Pundits and politically motivated economists trumpet ambiguous statistics and sensational theories while ignoring the true determinant of income inequality: the production of wealth. We cannot properly understand inequality if we focus exclusively on the distribution of wealth and ignore wealth production factors such as geography, demography, and culture.Sowell contends that liberals have a particular interest in misreading the data and chastises them for using income inequality as an argument for the welfare state. Refuting Thomas Piketty, Paul Krugman, and others on the left, Sowell draws on accurate empirical data to show that the inequality is not nearly as extreme or sensational as we have been led to believe.Transcending partisanship through a careful examination of data, Wealth, Poverty, and Politics reveals the truth about the most explosive political issue of our time.

    We donate our time and money to charities and causes we deem worthy, choose careers we consider meaningful, and patronize businesses and buy products we believe make the world a better place. Unfortunately, we often base these decisions on assumptions and emotions rather than facts. As a result, even our best intentions often lead to ineffective—and sometimes downright harmful—outcomes. How can we do better? While a researcher at Oxford, trying to figure out which career would allow him to have the greatest impact, William MacAskill confronted this problem head on. He discovered that much of the potential for change was being squandered by lack of information, bad data, and our own prejudice. As an antidote, he and his colleagues developed effective altruism, a practical, data-driven approach that allows each of us to make a tremendous difference regardless of our resources. Effective altruists believe that it’s not enough to simply do good; we must do good better. At the core of this philosophy are five key questions that help guide our altruistic decisions: How many people benefit, and by how much? Is this the most effective thing I can do? Is this area neglected? What would have happened otherwise? What are the chances of success, and how good would success be? By applying these questions to real-life scenarios, MacAskill shows how many of our assumptions about doing good are misguided. For instance, he argues one can potentially save more lives by becoming a plastic surgeon rather than a heart surgeon; measuring overhead costs is an inaccurate gauge of a charity’s effectiveness; and, it generally doesn’t make sense for individuals to donate to disaster relief. MacAskill urges us to think differently, set aside biases, and use evidence and careful reasoning rather than act on impulse. When we do this—when we apply the head and the heart to each of our altruistic endeavors—we find that each of us has the power to do an astonishing amount of good.

    Believers from Beijing to Buenos Aires see the potential for a financial system free from banks and governments. More than just a tech industry fad, Bitcoin has threatened to decentralize some of society’s most basic institutions.An unusual tale of group invention, Digital Gold charts the rise of the Bitcoin technology through the eyes of the movement’s colorful central characters, including an Argentinian millionaire, a Chinese entrepreneur, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Bitcoin’s elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Already, Bitcoin has led to untold riches for some, and prison terms for others.

    Sachs is one of the world's most perceptive and original analysts of global development. In this major new work he presents a compelling and practical framework for how global citizens can use a holistic way forward to address the seemingly intractable worldwide problems of persistent extreme poverty, environmental degradation, and political-economic injustice: sustainable development.Sachs offers readers, students, activists, environmentalists, and policy makers the tools, metrics, and practical pathways they need to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Far more than a rhetorical exercise, this book is designed to inform, inspire, and spur action. Based on Sachs's twelve years as director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, his thirteen years advising the United Nations secretary-general on the Millennium Development Goals, and his recent presentation of these ideas in a popular online course, "The Age of Sustainable Development" is a landmark publication and clarion call for all who care about our planet and global justice.

    Price is the place where value and money meet. From the global release of the latest electronic gadget to the bewildering gyrations of oil futures to markdowns at the bargain store, price is the most powerful and pervasive economic force in our day-to-day lives and one of the least understood.The recipe for successful pricing often sounds like an exotic cocktail, with equal parts psychology, economics, strategy, tools and incentives stirred up together, usually with just enough math to sour the taste. That leads managers to water down the drink with hunches and rules of thumb, or leave out the parts with which they don t feel comfortable. While this makes for a sweeter drink, it often lacks the punch to have an impact on the customer or on the business.It doesn t have to be that way, though, as Hermann Simon illustrates through dozens of stories collected over four decades in the trenches and behind the scenes. A world-renowned speaker on pricing and a trusted advisor to Fortune 500 executives, Simon s lifelong journey has taken him from rural farmers markets, to a distinguished academic career, to a long second career as an entrepreneur and management consultant to companies large and small throughout the world. Along the way, he has learned from Nobel Prize winners and leading management gurus, and helped countless managers and executives use pricing as a way to create new markets, grow their businesses and gain a sustained competitive advantage. He also learned some tough personal lessons about value, how people perceive it, and how people profit from it.In this engaging and practical narrative, Simon leaves nothing out of the pricing cocktail, but still makes it go down smoothly and leaves you wanting to learn more and do more as a consumer or as a business person. You will never look at pricing the same way again."

    Drawing on the seminal volume by the “Austrian School” economist Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, and comparing classical and neoclassical approaches, Choice is a creative, comprehensive, and unusually lucid book on economic science and market processes. The book illuminates free economies as underpinning civilization, the folly of government central planning, the primacy of entrepreneurship and innovation, the nature of money and banking, the causes of the business cycle, the failures of government intervention, and more. As a result, Choice teaches economic principles and exposes economic fallacies, and any reader will learn both the important truths about economics and the crucial value of individual choice, entrepreneurship, and free markets.

    How did we end up in this mess?In this masterful new history, Andreas Malm claims it all began in Britain with the rise of steam power. But why did manufacturers turn from traditional sources of power, notably water mills, to an engine fired by coal? Contrary to established views, steam offered neither cheaper nor more abundant energy—but rather superior control of subordinate labour. Animated by fossil fuels, capital could concentrate production at the most profitable sites and during the most convenient hours, as it continues to do today. Sweeping from nineteenth-century Manchester to the emissions explosion in China, from the original triumph of coal to the stalled shift to renewables, this study hones in on the burning heart of capital and demonstrates, in unprecedented depth, that turning down the heat will mean a radical overthrow of the current economic order.

    What happens when this rationality transposes the constituent elements of democracy into an economic register? In Undoing the Demos, Wendy Brown explains how democracy itself is imperiled. The demos disintegrates into bits of human capital; concerns with justice bow to the mandates of growth rates, credit ratings, and investment climates; liberty submits to the imperative of human capital appreciation; equality dissolves into market competition; and popular sovereignty grows incoherent. Liberal democratic practices may not survive these transformations. Radical democratic dreams may not either.In an original and compelling argument, Brown explains how and why neoliberal reason undoes the political form and political imaginary it falsely promises to secure and reinvigorate. Through meticulous analyses of neoliberalized law, political practices, governance, and education, she charts the new common sense. Undoing the Demos makes clear that for democracy to have a future, it must become an object of struggle and rethinking.

    Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts’ predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight, and Tetlock has spent the past decade trying to figure out why. What makes some people so good? And can this talent be taught?   In Superforecasting, Tetlock and coauthor Dan Gardner offer a masterwork on prediction, drawing on decades of research and the results of a massive, government-funded forecasting tournament. The Good Judgment Project involves tens of thousands of ordinary people—including a Brooklyn filmmaker, a retired pipe installer, and a former ballroom dancer—who set out to forecast global events. Some of the volunteers have turned out to be astonishingly good. They’ve beaten other benchmarks, competitors, and prediction markets. They’ve even beaten the collective judgment of intelligence analysts with access to classified information. They are "superforecasters."   In this groundbreaking and accessible book, Tetlock and Gardner show us how we can learn from this elite group. Weaving together stories of forecasting successes (the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound) and failures (the Bay of Pigs) and interviews with a range of high-level decision makers, from David Petraeus to Robert Rubin, they show that good forecasting doesn’t require powerful computers or arcane methods. It involves gathering evidence from a variety of sources, thinking probabilistically, working in teams, keeping score, and being willing to admit error and change course. Superforecasting offers the first demonstrably effective way to improve our ability to predict the future—whether in business, finance, politics, international affairs, or daily life—and is destined to become a modern classic.

    Bernanke was appointed chair of the Federal Reserve, the unexpected apex of a personal journey from small-town South Carolina to prestigious academic appointments and finally public service in Washington’s halls of power.There would be no time to celebrate.The bursting of a housing bubble in 2007 exposed the hidden vulnerabilities of the global financial system, bringing it to the brink of meltdown. From the implosion of the investment bank Bear Stearns to the unprecedented bailout of insurance giant AIG, efforts to arrest the financial contagion consumed Bernanke and his team at the Fed. Around the clock, they fought the crisis with every tool at their disposal to keep the United States and world economies afloat.Working with two U.S. presidents, and under fire from a fractious Congress and a public incensed by behavior on Wall Street, the Fed—alongside colleagues in the Treasury Department—successfully stabilized a teetering financial system. With creativity and decisiveness, they prevented an economic collapse of unimaginable scale and went on to craft the unorthodox programs that would help revive the U.S. economy and become the model for other countries.Rich with detail of the decision-making process in Washington and indelible portraits of the major players, The Courage to Act recounts and explains the worst financial crisis and economic slump in America since the Great Depression, providing an insider’s account of the policy response.

    Every day a new blaze seems to ignite: the bloody implosion of Iraq and Syria; the East-West standoff in Ukraine; abducted schoolgirls in Nigeria. Is there some thread tying these frightening international security crises together? In a riveting account that weaves history with fast-moving reportage and insider accounts from the Afghanistan war, Sarah Chayes identifies the unexpected link: corruption.Since the late 1990s, corruption has reached such an extent that some governments resemble glorified criminal gangs, bent solely on their own enrichment. These kleptocrats drive indignant populations to extremes—ranging from revolution to militant puritanical religion. Chayes plunges readers into some of the most venal environments on earth and examines what emerges: Afghans returning to the Taliban, Egyptians overthrowing the Mubarak government (but also redesigning Al-Qaeda), and Nigerians embracing both radical evangelical Christianity and the Islamist terror group Boko Haram. In many such places, rigid moral codes are put forth as an antidote to the collapse of public integrity.The pattern, moreover, pervades history. Through deep archival research, Chayes reveals that canonical political thinkers such as John Locke and Machiavelli, as well as the great medieval Islamic statesman Nizam al-Mulk, all named corruption as a threat to the realm. In a thrilling argument connecting the Protestant Reformation to the Arab Spring, Thieves of State presents a powerful new way to understand global extremism. And it makes a compelling case that we must confront corruption, for it is a cause—not a result—of global instability.

    Now New York Times bestselling author Arthur C. Brooks offers a bold new vision for conservatism as a movement for happiness, unity, and social justice—a movement of the head and heart that boldly challenges the liberal monopoly on "fairness" and "compassion."Many Americans today see two dispiriting political choices: ineffective compassion on one side and heartless pragmatism on the other. Progressives have always presented themselves as champions of the poor and vulnerable. But they have not succeeded—more and more people are hopeless and dependent on government. Meanwhile, conservatives possess the best solutions to the problems of poverty and declining mobility. Yet because they don't speak in a way that reflects their concern and compassion, many Americans don't trust them. Americans know that outmoded redistribution yields poor results and does little for the pursuit of happiness. But there seems to be no conservative alternative that looks out for those struggling to get by.Arthur Brooks, one of the country's leading policy experts and the president of the American Enterprise Institute, has considered these issues for decades. Drawing on years of research on the sources of happiness and the conditions of human flourishing, Brooks presents a social justice agenda for a New Right. Proposing a set of practical policies firmly grounded in the four "institutions of meaning"—family, faith, community, and meaningful work—Brooks describes a government safety net that actually lifts people up, and offers a vision of true hope through earned success.Brooks argues that it is time for a new kind of conservatism, one that fights poverty, promotes equal opportunity, and extols spiritual enlightenment. It is an inclusive, optimistic movement with a positive agenda to help people lead happier and more fulfilling lives.Clear, well-reasoned, accessible, and free of vituperative politics, The Conservative Heart is a welcome new strategy for conservatives looking for fresh, actionable ideas—and for politically independent citizens who believe that neither side is adequately addressing their needs or concerns.

