There are more than 5000 fintech startups operating, and 50 of them have already reached a billion-dollar valuation. The scope of this market goes way beyond online payments. Financial technology promises to change the way we manage our money online, disrupting the landscape of the financial services industry is being disrupted. Understanding its many facets is the key to navigating the complex nuances of this global industry.Fintech in a Flash is your comprehensive guide to the future of banking and insurance. The book aims to break down the key concepts in a way that will help you understand every aspect so that you can take advantage of new technologies. Inside you’ll find an array of hot topics such as online payments, crowdfunding, challenger banks, online insurance, digital lending, big data, and digital commerce. It will make you rethink the way that you manage your money online, and even find new ways of making online payments. Comprehensive, organized, and detailed, this guide is your go-to source for everything you need to confidently navigate the ever-changing scene of this booming industry.If you decide to buy this book now, you'll get: Easy to understand explanations of the 14 main areas of fintech The author's view on the future of each of these areas Insight into the main fintech hubs in the world Insight into the so called Unicorns, the fintech firms that have made it past a $1 billion valuation More than 100 upcoming fintech companies to watch About the Author: Agustín Rubini is an argentinean-born economist, master in international business, and Director at Banking Innovations. Passionate about building the future of financial services, Agustín spends much of his time speaking and writing on financial technology and advising businesses on innovation and digital transformation. He is a specialist in driving changes in top class banks that want to lead in how customers manage their money online. Tags: fintech, financial technology, financial services technology, money online, online payment, online insurance, insurtech, investing online, wealth management online, wealthtech, regtech, cybercrime, digital lending, digital commerce, ecommerce, e-commerce. Get started immediately Download now and take the first step on your very own road to mastering fintech. Scroll to the top of the page and hit the buy button.

    And chances are even greater that the latest model won't last as long as the one it replaced. Welcome to the world of planned obsolescence--a business model, a way of life, and a uniquely American invention that this eye-opening book explores from its beginnings to its perilous implications for the very near future."Made to Break" is a history of twentieth-century technology as seen through the prism of obsolescence. America invented everything that is now disposable, Giles Slade tells us, and he explains how disposability was in fact a necessary condition for America's rejection of tradition and our acceptance of change and impermanence. His book shows us the ideas behind obsolescence at work in such American milestones as the inventions of branding, packaging, and advertising; the contest for market dominance between GM and Ford; the struggle for a national communications network, the development of electronic technologies--and with it the avalanche of electronic consumer waste that will overwhelm America's landfills and poison its water within the coming decade.History reserves a privileged place for those societies that built things to last--forever, if possible. What place will it hold for a society addicted to consumption--a whole culture made to break? This book gives us a detailed and harrowing picture of how, by choosing to support ever-shorter product lives we may well be shortening the future of our way of life as well.

    Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton PressClassic treatise on the importance of maintaining the rights of the individual in the face of expanding state control manipulated by organized pressure groups.

