate prices will always go up" press releases. 2. Analysts from rating agencies and the financial industry who frequently did not go to actual open houses, speak with actual realtors, sellers or buyers, or look closely at the crazy mortgage standards which had developed. Remember the "if you can fog a mirror, you can get a loan" mortgages? 3. Reporters from the general media who did not have a deep knowledge of real estate or finance, were under deadline pressure, and did not assume their readers were bright and could be trusted with source data. As the housing and credit crisis has unfolded over the past 18 months, many of these people said "who could have known this was going to happen?" Visitors to the Irvine Housing Blog knew, long before the crash was a lead news story.
   
   The housing blog became a prime example of how real knowledge can be developed. One of the prime problems with the housing bubble was the fragmentation of knowledge among its participants. Home purchasers didn't really understand what happened to their mortgage after they signed the papers. Mortgage brokers often just wanted to crank through huge numbers of customers without much regard for whether they could afford the loans they were getting. Many banks were originating mortgages which would become someone else's problem. Many investors in mortgage backed securities were far away from the actual homes those mortgages were secured by. Professors doing academic analysis were often missing key bits of information, or got access to them far too late.
   
   Into this void stepped blogs. The Irvine Housing Blog showed how a particular market was influenced by people, events and financial forces elsewhere in the world. It showed very clearly how one house might have mortgage payments twice as high as the rent for an identical house down the street. Each day, a new house for sale in Irvine was profiled. Home prices and loan values which would be amazingly high in any other time or place seemed to be accepted as normal and desirable by the media and much of the general public. On the blog, values were more objectively assessed, and the economic disconnects were discussed. Bizarre and unprofessional descriptions and photos were roundly mocked.
   
   Calculated Risk was a blog which had much broader scope (credit markets and real estate nationally and worldwide). Together, they made an excellent set, one focused the other broad, one micro the other macro.
   
   These blogs attracted people who were interested in their own personal purchase or sale, and wanted to make sense of the strange price dynamics and mortgage underwriting standards they were seeing. It also attracted people who worked in mortgage finance, and real estate who were not just trying to sell things. Instead they wanted to understand and explain. They created a knowledge base of stunning scope and depth. Posters could ask very detailed questions and get mostly unbiased answers, quickly, and from a variety of viewpoints. Reporters from the general media almost never get enough uninterrupted time and access to the right people to write something of similar depth. One of the few really good in-depth reports in the general media was NPR's Giant Pool of Money.
   
   The author's background is in new housing development in Southern California. It was a good start to understanding how things worked. Supplemented by knowledge from countless posters at the housing blog, he has been able to show why home prices couldn't stay elevated. Price to income ratios, price to rent ratios, and other factors detailed in the book showed how far out of line prices had become by 2006. A full year before house prices started to crash, he was predicting it, and many of the crash's details. While some people are permanently bullish or bearish on housing, the best are able to understand and explain the mechanisms, tell you what will happen in what sequence. "Must sell" inventory is a good example. Not all sellers are equally motivated. New home builders and banks sitting on empty foreclosed homes are quite motivated. When they have a lot of supply, they are the first to drop prices. Must sell inventory in quantity leads to very fast price drops. The ultimate equilibrium is determined by affordability and the relative cost of renting versus owning.
   
   As Larry has been saying since he started posting, he seeks to help people avoid financial ruin from buying in the bubble. Even in October 2008, there are still plenty of hazards awaiting people who buy as prices are dropping. He has advice for those who are considering buying now, and how to approach purchases. He made a lot of sense and brought in knowledge from others. All of this helped me avoid buying at the peak and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. It saved me a great deal of grief and money. Even now, with California housing prices down over 30%, declining prices could still quickly consume your downpayment and put you "under water", unable to sell your house for more than the loan value.
   
   An excellent read, and an important one.



2. The author does an excellent job in showing how various commercial and investment banks sought to create a speculative market for home loans by the process of securitization.The main tool was collateralized debt obligations(CDO'S).The idea is purely speculative since real estate is a nonliquid durable asset.The bundling and selling of trillions of dollars worth of the sub prime backed bonds that were not only highly risky,but of uncertain value ,created the bubble that deflated just as every other banker financed ,speculative bubble has deflated in world history.
   
   The author does a good job in demonstating that low interest rates were not the cause of the problem.The main cause of the problem was the loan practices of various financial institutions that threw overboard their own clearly specified creditwothiness criteria and standards for borrowers seeking loans.
   I have deducted one half of a star because the author has overlooked Adam Smith's extensive discuss of exactly this problem in his The Wealth of Nations ,first published 1n 1776.See pp.260-340,especially pp.339-340 of the Modern (Cannan)Library Edition.The trick is to maintain low rates of interest and ,simultaneously,make sure that the speculators and house flippers do not get the loans to create a bubble and bid up the prices of housing in the first place.The vast majority of lenders KNEW that 30%-40% of their loans were going to house flippers.