    Yet for many of us, paid work is at best a frustrating experience. Some of us are burdened with too much work, while others fight the hard realities of precarious, low-paid, low-quality work amid persistent mass unemployment. So what if we rethought the whole system? That’s the ambitious challenge David Frayne takes up in The Refusal of Work. Drawing on substantial empirical research into the lives of people who are actively resisting employment—either by reducing their work hours to the minimum or by giving up work altogether—Frayne delves into the reasons that people disconnect from work, the strategies they develop for coping with not working in a society that demands work, and, perhaps most interestingly, what they do with their free time. The resulting book offers a fascinating portrait of an alternative approach to life under capitalism, and a bracing reminder that a humane and sustainable vision of social progress is possible.

    During the years when Brazil, India, China and the other “emerging markets” have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 per cent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 per cent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent.In his first book, The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis exposes the truth about the African development miracle: for the resource states, it's a mirage. The oil, copper, diamonds, gold and coltan deposits attract a global network of traders, bankers, corporate extractors and investors who combine with venal political cabals to loot the states' value. And the vagaries of resource-dependent economies could pitch Africa's new middle class back into destitution just as quickly as they climbed out of it. The ground beneath their feet is as precarious as a Congolese mine shaft; their prosperity could spill away like crude from a busted pipeline.This catastrophic social disintegration is not merely a continuation of Africa's past as a colonial victim. The looting now is accelerating as never before. As global demand for Africa's resources rises, a handful of Africans are becoming legitimately rich but the vast majority, like the continent as a whole, is being fleeced. Outsiders tend to think of Africa as a great drain of philanthropy. But look more closely at the resource industry and the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world looks rather different. In 2010, fuel and mineral exports from Africa were worth 333 billion, more than seven times the value of the aid that went in the opposite direction. But who received the money? For every Frenchwoman who dies in childbirth, 100 die in Niger alone, the former French colony whose uranium fuels France's nuclear reactors. In petro-states like Angola three-quarters of government revenue comes from oil. The government is not funded by the people, and as result it is not beholden to them. A score of African countries whose economies depend on resources are rentier states; their people are largely serfs. The resource curse is not merely some unfortunate economic phenomenon, the product of an intangible force. What is happening in Africa's resource states is systematic looting. Like its victims, its beneficiaries have names.

    Mehrsa Baradaran examines how a significant portion of the population, deserted by banks, is forced to wander through a Wild West of payday lenders and check-cashing services to cover emergency expenses and pay for necessities all thanks to deregulation that began in the 1970s and continues decades later.In an age of corporate megabanks with trillions of dollars in assets, it is easy to forget that America s banking system was originally created as a public service. Banks have always relied on credit from the federal government, provided on favorable terms so that they could issue low-interest loans. But as banks grew in size and political influence, they shed their social contract with the American people, demanding to be treated as a private industry free from any public-serving responsibility. They abandoned less profitable, low-income customers in favor of wealthier clients and high-yield investments. Fringe lenders stepped in to fill the void. This two-tier banking system has become even more unequal since the 2008 financial crisis.Baradaran proposes a solution: reenlisting the U.S. Post Office in its historic function of providing bank services. The post office played an important but largely forgotten role in the creation of American democracy, and it could be deployed again to level the field of financial opportunity."

    This is the America we believe in a nation of opportunity, constrained only by ability and effort. But during the last twenty-five years we have seen a disturbing opportunity gap emerge. Americans have always believed in equality of opportunity, the idea that all kids, regardless of their family background, should have a decent chance to improve their lot in life. Now, this central tenet of the American dream seems no longer true or at the least, much less true than it was. Robert Putnam about whom The Economist said, "His scholarship is wide-ranging, his intelligence luminous, his tone modest, his prose unpretentious and frequently funny," offers a personal but also authoritative look at this new American crisis. Putnam begins with his high school class of 1959 in Port Clinton, Ohio. By and large the vast majority of those students "our kids" went on to lives better than those of their parents. But their children and grandchildren have had harder lives amid diminishing prospects. Putnam tells the tale of lessening opportunity through poignant life stories of rich and poor kids from cities and suburbs across the country, drawing on a formidable body of research done especially for this book. Our Kids is a rare combination of individual testimony and rigorous evidence. Putnam provides a disturbing account of the American dream that should initiate a deep examination of the future of our country.

    The warning signs are clear, and the collapse of the Zimbabwean dollar in 2009 after years of rampant money printing is a frightening example of what lies in store for the world's economies if painful, but necessary, reform is not enacted soon. When Money Destroys Nations tells the gripping story of the disintegration of the once-thriving Zimbabwean economy and how ordinary people survived in turbulent circumstances. Analysing this case within a global context, Philip Haslam and Russell Lamberti investigate the causes of hyperinflation and draw ominous parallels between Zimbabwe and the world's developed economies. The looming currency crises and possible hyperinflation in these major economies, particularly the United States, have the potential to turn the current world order upside down. Zimbabwe's lessons must not be ignored. This is the story of When Money Destroys Nations.

    Leading financial economist Lasse Heje Pedersen combines the latest research with real-world examples and interviews with top hedge fund managers to show how certain trading strategies make money--and why they sometimes don't.Pedersen views markets as neither perfectly efficient nor completely inefficient. Rather, they are inefficient enough that money managers can be compensated for their costs through the profits of their trading strategies and efficient enough that the profits after costs do not encourage additional active investing. Understanding how to trade in this efficiently inefficient market provides a new, engaging way to learn finance. Pedersen analyzes how the market price of stocks and bonds can differ from the model price, leading to new perspectives on the relationship between trading results and finance theory. He explores several different areas in depth--fundamental tools for investment management, equity strategies, macro strategies, and arbitrage strategies--and he looks at such diverse topics as portfolio choice, risk management, equity valuation, and yield curve logic. The book's strategies are illuminated further by interviews with leading hedge fund managers: Lee Ainslie, Cliff Asness, Jim Chanos, Ken Griffin, David Harding, John Paulson, Myron Scholes, and George Soros.Efficiently Inefficient effectively demonstrates how financial markets really work.Free problem sets are available online at http: //www.lhpedersen.com

    Howard Farran shows that running a business isn’t all that complicated—if, you’re focusing on the right three areas: •People: maximizing the potential of employees, customers, and yourself.•Time: mastering the efficiency that helps a business turn the biggest profit possible.•Money: learning to love the numbers that function as the business’s scorecard.With simplicity, good humor, and plenty of stories Dr. Farran reveals the actions that can lead anyone to bigger profits, happier people, and a more fulfilling life.

    When he learns of Maytag's plans to shutter its refrigerator plant, a move decried by a young Senator Obama, Broughton begins a decade-long dive into the drama that envelops both Galesburg, Illinois, where townspeople are losing their $15.14-an-hour livelihood, and Reynosa, Mexico, where the same jobs will pay $1.10 and come with a cost. The results are both epic and surprising. The pitfalls of such a project are many, but Broughton avoids pity and screed, delivering a story that is beautifully detailed and rich in human and historic dimension. Most of us talk about a global economy with a vague sense of what that really means. With Boom, Bust, Exodus Broughton has defined it indelibly." --Ann Marie Lipinski, Curator, Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard UniversityIn 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 34,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.In Boom, Bust, Exodus, Chad Broughton offers a ground-level look at the rapid transition to a globalized economy, from the perspective of those whose lives it has most deeply affected. We live in a commoditized world, increasingly divorced from the origins of the goods we consume; it is easy to ignore who is manufacturing our smart phones and hybrid cars; and where they come from no longer seems to matter. And yet, Broughton shows, the who and where matter deeply, and in this book he puts human faces to the relentless cycle of global manufacturing.It is a tale of two cities. In Galesburg, where the empty Maytag factory still stands, a hollowed out version of the American dream, the economy is a shadow of what it once was. Reynosa, in contrast, has become one of the exploding post-NAFTA "second-tier cities" of the developing world, thanks to the influx of foreign-owned, export-oriented maquiladoras--an industrial promised land throbbing with the energy of commerce, legal and illegal.And yet even these distinctions, Broughton shows, cannot be finely drawn: families in Reynosa also struggle to get by, and the city is beset by violence and a ruthless drug war. Those left behind in the post-Industrial decline of Galesburg, meanwhile, do not see themselves as helpless victims: they have gone back to school, pursued new careers, and learned to adapt and even thrive. In an era of growing inequality and a downsized middle class, Boom, Bust, Exodus gives us the voices of those who have borne the heaviest burdens of the economic upheavals of the past three decades. A deeply personal work grounded in solid scholarship, this important, immersive, and affecting book brings home the price and the cost of globalization.

    Friedrich von Hayek's Nobel Prize lecture.

    health care system is in a state of disrepair, but the rabbit hole goes deeper than even the staunchest critics may realize. In Primal Prescription, authors Doug McGuff and Robert Murphy combine their expertise in economics and medicine to offer a shocking, disturbing, and ultimately enlightening view into America’s health care system. You’ll discover the real history of what went wrong with U.S. health care and insurance, and why current efforts to clean up the mess are only making things worse.But far from leaving you feeling helpless at the dismal—and sometimes deadly—state of affairs, Primal Prescription equips you with both the knowledge to understand the health care conundrum and the tools for navigating your way out of it. McGuff and Murphy offer an evidence-based “game plan” for taking control of your own medical care, protecting yourself and your loved ones regardless of what the future holds for the rest of the nation.Whether you’re currently tangled in America’s broken health care system or simply trying to avoid its clutches, Primal Prescription is a must-have resource for taking your health into your own hands.

    In his bracing new book, Under the Affluence, he brilliantly engages the roots and ramifications of radical inequality in our nation, carefully detailing the heartless war against the poor and the swooning addiction to the rich that exposes the moral sickness at the heart of our culture. Wise's stirring analysis of our predicament is more than a disinterested social scientific treatise; this book is a valiant call to arms against the vicious practices that undermine the best of the American ideals we claim to cherish. Under the Affluence is vintage Tim Wise: smart, sophisticated, conscientious, and righteously indignant at the betrayal of millions of citizens upon whose backs the American Dream rests. This searing testimony for the most vulnerable in our nation is also a courageous cry for justice that we must all heed."—Michael Eric Dyson, author of The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in AmericaTim Wise is one of America's most prolific public intellectuals. His critically acclaimed books, high-profile media interviews, and year-round speaking schedule have established him as an invaluable voice in any discussion on issues of race and multicultural democracy.In Under the Affluence, Wise discusses a related issue: economic inequality and the demonization of those in need. He reminds us that there was a time when the hardship of fellow Americans stirred feelings of sympathy, solidarity for struggling families, and support for policies and programs meant to alleviate poverty. Today, however, mainstream discourse blames people with low income for their own situation, and the notion of an intractable "culture of poverty" has pushed our country in an especially ugly direction.Tim Wise argues that far from any culture of poverty, it is the culture of predatory affluence that deserves the blame for America's simmering economic and social crises. He documents the increasing contempt for the nation's poor, and reveals the forces at work to create and perpetuate it. With clarity, passion and eloquence, he demonstrates how America's myth of personal entitlement based on merit is inextricably linked to pernicious racial bigotry, and he points the way to greater compassion, fairness, and economic justice.Tim Wise is the author of many books, including Dear White America and Colorblind.