     * Compelling evidence that selling products on Amazon may be the best home-based business opportunity ever created * The Simple Profit Blueprint – How to Make $1,000 Per Day Clear Profit on Amazon with One Single $35 Product You Choose * The biggest obstacle in your way of achieving that goal and how I will help you overcome it (Hint: It's all in your head) * What selling products on Amazon is all about * The common misconceptions about selling products on Amazon * The powerful advantages to selling on Amazon as opposed to trying to sell products online on your own * The PRICELESS benefits to “Partnering” with Amazon * The basics of selling products on Amazon * The basics of finding profitable products to sell on Amazon * The two distinctly different methods to find the products you’ll be selling on Amazon * The “Retail Arbitrage” method of sourcing products to sell on Amazon * The “Private Label” method of sourcing products to sell on Amazon * Two distinctly different methods of Private Labeling products to sell on Amazon * Two distinctly different ways to sell your products on Amazon * Our (my partner and I) experience in our first year as Amazon sellers, exactly how much money we made and what it taught us * Retail Arbitrage vs. Private Label * The two major obstacles to making really big money with Retail Arbitrage * How to sign-up as an Amazon seller today for free and why you'll soon want to pay $39.99 per month to go "Pro" * You're creating "AZ Money Machines" (AMMs instead of ATMs) * How Amazon pays you and the breakdown of the check Amazon would be sending you every two weeks (or depositing directly into your bank account) * How the blueprint creates a self-perpetuating NET annual income of $360,720 * Why you should NOT make your goal $1,000 per day * How to become a cash millionaire in 3 simple steps * How building an enormously successful Amazon business is a simple step-by-step process * How to earn insanely high annualized returns on your product investments * How you can “fail” your way to success * The “Beyond Amazon” Bonus * How to scale your business up with three simple steps to where you are a bona fide cash millionaire * Can you really make more money in one week than you've ever made on your old job in one year? (Simple answer – YES!) * Where to get 100% of the money you need to grow your Amazon business as large as you want – at 0% interest * Where to find MORE money to build your business * Your Free* Training * Your Shortcut to the BIG Money * Your action steps to get started today * Chart your success to $1,000 per day – and more * The "Secret Sauce" that will supercharge your motivation and determination to succeed in this business Tags: Amazon Private Label FBA, FBA, Private Label FBA, Amazon FBA, Amazon FBA Secrets, Sell on Amazon, Retail Arbitrage, Physical Products, Private Label, FBA, Private Label, Home-Based Business, Amazing Selling Machine, Fulfillment by Amazon, Private La

    Yet, if this is not capitalism anymore, could it be something worse? What if the world we're living in is more dystopian than the techno utopias of the Silicon Valley imagination? And, if this is the case, how do we find a way out? Capital Is Dead offers not only the theoretical tools to analyze this new world of information, but the ones to change it, too.A follow-up to their groundbreaking A Hacker Manifesto, Wark takes us on a tour of our information age. Drawing on the writings of the Situationists and a range of contemporary theorists, they offer a vast panorama of the contemporary condition and the classes that control it.

    Here he explains how, in its decision to invade Iraq, the Bush administration failed in its stewardship of American foreign policy. First, the administration wrongly made preventive war the central tenet of its foreign policy. In addition, it badly misjudged the global reaction to its exercise of “benevolent hegemony.” And finally, it failed to appreciate the difficulties involved in large-scale social engineering, grossly underestimating the difficulties involved in establishing a successful democratic government in Iraq.Fukuyama explores the contention by the Bush administration’s critics that it had a neoconservative agenda that dictated its foreign policy during the president’s first term.  Providing a fascinating history of the varied strands of neoconservative thought since the 1930s, Fukuyama argues that the movement’s legacy is a complex one that can be  interpreted quite differently than it was after the end of the Cold War. Analyzing the Bush administration’s miscalculations in responding to the post–September 11 challenge, Fukuyama proposes a new approach to American foreign policy through which such mistakes might be turned around—one in which the positive aspects of the neoconservative legacy are joined with a more realistic view of the way American power can be used around the world.

    But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In "Democracy Incorporated," Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"?Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level."Democracy Incorporated" is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come."

    'Lucidly written, comprehensive in coverage, based on expert understanding and insight.' Noam Chomsky