5 comments about More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places (Updated and Expanded).

1. Practical information any ivestor should keep in mind. Potentially very helpful if one heeds to the ideas in this book. The first 75% of the book is very tight, but towards the end there is some repetition. Overall, nice read.



2. this man has been teaching finance (securities analysis) as an adjunct (part time) professor at columbia since the early 90's with self interests on wall street and beyond.
   what that did for mba students at columbia was very little. if you check out the track record of mutual funds at his most recent position (as chief investment officer) at legg mason (his 5th in 20 years), it's a below average one.
   
   read something from bernstein and fischer instead.



3. I bought a copy after seeing a rave review and for the first 50 pages or so this book held my breathless attention - a sort of freakonomics for the high-brow set. The fact that from that point onward I could pretty much skim the book was a sign of how fast knowledge is becoming disseminated these days - the ideas sounded so familiar (the unlikely events are much probable than most people think, the fat tails, etc, etc). This is not really a criticism - if I knew this before I bought the book, I would still buy and enjoy it. The playground of the mind is definitely worth the admission price.



4. This book is easy to read quickly, and not worth reading slowly. It is an unorganized collection of short, repetitive essays that draw analogies between choosing investments and findings from psychology and other areas of science. Nothing here is novel to anyone who reads magazines like Wired, or book reviews in the Economist, among other sources. Nothing in this book is quantitatively precise or directly applicable. Everything is suggestive, that's all. Parts may be thought-provoking if you haven't seen them before, but everything is derivative of other authors.
   
   This book was written to make a buck, that's all. The editing is cynically sloppy. For example, the table on 56 is an update of the table on page 75, but neither page has a reference to the other. The author teaches a class related to this book in the Columbia University MBA program. I hope the class has some rigor; this book does not.



5. The author has read somewhat broadly and tries to distill some investment lessons from these readings. The idea is nice, but the different chapters are just freestanding, sometimes repetitive essays.
   
   If you don't read non-fiction in general, this book might give you some idea. If you read about complexity theory, fitness landscapes, strategic managment, etc. this book won't help you very much. In that case stay away.
   
   Having offered this critique, the book would have been a very nice blog. We all have limited time for reading, skip this book and read blogs instead.

5 comments about The Motley Fool Personal Finance Workbook: A Foolproof Guide to Organizing Your Cash and Building Wealth (Motley Fool Books).

1. I bought this book about a year after college, when I wanted to come up with a plan to get rid of some credit card debt and begin saving money. This guide is fun and interesting, yet informative. It guides you step-by-step through good personal finance habits, and allows you to prioritize what goals you have for the future. The most insightful to me was when it asks you to name the things you spend that LEAST contribute to your happiness and MOST contribute to your happiness. I.E. - it's not wasteful if the spending improves your quality of life - versus you're just spending to spend! The workbook section asks you to guess how much you spend on things each month and then actually track your spending for 6 months to help you develop a realistic budget & see how you did. It's definitely a wake-up call to people like me, who seemed to piddle their money away without realizing exactly where it's going. This exercise helps you find the answer to that question!



2. David and Tom Gardner have once again succeeded at making something difficult seem easy. As an estate planner, I know that many people avoid financial matters out of fear . . . fear that they're not smart enough to understand them. The Personal Finance Workbook puts valuable financial planning information at your fingertips and the forms to keep track of your finances are right in the book. If you are just starting out after college, or a Baby Boomer beginning to think about retirement, or someone retired, this workbook will be immediately useful. On a more personal level, as a dad, I am glad that a personal finance book like The Workbook exists. Young people who take early action on managing their finances and developing good savings habits will be infinitely better off in the long run.
   
   James Lange, CPA/Attorney and author of Retire Secure! Pay Taxes Later: The Key to Making Your Money Last as Long as You Do



3. I got this book a few weeks ago to get a feel for personal finance (I just turned 23 and i figured it was time) and it was oen of the best book purchases I ever made! It was laid out very simply with helpful charts and graphs so the math doesn't seem so abstract. Highly recommended!



4. I bought 3 copies of this workbook - one for each of my kids. I love that it provides the basics for them to learn budgeting, etc. and how to support themselves!



5. Terrific workbook...great to buy along with their other book, "You Have More Money Than You Think". Can't go wrong with these guys.

2 comments about The Money Answer Book: Quick Answers to Everyday Financial Questions.