    As they see matters, wealth in the form of means of production and wealth in the form of consumers’ goods are essentially indistinguishable. For all practical purposes, they have no awareness of the existence of capital and of its importance. Thus, capitalists are generally depicted as fat men, whose girth allegedly signifies an excessive consumption of food and of wealth in general, while their alleged victims, the wage earners, are typically depicted as substantially underweight, allegedly signifying their inability to consume, thanks to the allegedly starvation wages paid by the capitalists.The truth is that in a capitalist economic system, the wealth of the capitalists is not only overwhelmingly in the form of means of production, such as factory buildings, machinery, farms, mines, stores, warehouses, and means of transportation and communication, but all of this wealth is employed in producing for the market, where its benefit is made available to everyone in the economic system who is able to afford to buy its products.Consider. Whoever can afford to buy an automobile benefits from the existence of the automobile factory and its equipment where that car was made. He also benefits from the existence of all the other automobile factories, whose existence and competition served to reduce the price he had to pay for his automobile. He benefits from the existence of the steel mill that provided the steel for his car, and from the iron mine that provided the iron ore needed for the production of that steel, and, of course, from the existence of all the other steel mills and iron mines whose existence and competition served to hold down the prices of the steel and iron ore that contributed to the production of his car.And, thanks to the great magnitude of wealth employed as capital, the demand for labor, of which capital is the foundation, is great enough and thus wages are high enough that virtually everyone is able to afford to a substantial degree most of the products of the economic system. For the capital of the capitalists is the foundation both of the supply of products that everyone buys and of the demand for the labor that all wage earners sell. More capital—a greater amount of wealth in the possession of the capitalists—means a both a larger and better supply of products for wage earners to buy and a greater demand for the labor that wage earners sell. Everyone, wage earners and capitalists alike, benefits from the wealth of the capitalists, because, as I say, that wealth is the foundation of the supply of the products that everyone buys and of the demand for the labor that all wage earners sell. More capital in the hands of the capitalists always means a more abundant, better quality of goods and services offered for sale and a larger demand for labor. The further effect is lower prices and higher wages, and thus a higher standard of living for wage earners.Furthermore, the combination of the profit motive and competition operates continually to improve the products offered in the market and the efficiency with which they are produced, thus steadily further improving the standard of living of everyone.In the alleged conflict between the so-called 99 percent and the so-called 1 percent, the program of the 99 percent is to seize as far as possible the wealth of the 1 percent and consume it. To the extent that it is enacted, the effect of this program can only be to impoverish everyone, and the 99 percent to a far greater extent than the 1 percent. To the extent that the 1 percent loses its mansions, luxury cars, and champagne and caviar, 99 times as many people lose their houses, run-of-the mill cars, and steak and hamburger.

    Through analytical narratives the book provides a close examination of the world's first stock markets, key elements of which were unenforceable by law; the community of Celebration, Florida, and other private communities that show how public goods can be bundled with land and provided more effectively; and the millions of credit-card transactions that occur daily and are regulated by private governance. Private Governance ultimately argues that while potential problems of private governance, such as fraud, are pervasive, so are the solutions it presents, and that much of what is orderly in the economy can be attributed to private groups and individuals. With meticulous research, Stringham demonstrates that private governance is a far more common source of order than most people realize, and that private parties have incentives to devise different mechanisms for eliminating unwanted behavior.Private Governance documents numerous examples of private order throughout history to illustrate how private governance is more resilient to internal and external pressure than is commonly believed. Stringham discusses why private governance has economic and social advantages over relying on government regulations and laws, and explores the different mechanisms that enable private governance, including sorting, reputation, assurance, and other bonding mechanisms. Challenging and rigorously-written, Private Governance will make a compelling read for those with an interest in economics, political philosophy, and the history of current Wall Street regulations.

    Paul reveals an intensely personal side as he reflects on growing up during World War II. The book also provides a powerful critique of the corruption and corrosion produced by a 20th century full of war and killing. Ever the optimist, however, Paul leaves behind the ashes of a 20th century of war to finish with a stirring, liberating view of the future we may choose if we turn from war and violence.

    In 1970, the ratio of pay between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker was 45 to 1. Today it is a shocking 829 to one! During that time a new economic philosophy set in that cut taxes, deregulated finance, and trimmed social spending. Those policies set in motion a process that greatly expanded the power of financial interests to accelerate inequality. But how exactly does that happen?Using easy-to-understand charts and graphs, Runaway Inequality explains the process by which corporation after corporation falls victim to systematic wealth extraction by banks, private equity firms, and hedge funds. It reveals how financial strip-mining puts enormous downward pressure on jobs, wages, benefits, and working conditions, while boosting the incomes of financial elites.But Runaway Inequality does more than make sense of our economic plight. It also shows why virtually all the key issues that we face--from climate change to the exploding prison population--are intimately connected to rising economic inequality.Most importantly, Runaway Inequality calls upon us to build a common movement to tackle the sources of increasing income and wealth inequality. As the author makes clear, the problem will not cure itself. It will take enormous energy and dedication to bring economic justice and fairness back to American society.The book is divided into four parts:Part I: What is the fundamental cause of runaway economic inequality? What has made our economy less fair and left most of us less secure?Part II: How does the United States really compare with other major developed countries? How do we stack up on quality of life, health, and well-being?Part III: What does economic inequality have to do with so many of the critical issues we face, including taxes, debt, education, criminal justice, racism, climate change, foreign trade, and war?Part IV: What concrete steps can we take to begin building a fair and just society?From the book: "There is nothing in the economic universe that will automatically rescue us from runaway inequality. There is no pendulum, no invisible political force that 'naturally' will swing back towards economic fairness. Either we wage a large-scale battle for economic, social, and environmental justice, or we will witness the continued deterioration of the world we inhabit. The arc of capitalism does not bend towards justice. We must bend it."

    True progress happens when humans are free, yet the Progressive agenda substantially diminishes freedom while promising the unachievable. Excuse Me, Professor provides a handy reference for anyone actively engaged in advancing liberty, with essential essays debunking more than 50 Progressive clichés.Does the free market truly ignore the poor? Are humans really destroying the Earth? Is the government truly the first best source to relieve distress?Compiled and edited by Lawrence W. Reed in collaboration with the Foundation for Economic Education and Young America's Foundation, this anthology is an indispensable addition to every freedom lover's arsenal of intellectual ammunition.

    Minsky (1919-96). Although a handful of economists raised alarms as early as 2000, Minsky's warnings began a half-century earlier, with writings that set out a compelling theory of financial instability. Yet even today he remains largely outside mainstream economics; few people have a good grasp of his writings, and fewer still understand their full importance. Why Minsky Matters makes the maverick economist's critically valuable insights accessible to general readers for the first time. L. Randall Wray shows that by understanding Minsky we will not only see the next crisis coming but we might be able to act quickly enough to prevent it.As Wray explains, Minsky's most important idea is that stability is destabilizing: to the degree that the economy achieves what looks to be robust and stable growth, it is setting up the conditions in which a crash becomes ever more likely. Before the financial crisis, mainstream economists pointed to much evidence that the economy was more stable, but their predictions were completely wrong because they disregarded Minsky's insight. Wray also introduces Minsky's significant work on money and banking, poverty and unemployment, and the evolution of capitalism, as well as his proposals for reforming the financial system and promoting economic stability.A much-needed introduction to an economist whose ideas are more relevant than ever, Why Minsky Matters is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why economic crises are becoming more frequent and severe--and what we can do about it.

     The Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913 in reaction to the bank runs, bankruptcies and financial chaos caused by the Panic of 1907. The stated purpose of the Act was to create a stable monetary system to bring financial stability to the United States and prevent such economic crises as the Panic of 1907 from occurring again. Sixteen years after the passage of the Act, under the Federal Reserve's watch, the nation experienced the worst financial collapse in our history and descended into our deepest and darkest depression--the Great Depression--a crisis far worse than the Panic of 1907 by orders of magnitude. Since the creation of the Fed, we have lurched from boom to bust time and again as financial crisis has followed financial crisis. By any objective measure, the Fed has failed to achieve the stated objectives of its founding. Today, our economic imbalances are extreme and compounding and approaching a day of reckoning. Another financial collapse looms and casts a dark shadow over our future. Under the stewardship of the Federal Reserve, further hardship for our struggling middle class is certain and inevitable. It doesn't have to be this way. Drawing heavily from the writings and ideas of Benjamin Franklin, Alfred Owen Crozier and Carroll Quigley, "The Tyranny of the Federal Reserve" looks back on how we got here and forward to a brighter future through monetary reform.

    More than thirty percent of South Africa's population receive such payments, even as pundits elsewhere proclaim the neoliberal death of the welfare state. These programs' successes at reducing poverty under conditions of mass unemployment, Ferguson argues, provide an opportunity for rethinking contemporary capitalism and for developing new forms of political mobilization. Interested in an emerging "politics of distribution," Ferguson shows how new demands for direct income payments (including so-called "basic income") require us to reexamine the relation between production and distribution, and to ask new questions about markets, livelihoods, labor, and the future of progressive politics.

    David Kotz, who was one of the few academic economists to predict it, argues that the ongoing economic crisis is not simply the aftermath of financial panic and an unusually severe recession but instead is a structural crisis of neoliberal, or free-market, capitalism. Consequently, continuing stagnation cannot be resolved by policy measures alone. It requires major institutional restructuring.Kotz analyzes the reasons for the rise of free-market ideas, policies, and institutions beginning around 1980. He shows how the neoliberal capitalism that resulted was able to produce a series of long although tepid economic expansions, punctuated by relatively brief recessions, as well as a low rate of inflation. This created the impression of a "Great Moderation." However, the very same factors that promoted long expansions and low inflation--growing inequality, an increasingly risk-seeking financial sector, and a series of large asset bubbles--were not only objectionable in themselves but also put the economy on an unsustainable trajectory. Kotz interprets the current push for austerity as an attempt to deepen and preserve neoliberal capitalism. However, both economic theory and history suggest that neither austerity measures nor other policy adjustments can bring another period of stable economic expansion. Kotz considers several possible directions of economic restructuring, concluding that significant economic change is likely in the years ahead.

    The book shifts focus from forces that drive markets to forces that drive successful trades. The robust performance of this approach has inspired the subtitle 'A Magic Sword of Necessity'. If you think of investing as a rigorous intellectual battle, you need to prepare for it thoroughly. Get in proper shape. Learn your moves, acquire your armor, your shield, your helmet and your battle horse. A magic weapon will be wasted if you get killed by the market's first arrow. Every chapter in this book represents a step towards mastering the sword of necessity. Taking each of those steps has its own merit. Both aspiring and experienced investors can find value in this book long before the advanced concepts, such as "necessity" and "dominance," are fully introduced. And with complete training and equipment, this weapon may give you a devastating advantage.

    They have the lowest standards of living, shortest life expectancies, highest incarceration rates and suffer other sociological and economic ailments. However, for the past 50 years virtually NO PROGRESS has been made in improving the lives of black men. We have to admit what we've been trying has failed and black men have paid the price. And it's time for that to change. Life is too short and too precious to live it under poverty, making only 67% of what white males do. Fathers and husbands are too important to be replaced by a government check, ruining families in the process. And futures too vital not to be lived to their full potential. If you're a black man and have had enough and want more out of life then "The Black Man's Guide Out of Poverty" is for you. Not just a book on "personal financial management," "The Black Man's Guide Out of Poverty" is specifically tailored towards the plight of black men. It addresses the sociological, economic, and political forces that hold them down. It shows you the path out of poverty. It lays out the road map towards a better life. And makes sure your one and finite life is a happy, well-lived one. Demand a better life than what politicians and society PERMIT you to have. Buy "The Black Man's Guide Out of Poverty" and truly set yourself free.

    A fresh take on social class from the experts behind the BBC's 'Great British Class Survey'.Why does social class matter more than ever in Britain today?How has the meaning of class changed?What does this mean for social mobility and inequality?In this book Mike Savage and the team of sociologists responsible for the Great British Class Survey look beyond the labels to explore how and why our society is changing and what this means for the people who find themselves in the margins as well as in the centre.Their new conceptualization of class is based on the distribution of three kinds of capital - economic (inequalities in income and wealth), social (the different kinds of people we know) and cultural (the ways in which our leisure and cultural preferences are exclusive) - and provides incontrovertible evidence that class is as powerful and relevant today as it's ever been.

    To put some goods and services for sale offends human dignity. If everything is commodified, then nothing is sacred. The market corrodes our character. Or so most people say.In Markets without Limits, Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski give markets a fair hearing. The market does not introduce wrongness where there was not any previously. Thus, the authors claim, the question of what rightfully may be bought and sold has a simple answer: if you may do it for free, you may do it for money. Contrary to the conservative consensus, they claim there are no inherent limits to what can be bought and sold, but only restrictions on how we buy and sell.

