High rent is a problem for all of us, extending beyond personal financial strain. High rent drags on our country’s overall rate of economic growth, damages the environment, and promotes long commutes, traffic jams, misery, and smog. Yet instead of a serious focus on the issue, America’s cities feature niche conversations about the availability of “affordable housing” for poor people. Yglesias’s book changes the conversation for the first time, presenting newfound context for the issue and real-time, practical solutions for the problem.

    

    Trump proclaimed, “The American Dream is dead,” a message that resonated across the country. Washington Examiner editor Timothy Carney traveled Middle America, pored over county-level maps and data, and sorted through sociological studies, and had a startling revelation: Donald Trump is right, but the death of the American Dream is a social phenomenon, not an economic one.In some parts of the United States, life seems to be getting worse because citizens are facing their problems alone. These communities have seen declines in marriage, voting, church attendance, and volunteer work. Even when money comes back to town, happiness does not return if people there do not reengage. The educated and wealthy elites, on the other hand, tend to live in places where institutions are strong, or have enough money to insulate themselves.Carney visits all corners of America, from the dim country bars of southwestern Pennsylvania to the bustling Mormon wards of Salt Lake City, and provides the most important data and research to explain why failing social connections are responsible for the great divide in America. Alienated America confirms the conservative suspicion that these places can’t be fixed with job-training programs or more entitlement spending, and backs up the liberal belief that new Trump voters aren’t coming to his rallies for the corporate tax cuts and Obamacare repeal.Tim Carney will change the way you look at the challenges facing modern America and present a framework for leading us out of the wilderness.

    Klein and Michael Pettis show in this book, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees.   Klein and Pettis trace the origins of today’s trade wars to decisions made by politicians and business leaders in China, Europe, and the United States over the past thirty years. Across the world, the rich have prospered while workers can no longer afford to buy what they produce, have lost their jobs, or have been forced into higher levels of debt. In this thought-provoking challenge to mainstream views, the authors provide a cohesive narrative that shows how the class wars of rising inequality are a threat to the global economy and international peace—and what we can do about it.

    The exception was Merrill Lynch, a firm that revolutionized the stock market by bringing Wall Street to Main Street, setting up offices in far-flung cities and towns long ignored by the giants of finance. With its "thundering herd" of financial advisers, perhaps no other business, whether in financial services or elsewhere, so epitomized the American spirit. Merrill Lynch was not only "bullish on America," it was a big reason why so many average Americans were able to grow wealthy by investing in the stock market. Merrill Lynch was an icon. Its sudden decline, collapse, and sale to Bank of America was a shock. How did it happen? Why did it happen? And what does this story of greed, hubris, and incompetence tell us about the culture of Wall Street that continues to this day even though it came close to destroying the American economy? A culture in which the CEO of a firm losing $28 billion pushes hard to be paid a $25 million bonus. A culture in which two Merrill Lynch executives are guaranteed bonuses of $30 million and $40 million for four months' work, even while the firm is struggling to reduce its losses by firing thousands of employees. Based on unparalleled sources at both Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, Greg Farrell's "Crash of the Titans" is a Shakespearean saga of three flawed masters of the universe. E. Stanley O'Neal, whose inspiring rise from the segregated South to the corner office of Merrill Lynch--where he engineered a successful turnaround--was undone by his belief that a smooth-talking salesman could handle one of the most difficult jobs on Wall Street. Because he enjoyed O'Neal's support, this executive was allowed to build up an astonishing $30 billion position in CDOs on the firm's balance sheet, at a time when all other Wall Street firms were desperately trying to exit the business. After O'Neal comes John Thain, the cerebral, MIT-educated technocrat whose rescue of the New York Stock Exchange earned him the nickname "Super Thain." He was hired to save Merrill Lynch in late 2007, but his belief that the markets would rebound led him to underestimate the depth of Merrill's problems. Finally, we meet Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, a street fighter raised barely above the poverty line in rural Georgia, whose "my way or the highway" management style suffers fools more easily than potential rivals, and who made a $50 billion commitment over a September weekend to buy a business he really didn't understand, thus jeopardizing his own institution. The merger itself turns out to be a bizarre combination of cultures that blend like oil and water, where slick Wall Street bankers suddenly find themselves reporting to a cast of characters straight out of the "Beverly Hillbillies." BofA's inbred culture, which perceived New York banks its enemies, was based on loyalty and a good-ol'-boy network in which competence played second fiddle to blind obedience."Crash of the Titans" is a financial thriller that puts you in the theater as the historic events of the financial crisis unfold and people responsible for billion of dollars of other people's money gamble recklessly to enhance their power and their paychecks or to save their own skins. Its wealth of never-before-revealed information and focus on two icons of corporate America make it the book that puts together all the pieces of the Wall Street disaster.