1. Dave Ramsey has been on so many TV interviews and has been profiled so often in newspapers, there just isn't much new left for him to say about his ultra-conservative approach to money management. So it is, then, that The Money Answer Book gives an easy-to-read distillation of all of the key Ramsey commandments for financial success. You can read the entire book in 90 minutes, even with time to pause occasionally to weigh a matter he is discussing. There are checklists to fill in for budgeting and goal setting; there are little hotboxes offering pithy quotations ("Well done is better than well said" - Ben Franklin); and there are biblical references within the text and in sidebars.
   
   Whether reading this 160 mini-book, listening to Ramsey on his radio show, or attending one of Ramsey's workshops, his bottom line always comes down to some very basic premises: (1) all credit cards are harmful; (2) people are in financial messes because they overspent, didn't plan, and lacked discipline; (3) everyone needs a fallback position of three to six months of reserve cash, food, and other necessities; (4) the outside economic picture has little influence on individual households that have learned to save, invest, budget, and tithe; and (5) there is nothing wrong with being incredibly wealthy so long as one uses his or her wealth appropriately.
   
   Sections of this book deal with brass tacks issues such as bankruptcy, divorce, estate planning, saving for college, and contract negotiations (don't become a co-signer is his main point on this last issue). However, to delve deeply into these areas Ramsey has longer, more explicit books, such as his best-seller Total Money Makeover. -- Dr. Dennis E. Hensley, Christian Book Previews.com



2. This book is a wonderful tool for everyone to use. It has answers to questions regarding what to do about purchasing vehicles, saving money, budgeting...etc. I will probably have to buy another one becuase this will be worn out from using it so much.

5 comments about Your Money Counts.

1. I teach a seminar at our church on the Biblical approach to managing one's finances, and I use this book as a starting point. My students love it (one said she needs to go back and "marinade" in each chapter. Another pointed out that the while the title is "Your Money Counts", what he got from the book is "Y our Money Counts.") The bottom-line is that this book is an easy-read and makes it clear why God cares about our money matters, and it is equally clear how to apply those principles to succeed financially. I teach it once a year, and so far 90 students would vouch that what this book teaches works!



2. This is a fantastic book. It's easy and enjoyable to read. It tells you all those common sense things about money that we often lose sight of in this world's culture of materialism and 'gotta have it now' attitudes. I've read it multiple times and it just keeps driving home those truths you need to be reminded of like figuring out contentment, the value to giving and saving, etc.



3. This is a great book. It really doesn't tell you anything you don't already know, but it reminds us of where we are and what we should be doing as stewards of His belongings. I am a Financial Planner and I give it to my clients as gifts and they love it !



4. This book came to my attention through a class told by Crown Financial. I have recommended "Your Money Counts" to numerous people and purchased a copy for my son. It is an excellent tool in learning how to budget and be a good steward of the money we possess.



5. This is such an easy read! I found it fascinating to learn that the Bible has so much scrpiture on money and how to spend, save, and tithe! It was required for pre-marraige counseling, and it offers examples, solutions, and comparisons between what society deems appropriate and what the Bible states! I really enjoyed it, and it provides practical solutions you can implement into your life!

5 comments about Personal Finance + Student CD.

1. The book looks brand new and the cd was in a sealed package. I would highly recommend using Amazon for college books.



2. This book was used but is in great condition. I saved a great deal of money bu purchasing it here. I will purchase furture books with no problem.



3. "Personal Finance, 8th Edition.
   It's never too early to plan your future.
   The market-leading textbook Personal Finance helps students learn the fundamentals of financial planning, preparing them to make informed choices related to spending, saving, borrowing, and investing that lead to long-term financial security.
   
   Features of the Eighth Edition:
   
   * The CHAPTER-OPENING CASES have been revised and expanded to two pages, containing many new features such as "What Actions Should Be Taken?" and "What About Your Situation? question sets, making them more relevant to each student's situation.
   
   * PERSONAL FINANCIAL PLANNER (PFP) sheets, written by the authors to help students create and implement a personal financial plan and which correlate with the text content, are now conveniently located at the end of the text.
   
   * New, NARRATED POWERPOINTS exclusively for students, follow the chapter topics and provide explanations and real-life examples for handling financial situations.
   
   * New! A CONTINUING CASE at the end of each chapter follows one family's issues to help students see the total picture in creating a financial plan."
   
   [from the back cover of the book]



4. The book is new but the CD Rom has a problem. It's used and ruined!!!



5. Book holds a broad overview of various areas that are helpful for your senior year of college or other points in your life where you'll be trying to do some personal financial planning. Some of the information could be less basic or a little more up-to-date.

5 comments about The Millionaire Maker: Act, Think, and Make Money the Way the Wealthy Do.