    In this eye-opening book, a natural resource strategist reveals the critical importance of these transformative elements to our technological lifestyle and the consequences of our reliance upon them, including geopolitical instability and environmental degradation. To see our growing dependency, you need only look at your smartphone: cerium buffs the glass; indium allows your screen to respond to touch; terbium makes images more vibrant; and lithium helps it store energy. Abraham provides readers with a front-row seat to the life of these metals, tracing the paths of these high-tech elements through a dozen countries from the mine to our pockets. But it’s not just smartphones that rely on these metals; they are the building blocks of modern society because they are critical for nearly all our electronic, military, and “green” technologies. Just as oil, iron, and bronze revolutionized previous eras, so too will these metals. The challenges this book reveals, and the plans it proposes, make it essential reading for our rare metal age.

    So read it now!"~ Mary Buffett, New York Times bestselling author of BuffettologyEverything changes. Those are the words I've heard time and time again over the past two decades from my clients who became sudden wealth recipients. Sudden wealth is a roller coaster ride of emotions - from the highest highs to the lowest lows. Sudden wealth is often portrayed as creating dire consequences for its recipients, but it can be an amazing opportunity that improves your life and those around you. I've worked with enough sudden wealth clients over the years to see patterns - what works and what doesn't. With proper guidance, and a willingness to stick to the 12 Principles outlined in this book, you can avoid the common pitfalls that so often destroy money, and instead transform your sudden wealth into lasting wealth to create a better life for yourself and others.Here are just a few things you'll learn in The Sudden Wealth Solution:* What does sudden wealth and surviving a disaster have in common? This one idea can help protect your money for generations.* Learn about the three sudden wealth stages and what they mean.* Never be caught off guard again. Learn just one sentence for when someone asks you for a loan or to invest in a project.* Should you avoid making decisions after getting your sudden wealth? No. Doing so could cost you millions and be disastrous. Discover the decisions you are safe to make and those you must not make right after getting your windfall.* Learn what time of day you should schedule phone calls and meetings with your advisors.* Learn an effective and step-by-step method to choose the right attorney, CPA, and financial advisor for you.* Read about the 8 key rules you can use to evaluate every financial advisor you interview.* What's a Driver vs. a Passenger? You'll understand how this can help you make the important decisions.* Overwhelmed and not sure what to do? Learn how to relax and start making progress.* You might be surprised about the places you shouldn't look for an advisor.* Certain money beliefs can make it nearly impossible to create lasting wealth. Learn which money beliefs you have and how to reset them.* What to communicate immediately to friends and family after receiving sudden wealth.* Copy a short note from the book that you can email to friends and family that puts you in control.* Does it ever make sense to stretch the truth? You'll read why it just might.* Figure out who's in your lifeboat and why this is one of the most important things you can find out to create financial security.* Why people who get sudden wealth often act like monkeys and what you can do about it.* Discover what really makes you happy and how you can use money to enhance your life.* Learn what money has to do with cacti and ferns and why you want cacti.* Read why the acronym SAFE can help protect your wealth.* Can living with someone jeopardize your assets? Yes and you'll read the easy solution to this.* Learn simple rules so you can invest like the Harvard endowment.* Which investments are off limits and why.* Learn how to create lifetime income from your sudden wealth.* Worried you will spend too much? Learn how to break the spendaholic addition.* You inherited an investment account and want to know what you should do with it? You'll find out.* Married and getting an inheritance? Don't make this mistake...

    It covers a wide range of topics including: Money and Banking, Monopolies and Cartels, Insurance, Health Care, Law, Security, Poverty, Education, Environmentalism, and more! To enjoy this compelling read requires no previous political, philosophical, or economic knowledge as all uncommon concepts are defined and explained in a simple yet uncompromising manner. Take heed, this work is liable to cause radical paradigm shifts in your understanding of both the State and Free Market.

    Making the case that the profitability of capital is too low, and the debt built up before the Great Recession too high, leading radical economist Michael Roberts persuasively presents his case that this depression will persist until the profitability of capital is restored through yet another slump.

    John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We have strayed from our clear moral beginnings to become an egotistical culture that glorifies self. We try to set our own standards despite Thomas Paine’s warning that “man cannot make or invent or contrive principles. He can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.” As our society celebrates injustice against people who stand for their convictions, it’s hard to forget the words of John Adams who wrote, “justice is a great Christian as well as moral duty.” With the decline of virtue in so many areas of our culture – from twerking on stage to cheating scandals at universities to corporate theft by aggressive bankers – we should take heed of George Washington’s warning that “liberty, when it degenerates into licentiousness, begets confusion, and frequently ends in tyranny or some woeful catastrophe.” Liberty’s Secrets exposes readers to the Founding Fathers as never before. They believed in God, Judeo-Christian values, and the freedom and necessity of religion in order to have a free and prosperous society. They believed in a free press and knew, as John Adams argued, “when a people is corrupted, the press may be made an engine to complete their ruin.” They believed in a limited government, strong education, and private property. Liberty’s Secrets is like having a front row seat to the congresses and conventions where these leaders hashed out the profound issues of life and society. Charles has cataloged all of the Founding Fathers' writings and inLiberty’s Secrets provides an exposé of their profound yet glossed-over insights, delving into the subjects most important to maintaining a free society at a time when we most need to recover them. In so doing, Liberty’s Secretsequips readers to use the Founders' knowledge and understanding to neutralize the cultural myths currently undermining American liberty.  It is hard not to wonder whether catastrophe is upon us. If ever there was a time to grow up as a nation, now is the time. It is time to recover the morals and moorings of our Founders. It is time to rediscover Liberty’s secrets.

    But the facts tell a different story—the U.S. today lags behind most other developed nations in measures of inequality and economic mobility. For decades, wages have stagnated for the majority of workers while economic gains have disproportionately gone to the top one percent. Education, housing, and health care—essential ingredients for individual success—are growing ever more expensive. Deeply rooted structural discrimination continues to hold down women and people of color, and more than one-fifth of all American children now live in poverty. These trends are on track to become even worse in the future.Some economists claim that today’s bleak conditions are inevitable consequences of market outcomes, globalization, and technological progress. If we want greater equality, they argue, we have to sacrifice growth. This is simply not true. American inequality is the result of misguided structural rules that actually constrict economic growth. We have stripped away worker protections and family support systems, created a tax system that rewards short-term gains over long-term investment, offered a de facto public safety net to too-big-to-fail financial institutions, and chosen monetary and fiscal policies that promote wealth over full employment.

    He's an editorial-page columnist for the Denver Post, holds an MBA degree from the University of Denver, was a corporate finance executive for Samsonite and Beatrice Foods, served as Special Assistant for Financial Management to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy at the Pentagon, and is a veteran of the U.S. Army.For many years, people have been urging me to write a book. My excuse has always been that I just don't have the time. And unlike other authors in politics and the media, I don't have a ghost writer. But it's occurred to me that I've already written one in the body of my 1,600 columns in the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and other publications over more than three decades. Many have stood up to the test of time and are as relevant today as when I first wrote them. Others are valuable as historical benchmarks to set the record straight and as a correction and rebuttal to revisionist history from the usual suspects. It was Mark Twain who profoundly observed that, "History doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes."

    Here, Michael Parenti investigates how class power is a central force in our political life and, yet, is subjected to little critical discernment. He notes how big-moneyed interests shift the rules of the game in their favor while unveiling the long march by reactionaries through the nation s institutions to undo all the gains of social democracy, from the New Deal to the present. Parenti also traces the exploitative economic forces that have operated through much of American history, including the mass displacement and extermination of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans. Parenti is a master at demonstrating the impact of monomaniacal profit accumulation on social services and human values. Here he takes us one step further, showing how unrestrained capitalism ultimately endangers itself, becoming a self-devouring beast that threatens us all. Finally, he calls for a solution based on democratic diversity and public ownership because it works. "

    Austerity is forcing millions into poverty and many more into precarious work, while the left remains trapped in stagnant political practices that offer no respite. Inventing the Future is a bold new manifesto for life after capitalism. Against the confused understanding of our high-tech world by both the right and the left, this book claims that the emancipatory and future-oriented possibilities of our society can be reclaimed. Instead of running from a complex future, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams demand a postcapitaiist economy capable of advancing standards, liberating humanity from work and developing technologies that expand our freedoms.

    Inflation ran rampant, economic growth fell flat, and soaring public debt set new records. Today, New Zealand outscores almost every other country in the world, including the United States, in terms of overall prosperity, personal freedom, and good governance. How did they do it? Under the leadership of two politicians from opposing parties, Sir Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson, economic reality was embraced and tough political decisions were made. This case study tells their story. The experience in New Zealand offers lessons for democracies everywhere that face fiscal, monetary policy, and ultimately political crises.

    HBR Guide to Better Business Writing and HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations help you perfect your communication skills; HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across and HBR Guide to Office Politics show you how to build the best professional relationships; HBR Guide to Finance Basics for Managers is the one book you’ll ever need to teach you about the numbers; HBR Guide to Project Management addresses tough questions such as how to manage stakeholder expectations and how to manage uncertainty in a complex project; and HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done goes beyond basic productivity tips to teach you how to prioritize and focus on your work. This specially priced set of the most popular books in the series makes a perfect gift for aspiring leaders looking for trusted advice.Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, from the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.

    He describes his experiences with "The Thing," or the politically centralized state, with humor and some mistakes along the way. The title comes from a famous quotation by Edmund Burke, 18th century British statesman and philosopher.

    Food bank queues are growing, levels of severe deprivation have been rising, and increasing numbers of children are left with their most basic needs unmet.Based on exclusive access to the largest ever survey of poverty in the UK, and its predecessor surveys in the 1980s and 1990s, Stewart Lansley and Joanna Mack track changes in deprivation and paint a devastating picture of the reality of poverty today and its causes. Shattering the myth that poverty is the fault of the poor and a generous benefit system, they show that the blame lies with the massive social and economic upheaval that has shifted power from the workforce to corporations and swelled the ranks of the working poor, a group increasingly at the mercy of low-pay, zero-hour contracts and downward social mobility.The high levels of poverty in the UK are not ordained but can be traced directly to the political choices taken by successive governments. Lansley and Mack outline an alternative economic and social strategy that is both perfectly feasible and urgently necessary if we are to reverse the course of the last three decades.

    In this eye-opening book, he sets the record straight about what really caused the crisis. It didn't happen because banks are too big to fail--our addiction to private debt is to blame."Between Debt and the Devil" challenges the belief that we need credit growth to fuel economic growth, and that rising debt is okay as long as inflation remains low. In fact, most credit is not needed for economic growth--but it drives real estate booms and busts and leads to financial crisis and depression. Turner explains why public policy needs to manage the growth and allocation of credit creation, and why debt needs to be taxed as a form of economic pollution. Banks need far more capital, real estate lending must be restricted, and we need to tackle inequality and mitigate the relentless rise of real estate prices. Turner also debunks the big myth about fiat money--the erroneous notion that printing money will lead to harmful inflation. To escape the mess created by past policy errors, we sometimes need to monetize government debt and finance fiscal deficits with central-bank money."Between Debt and the Devil" shows why we need to reject the assumptions that private credit is essential to growth and fiat money is inevitably dangerous. Each has its advantages, and each creates risks that public policy must consciously balance.

    With its vast supplies of conventional resources and nonconventional stores, the extension of long-distance gas pipelines and the recent expansion of liquefied natural gas trade, a truly global market has been created for this clean fuel.Natural Gas: Fuel for the 21st Century discusses the place and prospects of natural gas in modern high-energy societies. Vaclav Smil presents a systematic survey of the qualities, origins, extraction, processing and transportation of natural gas, followed by a detailed appraisal of its many preferred, traditional and potential uses, and the recent emergence of the fuel as a globally traded commodity. The unfolding diversification of sources, particularly hydraulic fracturing, and the role of natural gas in national and global energy transitions are described. The book concludes with a discussion on the advantages, risks, benefits and costs of natural gas as a leading, if not dominant, fuel of the 21st century.This interdisciplinary text will be of interest to a wide readership concerned with global energy affairs including professionals and academics in energy and environmental science, policy makers, consultants and advisors with an interest in the rapidly-changing global energy industry.