    Historian Ben Wilson, author of bestselling and award-winning books on British history, now tells the grand, glorious story of how city living has allowed human culture to flourish. Beginning with Uruk, the world's first city, dating to 5000 BC and memorably portrayed in the Epic of Gilgamesh, he shows us that cities were never a necessity but that once they existed their density created such a blossoming of human endeavor--producing new professions, forms of art, worship, and trade--that they kick-started nothing less than civilization. Guiding readers through famous cities over 7,000 years, he reveals the innovations driven by each: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in ninth-century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Epoque Paris. In the modern age, he studies the impact of verticality in New York City, the sprawl of L.A., and the eco-reimagining of twenty-first-century Shanghai. Lively, erudite, page turning, and irresistible, Metropolis is a grand tour of human achievement.

    In this deft and revealing book, Stacy Mitchell illustrates how mega-retailers are fueling many of our most pressing problems, from the shrinking middle class to rising pollution and diminished civic engagement—and she shows how a growing number of communities and independent businesses are effectively fighting back. Mitchell traces the dramatic growth of mega-retailers—from big boxes like Wal-Mart, The Home Depot, Costco, and Staples to chains like Starbucks, Olive Garden, and Old Navy—and the precipitous decline of independent businesses. Drawing on examples from virtually every state in the country, she unearths the extraordinary impact of these companies and the big-box mentality on everything from soaring gasoline consumption to rising poverty rates, failing family farms, and declining voting levels. Along the way, Mitchell exposes the shocking role government policy has played in the expansion of mega-retailers and builds a compelling case that communities composed of many small, locally owned businesses are healthier and more prosperous than those dominated by a few large chains.More than a critique, Big-Box Swindle provides an invigorating account of how some communities have successfully countered the spread of big boxes and rebuilt their local economies. Since 2000, groups of ordinary citizens have halted more than two hundred big-box development projects, and scores of towns and cities have adopted laws that favor small-scale, local business development and limit the proliferation of chains. From cutting-edge land-use policies to innovative cooperative small-business initiatives, Mitchell offers communities concrete strategies that can stave off mega-retailers and create a more prosperous and sustainable future.

    The authors believe that an effective managerial economics book must go beyond the nuts and bolts of economic analysis to show how these economic analysis techniques are used by practicing managers.

    Carnegie's commitment to ensuring and promoting the welfare of his fellow human beings through philanthropic deeds ranged from donations to universities and museums to establishing more than 2,500 public libraries in the English-speaking world, and he gave away more than $350 million toward those efforts during his lifetime. The Gospel of Wealth is an eloquent testament to the importance of charitable giving for the public good.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    An urban landscape littered with ghost towns of empty property. Industrial zones stalked by zombie firms. Trade tariffs blocking the path to global markets.And yet, against the odds and against expectations, growth continues, wealth rises, international influence expands. The coming collapse of China is always coming, never arriving.Thomas Orlik, a veteran of more than a decade in Beijing, turns the spotlight on China's fragile fundamentals, and resources for resilience. Drawing on discussions with Communist cadres, shadow bankers, and migrant workers, Orlik pieces together a unique perspective on China's past, present, and possible futures.From Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening to Donald Trump's trade war, Orlik traces the policy steps and missteps that have taken China to the brink of a "Lehman moment" credit crisis. Delving into the balance sheets for banks, corporates, and local governments, he plumbs the depths of financial risks. From Japan in 1989, to Korea in 1997, to the U.S. in 2007, he positions China in the context of a rolling series of global crisis.Mapping possible scenarios, Orlik games out what will happens if the bubble that never pops finally does. The magnitude of the shock to China and the world would be tremendous. For those in the West nervously watching China's rise as a geopolitical challenger, the alternative could be even less palatable.