    A few weeks later it had completely collapsed. The disaster was mostly the responsibility of a 32-year-old trader named Brian Hunter, whose high-risk bets on natural gas prices bankrupted his firm and destroyed his career. Meanwhile, his rival at competitor fund Centaurus, John Arnold, emerged as the highest-paid trader on Wall Street and America's youngest billionaire. Meticulously researched and character driven, Hedge Hogs is a riveting, fly-on-the-wall account of the largest hedge-fund collapse in history: a blistering tale of the recent past that explains our precarious present and may predict our future.Through emails, instant messages, court testimony, and exclusive interviews, Hedge Hogs charts the colliding paths of two charismatic traders who dominated the speculative energy trading market. It follows Hunter, the Canadian farm boy and elbows-out high school basketball star, as he achieved phenomenal early success, only to see his ambition, greed, and hubris precipitate his downfall. At the center of Hunter's misfortune is Arnold, whose mild manner, sophisticated tastes, and low profile belie his own ferocious competitive streak. As the two clash, billions of dollars -- much of it in the form of pension and endowment money -- vanished.Hedge Hogs takes you behind closed doors into the shadowy world of hedge funds, the wild, unregulated frontier of finance, complete with lavish perks and over-the-top parties, where a tiny elite controls trillions of dollars of other people's money. The book traces the rise of this freewheeling industry while detailing the decades of deregulation -- of banks, of investment funds and of commodity trading -- that turned Wall Street into a casino for speculators.A gripping saga peppered with tales of fast money, vivid characters, and high drama, Hedge Hogs is also a cautionary tale that describes a financial system jeopardized by reckless practices, watered-down regulation, and regulatory loopholes, just waiting for the next bust.

    . . An open-eyed analysis of influential technology companies’ ambitions of interest to investors, tech users, and media consumers." —Library JournalIn Silicon States, renowned futurist and celebrated international think-tank leader Lucie Greene offers an unparalleled look at the players, promises, and potential problems of Big Tech. Through interviews with corporate leaders, influential venture capitalists, scholars, journalists, activists, and more, Greene explores the tension inherent in Silicon Valley’s global influence. If these companies can invent a social network, how might they soon transform our political and health-care systems? If they can revolutionize the cell phone, what might they do for space travel, education, or the housing market? As Silicon Valley faces increased scrutiny over its mistreatment of women, cultural shortcomings, and its role in widespread Russian election interference, we are learning where its interests truly lie, and about the great power these companies wield over an unsuspecting citizenry.While the promise of technology is seductive, it is important to understand these corporations’ possible impacts on our political and socioeconomic institutions. Greene emphasizes that before we hand our future over to a rarefied group of companies, we should examine the world they might build and confront its benefits, prejudices, and inherent flaws. Silicon States pushes us to ask if, ultimately, this is the future we really want.

    The authors present a boldly comprehensive, brilliant new theory to explain the comparative underdevelopment of the U.S. welfare state among advanced industrial nations. Their conceptual framework promises to shape the debate within current and future administrations as they attempt to rethink the welfare system and its role in American society."Uncompromising and provocative. . . . By mixing history, political interpretation and sociological analysis, Piven and Cloward provide the best explanation to date of our present situation . . . no future discussion of welfare can afford to ignore them." --Peter Steinfels, The New York Times Book Review

    Since the late 19th century, the Foster family had been hand-making running shoes, supplying the likes of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams - later immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire - as well as providing boots to most Football League clubs. But a family feud between Foster's father and uncle about the direction of their business led to Joe and his brother Jeff setting up a new company, inspired by the success of Adidas and Puma, and so Reebok was born. At first, money was so short that Joe and his wife had to live in their rundown factory, while the machinery that made the shoes was placed around the edge of the floor, because it was so weak it could have collapsed if they'd been positioned in the middle. But, from this inauspicious start, a major new player in the sports equipment field began to emerge, inspired by Joe's marketing vision. By the 1980s, Reebok had become a global phenomenon, when they were the first to latch onto the potential of the aerobics craze inspired by Jane Fonda. Soon, Reeboks were being seen on Hollywood red carpets and even in the film Aliens , where Sigourney Weaver wore a pair of Reebok Alien Stompers.  Like the international bestseller Shoe Dog, by Nike's Phil Knight, Shoemaker is a powerful tale of triumph against all the odds, revealing the challenges and sacrifices that go into creating a world-beating brand; it is also the story of how a small local business can transform itself, with the right products and the right vision, into something much, much bigger.