    God and Politics in Esther explores politics and faith. It is about an era in which the prophets have been silenced and miracles have ceased, and Jewish politics has come to depend not on commands from on high, but on the boldness and belief of each woman and man. Esther takes radical action to win friends and allies, reverse terrifying decrees, and bring God's justice into the world with her own hands. Hazony's The Dawn has long been a cult classic, read at Purim each year the world over. Twenty years on, this revised edition brings the book to much wider attention. Three controversial new chapters address the astonishingly radical theology that emerges from amid the political intrigues of the book.

    Aimon al-Zawahiri, the man who replaced Osama bin Laden to become the leader of al-Qaeda. Eventually, Dr. Hamid recognized the insidious nature of violent jihad and rejected its distortions of the Qur’an, the holy book of the Muslim faith. Ever since, he has pursued a path of reformation within Islam by writing new interpretations of the book’s key texts and by sharing his message in mosques. Inside Jihad reveals Dr. Hamid’s insights about the Islamic terror movement drawn from his personal experiences. As a medical doctor and a psychologist, he helps readers understand the jihadist mindset by explaining the meaning of jihad and the role that sex, petrodollars, and the hijab for women play in its proliferation. He shares his bold plan for an Islamic reformation and the religion’s integration as one of the world’s peaceful religions.

    Appointed by the then Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, to be chief economic adviser (CEA) to the Government of India, Basu—a theorist, with special interest in development economics, and a professor of economics at Cornell University—discovered the complexity of applying economic models to the real world. Effective policymaking, Basu learned, integrates technical knowledge with political awareness. In this book, Basu describes the art of economic policymaking, viewed through the lens of his two and a half years as CEA.Basu writes from a unique perspective—neither that of the career bureaucrat nor that of the traditional researcher. Plunged into the deal-making, non-hypothetical world of policymaking, Basu suffers from a kind of culture shock and views himself at first as an anthropologist or scientist, gathering observations of unfamiliar phenomena. He addresses topics that range from the macroeconomic—fiscal and monetary policies—to the granular—designing grain auctions and policies to assure everyone has access to basic food. Basu writes about globalization and India’s period of unprecedented growth, and he reports that at a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Obama joked to him, “You should give this guy some tips”—“this guy” being Timothy Geithner. Basu describes the mixed success of India’s anti-poverty programs and the problems of corruption, and considers the social norms and institutions necessary for economic development. India is, Basu argues, at an economics crossroad. As CEA from 2009 to 2012, he was present at the creation of a potential economic powerhouse.

    That myth takes many forms but reduces to this: “You can’t be for capitalism or free markets and be a follower of Jesus at the same time; Jesus, after all, was a socialist or would at least be supportive of policies that redistribute income through government.”For the first time in a short and readable form, Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) president Lawrence W. Reed debunks these misconceptions in powerful, convincing ways. Though he frequently references Scripture, Reed makes it plain at the start that one doesn’t have to be a Christian to understand the importance of proper interpretation of Scripture, as well as history and economics. People who simply want sound analysis or good history will appreciate it even if they have no faith. By examining the words of Jesus in the context of their time and place, Reed shows Jesus never called for the political process to rearrange wealth. He denounced envy. He stressed choice, accountability and private property. He endorsed keeping one’s word and honoring contracts. He emphasized principles of personal character and the Golden Rule. These things are all difficult to reconcile with political force. Now, when anyone suggests that the teachings of Jesus are in any way incompatible with free markets or capitalism, defenders of free markets can provide concise and conclusive responses. There is no other publication that does the job as fully or as accessibile as “Rendering Unto Caesar."Lawrence W. ("Larry") Reed became president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in 2008. Prior to becoming FEE's president, he served for twenty years as president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Michigan. He also taught economics full-time from 1977 to 1984 at Northwood University in Michigan and chaired its Department of Economics from 1982 to 1984. A champion for liberty, Reed has authored over 1,000 newspaper columns and articles, dozens of articles in magazines and journals in the United States and abroad.The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is the premier source for understanding the humane values of a free society, and the economic, legal, and ethical principles that make it possible. At FEE, you’ll be connected with people worldwide who share those values and are inspired by the dynamic ideas of free association, free markets, and a diverse civil society.Explore freedom’s limitless possibilities through seminars, classroom resources, social media, and daily content at FEE.org. Learn how your creativity and initiative can result in a prosperous and flourishing life for yourself and the global community. Whether you are just beginning to explore entrepreneurship, economics, or creating value for others or are mentoring others on their journeys, FEE has everything you need.FEE is supported by voluntary, tax-deductible contributions from individuals, foundations, and businesses who believe that it is vital to cultivate a deep appreciation in every generation for individual liberty, personal character, and a free economy. Supporters receive a subscription to FEE's flagship magazine, the Freeman, also available at FEE.org.

    The defining form of government of our age, welfare states have spread across the advanced world and are changing the very nature of modern civilisation. In his bestselling book The Welfare State We're In, Bartholomew controversially argued that the British welfare state has done more harm than good. Many people - including Lady Thatcher - responded by saying, 'If that is the case, what should we do about it?' Now, in this hard-hitting and provocative new contribution, Bartholomew sets out to answer that question. Travelling across the globe, from Australia in the east to San Francisco in the west, he investigates what happens elsewhere in the world and considers which welfare models Britain could potentially follow. His search for the best education, healthcare and support services takes him to eleven vastly different countries as he teases out the advantages and weaknesses of other nations' welfare states and delves into crucial issues such as literacy, poverty and inequality. What damage is being done by failing welfare states? What lessons can be learned from the best welfare states? And is it too late to stop welfare states permanently diminishing the lives and liberties of people around the world?

    Every major economic, political and social issue is covered: ranging from our $22 trillion in welfare spending that has failed to lower poverty by even 1% point over the last 50 years, to our bloated military industrial complex that costs the average US taxpayer $5,000 per year. Whether you are looking for a comprehensive guide on how to apply the principles of liberty to any life situation, an introduction to key libertarian concepts, or simply a repertoire of fact-based arguments ordered by issue - Roadmap to Liberty delivers. Your time is limited - this is why I made all efforts to summarize everything you need to know about liberty in little more than 40 chapters and sub-chapters - readable in any order! "Roadmap to Liberty" has one of the highest "information densities" of any book out there - promised.   Written in an Easy-to-Grasp Conversational Style Featuring examples from around the world on how government should and should not work - including cases on:How one company was granted the monopoly right to produce TSA baggage locksHow privatization of wildlife saved entire species from extinction in AfricaThe US' 900 foreign military bases worldwide - 30 times more than all the foreign military bases owned by all other countries combinedThe background on why the US abandoned the gold standard, and how the petrodollar system replaced itThe success of school vouchers in NYC and DC, and the fact that government schooling costs more than private schoolThe mathematical proof of why truly unregulated free trade (i.e. not government regulated trade such as the TPP) is always goodHow the total word count of US regulations increased by 40% between 1997 and 2012 alone - reaching more than 100 million wordsHow Libya went from Africa's richest state to a failed countryAbove list includes just the tiniest tip of the iceberg of mind-blowing, around-the-world case stories.Happy Reading & Thinking! - For more information visit RoadmapToLiberty.comChapter OverviewCh 1 - Principles of LibertyCh 2 - Political IdeologiesCh 3 - Government- Section 1 - Passing Laws- Section 2 - Special InterestsCh 4 - Taxation- Section 1 - Types of Tax Systems- Section 2 - Income Tax- Section 3 - Consumption Tax- Section 4 - Property TaxCh 5 - Social Security- Section 1 - Pensions- Section 2 - Unemployment Benefits- Section 3 - Health Insurance- Section 4 - Assistance to the PoorCh 6 - InfrastructureCh 7 - EducationCh 8 - The Judiciary- Section 1 - The Court System- Section 2 - Correctional FacilitiesCh 9 - Domestic Security- Section 1 - Police Force- Section 2 - Fire ServicesCh 10 - International Security- Section 1 - GunsCh 11 - Marriage and ReligionCh 12 - AbortionCh 13 - Discrimination- Section 1 - Racism Ch 14 - ImmigrationCh 15 - Regulation- Section 1 - Consumer Protection- Section 2 - Environmental Protection- Section 3 - Individual LifestylesCh 16 - Trade and ProtectionismCh 17 - Monetary System- Section 1 - The Federal Reserve- Section 2 - Fiat Currencies- Section 3 - Inflation VS Deflation- Section 4 - Privatization of Money

    Zoning Rules! explores the behavioral basis as well as the economic effects of local government land use regulation. This requires not just an economic model of how zoning works but a deeper understanding of the social, political, and technological factors that guided its history over the last century. Zoning’s popularity is due to its success in protecting the value of single family homes, and anti-sprawl reforms must take this into account.

    Petrocrats like Putin and the Saudis spend resource money on weapons and oppression; militants in Iraq and in the Congo spend resource money on radicalization and ammunition. Resource-fueled authoritarians and extremists present endless crises to the West-and the source of their resource power is ultimately ordinary consumers, doing their everyday shopping at the gas station and the mall.In this sweeping new book, one of today's leading political philosophers, Leif Wenar, goes behind the headlines in search of the hidden global rule that thwarts democracy and development-and that puts shoppers into business with some of today's most dangerous men. Wenar discovers a rule that once licensed the slave trade and apartheid and genocide, a rule whose abolition has marked some of humanity's greatest triumphs-yet a rule that still enflames tyranny and war and terrorism through today's multi-trillion dollar resource trade.Blood Oil shows how the West can now lead a peaceful revolution by ending its dependence on authoritarian oil, and by getting consumers out of business with the men of blood. The book describes practical strategies for upgrading world trade: for choosing new rules that will make us more secure at home, more trusted abroad, and better able to solve pressing global problems like climate change. Blood Oil shows citizens, consumers and leaders how we can act together today to create a more united human future.

    A "Red diaper baby" who grew up in what he has called the ghetto of communism, he became a leading Marxist "theorist" in the early sixties and one of the godfathers of the New Left. But following America's defeat in the Vietnam, Horowitz began to reevaluate the damage those commitments had done to the country.In Volume four, Horowitz focuses on two interlocked issues. The First is the Islamic totalitarianism in America, particularly as it manifests itself on our college campuses. The Second part of this volume takes up the war waged against the U.S. and Israel and Jews in general by Hamas, Hezbollah and other groups. In addition to analyzing their bloodthirsty ideology, Horowitz shows how the genocidal cause of these groups has been taken up by campus radicals. In describing his own confrontations with radical Muslims on our campuses, Horowitz gives a sobering insight into how Islamists have become an increasingly powerful within.

    Yet, much like other developing nations, the Chinese state now finds itself entrenched in a status quo characterized by free trade and American domination. Through a cutting-edge historical, sociological, and political analysis, Ho-fung Hung exposes the competing interests and economic realities that temper the dream of Chinese supremacy--forces that are stymieing growth throughout the global South.Hung focuses on four common misconceptions about China's boom: that China could undermine orthodoxy by offering an alternative model of growth; that China is radically altering power relations between the East and the West; that China is capable of diminishing the global power of the United States; and that the Chinese economy would restore the world's wealth after the 2008 financial crisis. His work reveals how much China depends on the existing order and how the interests of the Chinese elites maintain these ties. Through its perpetuation of the dollar standard and its addiction to U.S. Treasury bonds, China remains bound to the terms of its own prosperity, and its economic practices of exploiting debt bubbles are destined to fail. Dispelling many of the world's fantasies and fears, Hung warns of a postmiracle China that will grow increasingly assertive in attitude while remaining constrained in capability.Ho-fung Hung is an associate professor of sociology at the Johns Hopkins University and researches the development of capitalism, state formation, and protests in China and the world. He is the author of the award-winning book Protest with Chinese Characteristics: Demonstrations, Riots, and Petitions in the Mid-Qing Dynasty.