1. Book is so so. Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Ecker is much better in this category. I bought the book to go to her seminar. Same rating for the seminar



2. The book itself is quite good, but beware the tendency to push her mentorship program.
   
   She has a company that sells mentorship to becoming wealthy. the only person becoming wealthy is laura!
   
   I know some of her real estate investment recommendations to her students have not panned out. Its not that she was scamming them, but rather she was short of misled herself.



3. Loral Langemeier has a down-to-earth method of improving your way of seeing your finances and your financial environment. Setting out the building blocks, she helps in the analysis of a financial situation and gives guidelines on how to proceed to acquire a healthy dosis of confidence in managing one's financial affairs.
   
   The book is an introduction to more extensive courses, but this is a good start and certainly gives adequate food for thought. If nothing else, you will live better and with more purpose.



4. I read this book cover to cover in less than 2 weeks, and was expecting it to give EVERYONE (especially people like me with NO cash and NO assets) a strategy and a starting place on how to grow financially wealthy.
   Chapter by chapter it gives "case studies" and examples from real people and their current financial situation, and shows them how to create monthly cash flow (income) from what they already have.
   In each case study, these people had over $3,000 CASH in the bank, a LARGE 401K or IRA with more than $10,000 in it, and over $50,000 in CASH equity in their home!! Give me a break. These people already had LOTS of money. It just wasn't allocated correctly where it was making them monthly income.
   
   The information in this book is useless to MOST of the population. I personally don't have thousands in CASH, or thousands in equity in a home (I rent), or thousands sitting there in a 401K or IRA. If YOU fall into one of those catagories, by all means buy this book. BUT, if you are like 95% of Americans, and have no cash built up or no assets ALREADY, such as real estate, this book will do you no good whatsoever.
   
   Not once did she give an example of someone starting with nothing! This book was a total waste of my time, and it will more than likely be a waste of yours, UNLESS you already have lots of money you need to re-allocate.



5. Very little actionable advice, the book is heavily padded with repetive tables and figures that if rationalized would probably drop it under 150 pages. I felt that the true purpose of this book was to market the author's seminars, to get me to follow up with them so they could sell me their coaching services.
   
   One of my favorite lines was that real estate is a "continually appreciating asset". She obvoiusly was not doing this in the 80s and given recent times may want to put out a new edition.
   
   There are much better books in this category.

3 comments about Smarter Investing in Any Economy: The Definitive Guide to Relative Strength Investing.

1. With a title like that, you have to wonder if it can possibly live up to such a claim. I think so, and here's why:
   1. He develops his ideas clearly, starting with the rationale behind RS, and its use in top trading strategies, such as Investors Business Daily and Value Line.
   2. He then walks you through a variety of approaches (18!) to calculating RS, one step at a time, showing you how each one is calculated, and illustrating these with graphs.
   3. Next, he walks you through his tests on RS, based on a broad range of sectors, with each of the above approaches, to show you how he arrives at his conclusions.
   4. Along the way, he carefully addresses important questions that every trader must deal with, such as selection criteria, diversification, risk, stops, etc. He backs every point up with his own research, and with references to the key work of others--the academic research, and that of key authors such as Van Tharp and James O'Shaughnessy.
   5. Ultimately, he develops this into a full fledged trading program for every kind of market.
   
   Whether you are a systems trader or not, I strongly believe that if you only incorporate the least of his ideas on Relative Strength, you'll take a quantum leap forward with your trading.



2. Michael Carr provides a blueprint for success using relative strength investing (RS). Investors may be familiar with the academic literature showing that RS investing should work, but most of these studies were performed on paper, not in the real world. Few investors have successfully integrated RS into their investment approach because of challenges including:
   1) There are so many ways to measure RS that it is difficult to know which is best.
   2) Transaction costs can erode all the excess profits from RS investing.
   3) RS investing involves risk. What are the best ways to reduce the risks inherent in this approach?
   
   Carr addresses these issues. Investors experienced in using RS investing might scan the first section, which summarizes various approaches to measuring RS and surveys much of the academic literature on the subject. But even advanced practitioners will benefit from later chapters in which Carr builds a complete trading system, including buying, selling, back-testing and risk management. He illustrates RS investment approaches using both mutual funds and ETFs. This book is far more than an overview of the subject. It teaches readers how to utilize the power of relative strength in their own investing and trading.



3. Smart investment is more than buying low and selling high. "Smarter Investing in Any Economy: The Definitive Guide to Relative Strength Investing" is a guide for small time investors looking to increase their income and be more like the big time investors. Offering advice with the potential to double readers' income while cutting the risks they take in half, and with the optimistic view that something is always improving and going up even during a recession, "Smart Investing in Any Economy" is an ideal guide for any investor. Highly recommended for community library finance collections.