    Men like Andrew Carnegie built empires like Carnegie Steel, and financiers like J.P. Morgan merged and consolidated them. The era also made names like Astor, Cooke, and Vanderbilt instantly recognizable across the globe. Over time, the unfathomable wealth generated by the businesses made the individuals on top incredibly rich, and that in turn led to immense criticism and an infamous epithet used to rail against them: robber barons. Dozens of men were called “robber barons”, but few of them were as notorious as Cornelius Vanderbilt, who also happened to be one of the nation’s first business titans. Vanderbilt was a railroad and shipping magnate at a time that the industry was almost brand new, but he rode his success to become one of the richest and most powerful men in American history. When historians are asked to name the richest man in history, a name that often pops up is that of John D. Rockefeller, who co-founded Standard Oil and turned it into the first real trust in the United States. Rockefeller had been groomed ambitiously by a huckster father nicknamed “Devil Bill”, who was just as willing to cheat his son as an unsuspecting public, and John certainly chased his dreams of living long and large. Rockefeller forged his empire in the first few decades of his life and nearly worked himself to death by the time he was 50, which helped compel him to retire for the last several decades of his life. At one point, Rockefeller’s wealth was worth more than 1.5% of the entire country’s gross domestic product, and by adjusting for inflation, he is arguably the richest man in American history if not world history. When robber barons across America took the reins of vast industries, they needed financing, and many of them turned to the most famous banker of all: John Pierpont Morgan. It was J.P. Morgan who bankrolled the consolidation of behemoth corporations across various industries, including the merging of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company, which subsequently became General Electric, still known simply as GE across the world today. Similarly, he financed Federal Steel Company and consolidated various other steel businesses to help form the United States Steel Corporation. While critics complained about the outsized influence that these gigantic businesses had, Morgan’s massive wealth also gave him unprecedented power in the financial sector and the ability to deal with politicians. In fact, Morgan played an important part in the Panic of 1907 and the subsequent decision to create the Federal Reserve as a monetary oversight. Ironically, one of America’s most famous robber barons, Andrew Carnegie, epitomized the American Dream, migrating with his poor family to America in the mid-19th century and rising to the top of the business world in his adopted country. A prodigious writer in addition to his keen sense of business, Carnegie was one of the most outspoken champions of capitalism at a time when there was pushback among lower social classes who witnessed the great disparities in wealth; as he once put it, “Upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends—the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions.

    Ross I.S. Zbar spent his career as a plastic surgeon, in the US as well as abroad in developing countries, mending disease- and trauma-related deformities--and he was never hesitant to make his voice heard as an advocate for better patient care.Then, on a warm December day in 2018, Ross suffered a trauma that nearly took his life, putting him into the hands of his profession in a way he never anticipated. While his life was ultimately saved, his journey to wellness within the conventional medical establishment--from three weeks in the ICU to in-patient rehab--was nothing short of nightmarish. Frequently sedated and physically restrained, he was inundated with mental, emotional, and sensory evidence of an industry gone haywire, experiencing clearly from the patient side what he had only touched on as an advocate.Vowing to be an even stronger voice for change, Ross used the power of his mind to recover faster than any of his doctors predicted. Floating Feathers not only recounts his compelling story but elucidates a thoughtful and authoritative critical call to the members of his beloved profession for a massive overhaul."We possess the technology and the brilliant minds to motivate this level of sweeping change so desperately required," he says. "We simply need to champion it as a non-negotiable priority."This profoundly personal yet overarchingly relative book endeavors to be a vital first step toward that goal.

    Liberal democracy, history's greatest engine of growth, now struggles to overcome unprecedented economic headwinds -- from aging populations to scarce resources to unsustainable debt burdens. Hobbled by short-term thinking and ideological dogma, democracies risk falling prey to nationalism and protectionism that will deliver declining living standards. In Edge of Chaos, Dambisa Moyo shows why economic growth is essential to global stability, and why liberal democracies are failing to produce it today. Rather than turning away from democracy, she argues, we must fundamentally reform it. Edge of Chaos presents a radical blueprint for change in order to galvanize growth and ensure the survival of democracy in the twenty-first century.