    A growing body of evidence has proven that its current cornerstone—incentives to attract and retain large, globally mobile businesses—is a dead end. Even those programs that focus on local business, through buy-local initiatives, for example, depend on ongoing support from government or philanthropy. The entire practice of economic development has become ineffective and unaffordable and is in need of a makeover.  The Local Economy Solution suggests an alternative approach in which states and cities nurture a new generation of special kinds of businesses that help local businesses grow. These cutting-edge companies, which Shuman calls “pollinator businesses,” are creating jobs and the conditions for future economic growth, and doing so in self-financing ways.  Pollinator businesses are especially important to communities that are struggling to lift themselves up in a period of economic austerity, when municipal budgets are being slashed. They also promote locally owned businesses that increase local self-reliance and evince high labor and environmental standards.  The book includes nearly two dozen case studies of successful pollinator businesses that are creatively facilitating business and neighborhood improvements, entrepreneurship, local purchasing, local investing, and profitable business partnerships. Examples include Main Street Genome (which provides invaluable data to improve local business performance), Supportland (which is developing a powerful loyalty card for local businesses), and Fledge (a business accelerator that finances itself through royalty payments). It also shows how the right kinds of public policy can encourage the spread of pollinator businesses at virtually no cost.

    At the turn of the century, Germany had been written off as the sick man of Europe. No more. Even as most of its European neighbors and OECD trading partners have struggled in the face of a turbulent global economy, the German economy hasthrived.How does Germany do it? What is the secret? In The Seven Secrets of Germany, authors David Audretsch and Erik Lehmann answer these very questions. This book reveals, explains, and analyzes seven key aspects of Germany, its economy, and its society that have provided the nation with considerablebuoyance in an era of global turbulence. These seven features range from the key and strategic role played by small firms to world leadership in its skilled and trained labor force, an ability to harness global opportunities through leveraging local resources, public infrastructure, the capacity todeal with change and confront challenges in a flexible manner, and the emergence of a remarkably positive identity and image.The Seven Secrets of Germany have insulated the country from long-term economic deterioration and enabled it to take advantage of the opportunities afforded from globalization rather than succumbing as a victim to globalization. This insights can be instructive to other countries and refute thedefeatist view that globalization leads to an inevitable deterioration of the standard of living, quality of life, and degree of economic prosperity.

    Based in the archaeological discovery of thousands of clay tablets recording activities of traders and businessmen from 1890-1860 BCE.

    This textbook provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the latest Bayesian methods--in language ecologists can understand. Unlike other books on the subject, this one emphasizes the principles behind the computations, giving ecologists a big-picture understanding of how to implement this powerful statistical approach.Bayesian Models is an essential primer for non-statisticians. It begins with a definition of probability and develops a step-by-step sequence of connected ideas, including basic distribution theory, network diagrams, hierarchical models, Markov chain Monte Carlo, and inference from single and multiple models. This unique book places less emphasis on computer coding, favoring instead a concise presentation of the mathematical statistics needed to understand how and why Bayesian analysis works. It also explains how to write out properly formulated hierarchical Bayesian models and use them in computing, research papers, and proposals.This primer enables ecologists to understand the statistical principles behind Bayesian modeling and apply them to research, teaching, policy, and management.Presents the mathematical and statistical foundations of Bayesian modeling in language accessible to non-statisticiansCovers basic distribution theory, network diagrams, hierarchical models, Markov chain Monte Carlo, and moreDeemphasizes computer coding in favor of basic principlesExplains how to write out properly factored statistical expressions representing Bayesian models

    And it distills the complexities, absurdities, and pomposities of Wall Street into plain truths and aphorisms anyone can understand.An indispensable survival guide to the hostile wilderness of today's financial markets, The Devil's Financial Dictionary delivers practical insights with a scorpion's sting. It cuts through the fads and fakery of Wall Street and clears a safe path for investors between euphoria and despair.Staying out of financial purgatory has never been this fun.

    Behavioural scientist Dr David Halpern heads up Number 10’s ‘Nudge Unit’, the world’s first government institution that uses behavioural economics to examine and influence human behaviour, to ‘nudge’ us into making better decisions. Seemingly small and subtle solutions have led to huge improvements across tax, healthcare, pensions, employment, crime reduction, energy conservation and economic growth.Adding a crucial line to a tax reminder brought forward millions in extra revenue; refocusing the questions asked at the job centre helped an extra 10 per cent of people come off their benefits and back into work; prompting people to become organ donors while paying for their car tax added an extra 100,000 donors to the register in a single year. After two years and dozens of experiments in behavioural science, the results are undeniable. And now David Halpern and the Nudge Unit will help you to make better choices and improve your life.

    In Cyber-Proletariat, Nick Dyer-Witheford shows the dark side of the information revolution through an unsparing analysis of class power and computerization. He reveals how technology facilitates growing polarization between wealthy elites and precarious workers and how class dominates everything from expanding online surveillance to intensifying robotization. At the same time he looks at possibilities for information technology within radical movements, casting contemporary economic and social struggles in the blue glow of the computer screen.             Cyber-Proletariat brings Marxist analysis to bear on a range of modern informational technologies. The result is a book indispensable to social theorists and hacktivists alike and essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how Silicon Valley shapes the way we live today.

    Its rise has transformed our political, economic and social landscapes, supported by a neoliberal regime that celebrates markets, profit and risk. From rising inequality and ballooning household debt to a global financial crisis and fiscal austerity, the neoliberal ‘orthodoxy’ has brought instability and empowered the few. Yet it remains remarkably resilient, even resurgent, in New Zealand and abroad.In 1995 Jane Kelsey set out a groundbreaking account of the neoliberal revolution in The New Zealand Experiment. Now she marshals an exceptional range of evidence to show how this transfer of wealth and power has been systematically embedded over three decades.Today organisations and commentators once at the vanguard of neoliberal reform, including the IMF and Financial Times journalist Martin Wolf, are warning the current model is unsustainable. A post-neoliberal era beckons. In The FIRE Economy Kelsey identifies the risks posed by FIRE and the barriers embedded neoliberalism presents to a progressive, post-neoliberal transformation – and urges us to act. This is a book New Zealand cannot afford to ignore.

    Greater flows of immigration have the potential to substantially increase world income and reduce extreme poverty. Existing evidence indicates that immigration slightly enhances the wealth of natives born in destination countries while doing little to harm the job prospects or reduce the wages of most of the native-born population. Similarly, although a matter of debate, most credible scholarly estimates of the net fiscal impact of current migration find only small positive or negative impacts. Importantly, current generations of immigrants do not appear to be assimilating more slowly than prior waves.Although the range of debate on the consequences of immigration is much narrower in scholarly circles than in the general public, that does not mean that all social scientists agree on what a desirable immigration policy embodies. The second half of this book contains three chapters, each by a social scientist who is knowledgeable of the scholarship summarized in the first half of the book, which argue for very different policy immigration policies. One proposes to significantly cut current levels of immigration. Another suggests an auction market for immigration permits. The third proposes open borders. The final chapter surveys the policy opinions of other immigration experts and explores the factors that lead reasonable social scientists to disagree on matters of immigration policy.

    However, another - arguably more important - part of the Bitcoin experiment is the underlying blockchain technology as a tool of distributed consensus, and attention is rapidly starting to shift to this other aspect of Bitcoin.Commonly cited alternative applications of blockchain technology include using on-blockchain digital assets to represent custom currencies and financial instruments (colored coins), the ownership of an underlying physical device (smart property), non-fungible assets such as domain names (Namecoin), as well as more complex applications involving having digital assets being directly controlled by a piece of code implementing arbitrary rules (smart contracts) or even blockchain-based decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).What Ethereum intends to provide is a blockchain with a built-in fully fledged Turing-complete programming language that can be used to create "contracts" that can be used to encode arbitrary state transition functions, allowing users to create any of the systems described above, as well as many others that we have not yet imagined, simply by writing up the logic in a few lines of code.

    This process has been led by and is most extreme in the United States. This book explores the root cause of this worldwide phenomenon at the epicenter, in the United States.

    Since 1843, the Economist has been the single most devoted and influential champion of liberalism anywhere in the world. But what exactly is liberalism, and how has the liberal message evolved? Liberalism at Large presents a history of liberalism on the move, confronting the challenges that classical doctrine left unresolved: the rise of democracy, the expansion of empire, the ascendancy of finance. Today, neither economic crisis at home, nor permanent warfare abroad, has dimmed the Economist's belief in unfettered markets, limited government and a free hand for the West. Confidante to the powerful, emissary for the financial sector, portal onto international affairs, the bestselling news weekly shapes the world its readers--and the rest of us--inhabit. This is the first critical biography of one of the architects of a liberal world order now under increasing strain.

    What caused it will be debated for years, if not generations. The conventional narrative is that the financial crisis was caused by Wall Street greed and insufficient regulation of the financial system. That narrative produced the Dodd-Frank Act, the most comprehensive financial-system regulation since the New Deal. There is evidence, however, that the Dodd-Frank Act has slowed the recovery from the recession. If insufficient regulation caused the financial crisis, then the Dodd-Frank Act will never be modified or repealed; proponents will argue that doing so will cause another crisis.A competing narrative about what caused the financial crisis has received little attention. This view, which is accepted by almost all Republicans in Congress and most conservatives, contends that the crisis was caused by government housing policies. This book extensively documents this view. For example, it shows that in June 2008, before the crisis, 56 percent of all US mortgages were subprime or otherwise low-quality. Of these, 76 percent were on the books of government agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When these mortgages defaulted in 2007 and 2008, they drove down housing prices and weakened banks and other mortgage holders, causing the crisis.After this book is published, no one will be able to claim that the financial crisis was caused by insufficient regulation, or defend Dodd-Frank, without coming to terms with the data this book contains.

    Lax writes humorously about his “hermit” life, as if he were King Solomon doing a stand-up routine. But he also writes like a mystic whose surroundings speak to him, and uses the whole field of the page to explore the full potential of the word as image, and the poet as citizen.

    Luke is a financial advisor who's been in the business for 10 years. He always assumed he'd become a million-dollar producer--until he hit a perrenial plateau that he seems either unwilling or unable to break through. He's comfortable and knows he's grown complacent until a devasting event shatters his entire world. Feeling lost and wondering how he'll ever recover, he's introduced to a powerful, yet mysterious mentor, Victor Guise. Victor teaches Luke how to systematize the important aspects of his business and together they lay the foundation he needs to reach his goals. During the process, Luke learns much more than just business from his enigmatic mentor. As Victor helps Luke recognize and believe in his own potential again, his business changes and in the process, so does he.

    Build upon your current knowledge of investment, particularly with regard to the stock market, in order to reach a higher level of understanding and ability when manipulating your assets on the market. This approachable resource pinpoints key pitfalls to avoid and explains how to time your investments in a way that maximizes your profits.Investing can be intimidating--but it can also be fun! By building upon your basic understanding of investment strategies you can take your portfolio to the next level, both in terms of the diversity of your investments and the profits that they bring in. Who doesn't want that? Up your investment game with proven strategies that help increase profits and minimize risks Avoid common pitfalls of stock speculating to make your investment strategy more impactful Understand how to time the market to maximize returns and improve your portfolio's performance Uncover hidden opportunities in niche markets that can bring welcome diversity to your portfolio"High-Level Investing For Dummies" is the perfect follow-up to "Stock Investing For Dummies," and is a wonderful resource that guides you through the process of beefing up your portfolio and bringing home a higher level of profits!

    Policy experts advise us that we need to make major changes to our lifestyles, and our governments need to agree globally binding treaties and implement market instruments like carbon taxes. This advice is a mistake: it treats technological innovation as being at the periphery of the climate policy challenge, whereas it needs to be at its core; we will phase out emissions when and only when the technologies to replace fossil fuels are good enough, and policies need - quickly - to support these new technologies directly. Anyone with an interest in climate change and energy policy will find this book forward-thinking and invaluable. Professional policy-makers, climate and energy policy researchers, and students of energy and public policy, economics, political science, environmental studies, and geography will find this book especially stimulating.

    Each chapter opens with an introduction that helps students understand the central arguments and key concepts in the readings. The selections encourage students to think about the extent to which the three disciplines offer complementary or contradictory ways of approaching the relevant issues. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics: An Anthology is ideal for undergraduate PPE programs and courses in political philosophy and political economy.

    Many of us understandably feel resigned to an eroding standard of living in the years to come. At best.But what if we told you that there are specific, attainable steps you can take today that can limit your vulnerability to these trends and help you be:- Richer- Live with greater purpose- Healthier- More valued by others- Happier- Safer from harmThat’s exactly what Prosper! offers: a blueprint for taking control of and improving your destiny. It outlines practical, actionable investments of your time & resources that will ensure you enjoy greater prosperity in your life, whatever the future may bring.In Prosper!, Martenson and Taggart will explain:- The trends mostly likely to shape your life over the next 20 years- Why developing resilience offers your best chance for thriving, even though society may suffer from the changes these trends may bring- How to build true wealth- What specific actions to take now to secure a prosperous future, no matter what the future holds- How everybody can benefit from this guidance, regardless of age, income or ability How we can best serve the next generation by the actions we take todayProsper! is the highly anticipated follow-up to Martenson’s acclaimed book The Crash Course (Wiley, 2011)

    In this profound new book, Korten shares the results of his search for a story that reflects the fullness of human knowledge and understanding and provides a guide to action adequate to the needs of our time. Korten calls our current story Sacred Money and Markets. Money, it tells us, is the measure of all worth and the source of all happiness. Earth is simply a source of raw materials. Inequality and environmental destruction are unfortunate but unavoidable. Although many recognize that this story promotes bad ethics, bad science, and bad economics, it will remain our guiding story until replaced by one that aligns with our deepest understanding of the universe and our relationship to it. To guide our path to a viable human future, Korten offers a Sacred Life and Living Earth story grounded in a cosmology that affirms we are living beings born of a living Earth itself born of a living universe. Our health and well-being depend on an economy that works in partnership with the processes by which Earth's community of life maintains the conditions of its own existence and ours. Offering a hopeful vision, Korten lays out the transformative impact adopting this story will have on every aspect of human life and society. "

    If you’re worth your salt, you’rea Certifier, staking your reputation on the quality of thegoods you represent. Far from killing the middleman, theInternet has generated a thriving new breed. Between1999 and 2010, just as the Internet was transforming theworld, middlemen’s contribution to the United States’GDP has actually grown—from a quarter to more than athird of our economy. In The Middleman Economy, SiliconValley-based reporter Marina Krakovsky elucidates thesix essential roles that middlemen play.“Like many people, you may be a middleman without even realizing it. Marina Krakovsky explains how the best make themselves indispensable: as a merchant of information, she has gone far and wide to bring you the goods.” —Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President at Google and co-author of How Google Works“We often think of a middleman as someone to avoid—the person who stands in the way, or does nothing at all. But the truth is that the person in the middle, whether it’s a venture capitalist or a real estate broker, can create great value: and the best middlemen are true partners who make you a lot of money. The Middleman Economy shows you how.” —Barbara Corcoran, Founder, The Corcoran Group“In The Middleman Economy, Krakovsky has crafted a powerfully persuasive counterpoint to the notion that in today’s society, middlemen are obsolete. Her captivating and well-researched narrative will convince you of just the opposite—that middlemen are even more critical to today’s economic and social order, whether they function as Bridges, Enforcers, Certifiers, Risk Bearers, Concierges, or Insulators. And they…are us.” —Margaret A. Neale, Professor of Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and co-author of Getting (More of) What You Want“Although technology has brought us to a more interconnected world, Marina Krakovsky, with captivating examples, brilliantly describes the irreplaceable role of the middleman in a successful economy.” —Bill Draper, General Partner of Draper Richards L.P., and author of The Startup Game“Krakovsky reveals a riveting truth: we are all middlemen. Her captivating examples and precise typology capture the vast reach and diversity of middlemen in every aspect of our lives. But most importantly, The Middleman Economy provides the necessary tools to avoid predators and parasites and find the partners that will lubricate and accelerate our success in life.” —Adam Galinsky, Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and co-author of Friend & Foe“With sound reasoning and hard evidence, Krakovsky exploded my belief that the rise of the Internet spells the demise of the intermediary. In the process, she’s provided me, and all of us, a great service.” —Robert B. Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University, bestselling author, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

    While that is an achievement, continuing progress for poor people is far from assured. Inequalities in access to key resources threaten to stall growth and poverty reduction in many places. The world's poorest have made only a small absolute gain over those 30 years. Progress has been slow against relative poverty as judged by the standards of the country and time one lives in, and a great many people in the world's emerging middle class remain vulnerable to falling back into poverty.The Economics of Poverty reviews critically past and present debates on poverty, spanning both rich and poor countries. The book provides an accessible new synthesis of current economic thinking on key questions: How is poverty measured? How much poverty is there? Why does poverty exist, and is it inevitable? What can be done to reduce poverty? Can it even be eliminated? The book does not assume that readers know economics already. Those new to the subject get a lot of help along the way in understanding its concepts and methods. Economics lives through its relevance to real world problems, and here the problem of poverty is both the central focus and a vehicle for learning.

    Organised into three major areas of the digital economy within China, this ground-breaking book explores the surge in e-commerce of consumer goods, the way in which multi-screen and mobile Internet use has increased in popularity, and the cultural emphasis on the mobile Internet as a source of lifestyle- and entertainment-based content. Targeted at the global business community, this lucid and engaging text guides business leaders, investors, investment banking professionals, corporate advisors, and consultants in grasping the challenges and opportunities created by China's emerging mobile economy, and its debut onto the global stage.Year 2014-15 marks the most important inflection point in the history of the internet in China. Almost overnight, the world's largest digitally-connected middle class went both mobile and multi-screen (smart phone, tablets, laptops and more), with huge implications for how consumers behave and what companies need to do to successfully compete. As next-generation mobile devices and services take off, China's strength in this arena will transform it from a global "trend follower" to a "trend setter."Understand what the digital transformation in China is, and impact on global capital markets, foreign investors, consumer companies, and the global economy as a whole Explore the e-commerce consumption boom in the context of the Chinese market Understand the implications of the multi-screen age and mobile Internet for China's consumers See how mobile Internet use, its focus on lifestyle and entertainment is aligned with today's Chinese culture Learn about the mobile entertainment habits of China's millennial generation and the corresponding new advertisement approaches The development of China's mobile economy is one of the most important trends that will reshape the future of business, technology and society both in China and the world. China's Mobile Economy: Opportunities in the Largest and Fastest Information Consumption Boom introduces you to the digital transformation in China, and explains how this transformation has the potential to transform both China and the global consumer landscape.

    This book walks you through the signs and patterns of trade-based money laundering (TBML) to help you recognize it when it occurs, and shows you how data and analytics can be used to detect it. You'll learn the common value transfer techniques including invoice fraud, over-and-under invoicing, and misrepresentation, and learn why analytic detection systems have yet to be implemented despite the existence of copious data. Case studies from around the world highlight the real-life implications of the concepts and processes presented in the text, giving you a first-hand view of the mechanisms at work inside this expanding illegal market.Trade-based money laundering uses trade to convert large quantities of illicit cash into less conspicuous assets or commodities to evade financial transparency laws and regulations. As an ideal funding mechanism for terrorist groups, the practice is getting more attention even as it increases in scale and spread. This book takes you deep inside TBML to better arm you against its occurrence.Learn the typical value transfer techniques of TBML Examine case studies detailing international examples Discover why institutions have failed to implement detection systems Explore ways in which analytics can identify TBML According to the U.S. State Department, TBML has reached staggering proportions in recent years, and is considered by many to be the next frontier of international money laundering enforcement. Trade-Based Money Laundering gives you a battle plan, with expert insight and real-world guidance.

    Central to it is the contrast between a Keynesian era and a Lucasian - or dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) - era, each ruled by distinct methodological standards. In the Keynesian era, the book studies the following theories: Keynesian macroeconomics, monetarism, disequilibrium macroeconomics (Patinkin, Leijongufvud and Clower), non-Walrasian equilibrium models, and first-generation new Keynesian models. Three stages are identified in the DSGE era: new classical macroeconomics (Lucas), RBC modelling, and second-generation new Keynesian modeling. The book also examines a few selected works aimed at presenting alternatives to Lucasian macroeconomics. While not eschewing analytical content, Michel De Vroey focuses on substantive assessments, and the models studied are presented in a pedagogical and vivid yet critical way.

    Why buy a hedge trimmer that you use twice a year? Why not borrow someone else's? Why leave your driveway empty all day while you're at work? Why not charge someone to park there while you're not using it? And if your business is selling hedge trimmers or parking – or anything else people can share – what do you do about it? Already, the sharing economy or 'collaborative consumption' lets people earn over $15 billion a year by renting and selling what they own: from cars and homes to money and time. And that's almost nothing. According to PwC, the sharing economy will grow into a $335 billion market by 2025. TIME Magazine calls it "One of 10 Ideas that will Change the World." Pulitzer Prize-winner Thomas L Friedman calls it "The real deal". Today, fast-moving tech startups like Airbnb and Uber are disrupting huge sectors of the old economy, mobilising millions of micro-entrepreneurs in the process. As Silicon Valley investors pile cash into sharing economy startups, some of the world's largest companies are watching their backs. How can the 20th century's corporate beasts not only survive but thrive in a new world of peer-to-peer commerce and sharing?Written by one of the business leaders of the movement, The Business of Sharing is an insider's guide to the sharing economy: for anyone thinking of entering the sharing economy and profiting from the upheavals ahead. From the boardroom of Sequoia Capital to 10 Downing Street, Stephany meets the powerbrokers pulling the strings in this new economy. And he meets the ordinary people cashing out.This critically acclaimed new book includes colorful original interviews with entrepreneurs like the founders of Airbnb and Zipcar and the world's top venture capitalists, plus case studies of major brands from around the world. The Business of Sharing is essential reading for anyone looking to get to grips with one of today's must-understand global trends.

    What caused it will be debated for years if not generations. The conventional narrative about the financial crisis is that it was caused by greed on Wall Street and insufficient regulation of the financial system. That narrative produced the Dodd-Frank Act, the most comprehensive regulation of the financial system since the New Deal. There is evidence, however, that the Dodd-Frank Act has slowed the recovery from the recession. If insufficient regulation caused the financial crisis, then the Dodd-Frank Act will never be modified or repealed; proponents will argue that doing so will bring back another financial crisis.However, there is a competing narrative about what caused the financial crisis that has received very little attention in the mainstream media. This view, which is accepted by almost all Republicans in Congress and most conservatives and conservative intellectuals, contends that the financial crisis was caused by the government’s housing policies. This book provides extensive documentation of this view. For example, it shows that in June 2008, before the crisis, there were 32 million subprime or other low quality mortgages in the US financial system—58 % of all US mortgages. Of these, 76% were on the books of government agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When these mortgages defaulted in 2007 and 2008 they drove down housing prices 30-40% and weakened banks and others that held these mortgages, causing the financial crisis.After the publication of this book, no one will be able to claim that the financial crisis was caused by insufficient regulation, or defend the extensive government regulation in Dodd-Frank, without coming to terms with the data this book contains.

    Pedigree takes readers behind the closed doors of top-tier investment banks, consulting firms, and law firms to reveal the truth about who really gets hired for the nation's highest-paying entry-level jobs, who doesn't, and why.Drawing on scores of in-depth interviews as well as firsthand observation of hiring practices at some of America's most prestigious firms, Lauren Rivera shows how, at every step of the hiring process, the ways that employers define and evaluate merit are strongly skewed to favor job applicants from economically privileged backgrounds. She reveals how decision makers draw from ideas about talent--what it is, what best signals it, and who does (and does not) have it--that are deeply rooted in social class. Displaying the right stuff that elite employers are looking for entails considerable amounts of economic, social, and cultural resources on the part of the applicants and their parents.Challenging our most cherished beliefs about college as a great equalizer and the job market as a level playing field, Pedigree exposes the class biases built into American notions about the best and the brightest, and shows how social status plays a significant role in determining who reaches the top of the economic ladder.

    

    This workbook reviews all things valuation, with chapter-by-chapter summaries and comprehensive questions and answers that allow you to test your knowledge and skills. Useful both in the classroom and for self-study, this must-have guide is essential for reviewing and applying the renowned McKinsey & Company approach to valuation and reinforces the major topics discussed in detail in the book. Fully updated to align with the sixth edition of Valuation, this workbook is an invaluable learning tool for students and professionals alike. Valuation has become central to corporate financial strategy, and practitioners must be exceptional at every aspect of the role. There is no room for weak points, and excellence is mandatory. This workbook helps you practice, review, study, and test yourself until you are absolutely solid in every concept, every technique, and every aspect of valuation as demanded in today's economy. Master value creation, value metrics, M&A, joint ventures, and more Analyze historical information, forecast performance, and analyze results Estimate the cost of capital, continuing value, and other vital calculations Test your understanding before putting it to work in the real world Designed specifically to reinforce the material presented in the book, this workbook provides independent learners with the opportunity to try their hand at critical valuation skills, and helps students master the material so they can enter the job market ready to perform. For financial professionals and students seeking deep, comprehensive understanding, Valuation Workbook is an essential part of the McKinsey Valuation suite.

    He is widely regarded as one of the world's most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels.

    Unhealthy homes. Wealth inequality. Environmental sustainability. Social inequality. The state of New Zealand housing is central to many major issues confronting this country. In this wide ranging BWB Text, leading international housing researcher Philippa Howden-Chapman reveals how New Zealand has lost its way on housing. This succinct introduction, drawing on two decades of award-winning research, helps chart a new way ahead for housing that is healthy, inclusive and sustainable.

    This eye-opening history follows money and ships as well as enslaved human beings to demonstrate how slavery was a national business supported by far-flung monetary and credit systems. The author details the anatomy of slave supply chains and the chains of credit and commodities that intersected with them in virtually every corner of the pre–Civil War United States, and explores how an institution that destroyed lives and families contributed greatly to the growth of the expanding republic’s capitalist economy.

    This innovative textbook takes this "modern" approach, teaching macroeconomics through its microeconomic foundations. It does so by adopting the representative agent paradigm. By modeling the representative consumer and the representative firm, students will learn to describe macroeconomic outcomes and consider the effects of macroeconomic policies. Unique in its coverage of monopolistic competition, financial markets, and the interaction of fiscal and monetary policy, Modern Macroeconomics is suitable for use in intermediate undergraduate, advanced undergraduate, and graduate level courses.The book first introduces the building blocks of macroeconomics, the heart of which is the representative consumer. It goes on to offer a brief history of macroeconomic thought, including supply-side economics, the Phillips curve, and the New Keynesian framework. It then covers two policy applications, monetary policy and the interaction of monetary and fiscal policy; optimal policy analysis for both the flexible price and the rigid price case; long-run steady states, treating the Solow growth framework and the neoclassical growth model; a search-and-matching framework for the analysis of unemployment; and the application of the tools of modern macroeconomics to "open economy," or international macroeconomics. End-of-chapter problem sets enable students to apply the concepts they have learned. A separate Solutions Manual will be available for students to purchase. Teaching materials, including complete solutions and slides, will be available to qualified instructors.

    He believed that knowledge cannot be divided into parts, that the world can be viewed only as an interlocking, complex system. This view complemented his life: he had reveled in the traditions and contrasts of his neighborhood, eschewed fame in favor of keeping his emotional and social development on track.In an age characterized by violence, extraordinary personal alienation, and the disintegration of moral values, Quigley chose a life dedicated to rationality. He wanted an explanation that in its very categorization would give meaning to a history which was a record of constant change. Therefore the analysis had to include but not be limited to categories of subject areas of human activity. It had to describe change in categories expressed sequentially in time. It was a most ambitious effort to make history rationally understandable.On such views, in 1961 Quigley published "The Evolution of Civilizations". Its scope was wide-ranging, covering the whole of man's activities throughout time. It attempted a categorization of man's activities in sequential fashion so as to provide a causal explanation of the stages of civilization.In 1966, Quigley published "Tragedy and Hope", a work of exceptional scholarship depicting the history of the world between 1895 and 1965. It was a commanding work, 20 years in the writing, that added to Quigley's considerable national reputation as a historian. The book reflected Quigley's feeling that "Western civilization is going down the drain." That was the tragedy. When the book came out in 1966, Quigley thought the whole show could he salvaged; that was his hope.In the last 12 years of his life, from 1965 to 1977, Quigley taught, observed the American scene, and reflected on his basic values in life. He was simultaneously pessimistic and radically optimistic. Teaching was the core of his professional life and neither his craving to write nor his discouragement with student reaction of the early seventies diminished his commitment to the classroom.Unlike his underlying faith in the efficacy of teaching, Quigley found little basis for optimism about the future of American society: "We are living in a very dangerous age in which insatiably greedy men are prepared to sacrifice anybody's health and tranquility to satisfy their own insatiable greed for money and power."Much of the joy of teaching left Quigley in his last years. He complained bitterly that his 1970s college students were woefully under-educated and ill-prepared for college level work and that too many of them had their minds elsewhere, fixated more on bringing about a social revolution than on achieving an education.Yet pessimism about American society did not weaken a radical optimism rooted in his essential values: nature, people, and God: "The need for others is present on all levels; the physical, emotional, and intellectual. Indeed, every relationship has in it all three aspects. The desire to help others experience these things and to grow as a result of such experiences is called love. Such love is the real motivating force of the universe and is, in its ultimate nature, a manifestation of the love of God. Because while God is pure Reason and man's ultimate goal is Reason, it cannot be reached directly and must always be approached step by step, not alone but in companionship with others, and thus through love. Thus love of others, ultimately love of God, are the steps by which man develops reason and slowly approaches pure Reason."In the fields of economics we have great recognition for names likes Keynes or Friedman. Professor Quigley, though a top American historian, has escaped our attention. This book, which is a compilation of some of Quigley's writings and most important lectures, is an attempt to fill the void.One Volume, 400 Page

    Miguel has written a compelling book to help us think differently and to understand the possibilities for a better world for everyone. When you think differently you do differently. I was inspired and made more knowledgeable about the possibilities which I had never deeply thought about.. The Sustainable Organization is a very interesting book which shows the way for organizations to create a win, win, win for all stakeholders in our fragile world. Become Sustainable or eventually die.Greed is a poison. Lee Cockerell, Former Executive Vice-President at Disney, Author, USAWith this book, we aspire to instil discussion about the characteristics of sustainable organisations as the cornerstone of the definition of new criteria to assess how useful an organisation truly is. The main premise for this is that an organisation can only be sustainable when its full impact - internal and external - is positive in the short, medium and long-term and when its activity contributes to human survival and/or development.We propose a new model for sustainable organisations founded on transparency, merit and purpose as well as a simple index - a new algorithm - that will enable any citizen in the world to understand and compare the real value and impact of any organisation. Our hope is that this awareness will lead to a shift in global dynamics, from a perilous route - conflict-oriented - onto a prosperous trajectory that is truly sustainable and unequivocally focused on human needs. Looking at the top 100 organisations in the world, have you ever wondered which ones would we really miss if they were to disappear? Or, which ones deliver something that we truly need in order to improve our health and happiness? Or even, which of these organisations are taking advantage of resources while jeopardising the quality of life of the next generations? Current performance metrics strongly overlook these facts. In fact, despite the dramatic technological progress that infused radical changes in the society over the past century, profits and shareholder value remain the cardinal assessment tools.We believe this has led us to support, recognise and reward predatory organisations in detriment to sustainable organisations. Ultimately, we end up seeing villains for heroes and blindly incentivising those who live from this, albeit not contributing to the community. Yet, a society that deters useful professions in favour of futile jobs, a society that values futile organisations, penalising the ones that bring actual value, is undeniably unsustainable. A book that can help both identify and cure the ills of today's world with a simple formula - is a gift that we cannot afford to pass by. The Sustainable Organization points boldly to the organizational transformation reforms needed to reclaim humanity from the gridlock of inequality fostered by a predatory reward system that minimizes employee contribution while channeling the rewards to a few at the top. Offering a few simple indicators that can help organizations determine if they are on the right path the book sheds light on the hard truth about those who have to change the ways they operate. I can hardly imagine a more powerful approach to changing the status quo at a crucial time in history.  Mihaela Ulieru, PhD, Global Agenda Council at the World Economic Forum, USA For more comments from our readers, please checkTheSustainableOrganisation.com

    In the first book to expose the role played by the international financial services industry in facilitating crime and laundering criminal property, one of the world's leading anti-financial crime specialists scrutinises the vulnerability of banks, brokerages, trust companies, and investment funds to criminal abuse.Discover:- How the finance industry enables corruption, drug trafficking, terrorism, human trafficking, proliferation, piracy, and tax evasion- Why extreme and dangerous industry behaviour correlates with the risk taking that toppled the global economy in 2008 - What measures can be taken to prevent criminals from compromising the legitimacy of the global financial system Examining the role of the traditional powerhouse financial centres as well as offshore centres and rapidly emerging international financial centres in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, this highly informative book challenges the reader to consider whether following the 2008 crisis, sufficient steps have been taken to address toxic behaviours in financial services; or whether radical reform is needed.

    The book makes three interrelated arguments emphasizing the primacy of political over economic factors. First, the original plan for the euro focused on monetary union, but omitted a financial and banking union, mutually supporting institutions of fiscal union and economic government, and a legitimate political union. Second, the euro's unfinished design led to economic divergence-quietly altering the existing distribution of economic and political power within Europe prior to the crisis-which in turn determined the EU's crisis response. The book highlights how the euro's four most important member states-Germany, France, Italy and Spain-each changed once they adopted the euro, why the crisis affected them so differently, and how each has since struggled to live with the commitments the euro necessitates. Third, the book examines three possible "euro futures" through the lens of the politics of its reluctant leader Germany; through the lens of the EU's capacity to move forward through crises; and through the geopolitical lens of the international monetary system. Any successful long-term solution to the euro's predicament will need to start with the political foundations of markets.

     The global economy is restructuring around super-corporations running modern business platforms causing older companies and incumbents to feel the chill wind of disruptive competition. Companies that fail to adapt to the platform shift are disappearing, while those that do are reshaping their fortunes and securing monopoly positions. Where are you in platform transformation?How can you improve your chances for success? Platform, disruption and innovation expert Haydn Shaughnessy answers these questions and more in Shift: A Leader's Guide to the Platform Economy. Shaughnessy explains how recent changes toward platforms have impacted all levels of business, from new employees to seasoned executives, to freelance entrepreneurs and small business owners. Part One explains how the platform created the current turbulence in enterprise operating models.Part Two explains how successful companies adapt to a new way of doing business built around the platform.Part Three focuses on the individual by explaining how the changing economy and disrupted business models impact people, their careers and livelihood. Most importantly, this part identifies the skills and abilities required to thrive in a platform economy and the threat to Government authority of super platforms that choose their own terms of trade. Shift is critical reading on the platform revolution. To ensure you and your company are adapting appropriately in uncertain times you need to understand the new business platform. Whether you are a business leader or an employee, a freelance or small business owner you are sure to find unique value in the insights from Shaughnessy's observation on an economy in flux. ******************************************“A scholarly look at how technology has radically transformed the world of commerce, coupled with advice for how to navigate this new landscape … Shaughnessy diagnoses these changes and recommends how businesses, individuals, and governments can become more nimble, acclimating themselves to a new world characterized by “constant flux.” –Kirkus Review******************************************If you liked Platform Scale and Platform Revolution by Sangeet Paul Choudary, or The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, then you will love SHIFT!