    There are conflicting opinions as to what should be done. Some call for dramatic increases to achieve longstanding promises. Others bang the drum for cutting it altogether, and suggest putting the fate of poor and vulnerable people in the hands of markets or business. A few argue that what is needed is creative, innovative transformation. The arguments in Aid on the Edge of Chaos are firmly in the third of these categories. In this ground-breaking book, Ben Ramalingam shows that the linear, mechanistic models and assumptions that foreign aid is built on are more at home in early twentieth century industry than in the dynamic, complex world we face today. The reality is that economies and societies are less like machines and more like ecosystems. Aid on the Edge of Chaos explores how thinkers and practitioners in economics, business, and public policy have started to embrace new, ecologically literate approaches to thinking and acting, informed by the ideas of complex adaptive systems research. It showcases insights, experiences, and dramatic results of a growing network of practitioners, researchers, and policy makers who are applying a complexity-informed approach to aid challenges. From transforming approaches to child malnutrition, to rethinking process of macroeconomic growth, from rural Vietnam to urban Columbia, Aid on the Edge of Chaos shows how embracing the ideas of complex systems thinking can help make foreign aid more relevant, more appropriate, more innovative, and more catalytic. It argues that taking on these ideas will be a vital part of the transformation of aid, from a post-WW2 mechanism of resource transfer, to a truly innovative and dynamic form of global cooperation fit for the twenty-first century.

    It is also widely used by managers in both the services and manufacturing sectors. Now in its fifth edition, Managing Innovation has been fully revised and now comes with a fully interactive e-book housing an impressive array of videos, cases, exercises and tools to bring innovation to life. The book is also accompanied by the Innovation Portal at www.innovation-portal.info which contains an extensive collection of additional digital resources for both lecturers and students.Features: The Research Notes and Views from the Front Line feature boxes strengthen the evidence-based and practical approach making this a must read for anyone studying or working within innovationThe Innovation Portal www.innovation-portal.info is an essential resource for both student and lecturer and includes the Innovation Toolkit - a fully searchable array of practical innovation tools along with a compendium of cases, exercises, tools and videosThe interactive e-book that accompanies the text provides enriched content to deepen the readers understanding of innovation concepts

     • Scores of laid-off San Franciscans, working without any licenses, use Twitter to sell home-cooked foods.  • Dozens of major multinationals sell products through unregistered kiosks and street vendors around the world.  When we think of the informal economy, we tend to think of crime: prostitution, gun running, drug trafficking. Stealth of Nations opens up this underground realm, showing how the worldwide informal economy deals mostly in legal products and is, in fact, a ten-trillion-dollar industry, making it the second-largest economy in the world, after that of the United States. Having penetrated this closed world and persuaded its inhabitants to open up to him, Robert Neuwirth makes clear that this informal method of transaction dates back as far as humans have existed and traded, that it provides essential services and crucial employment that fill the gaps in formal systems, and that this unregulated market works smoothly and effectively, with its own codes and unwritten rules. Combining a vivid travelogue with a firm grasp on global economic strategy—along with a healthy dose of irreverence and skepticism toward conventional perceptions—Neuwirth gives us an eye-opening account of a world that is always operating around us, hidden in plain sight.

    It has crippled the country’s economy for a long time to come. In this book, Arun Kumar, the country’s leading authority on the black economy, tells us why Modi’s gambit failed. He shows us the way in which the problem can be rooted out, provided the government has the political will and determination to act.Today, the black economy is estimated to be 62 per cent of GDP—or about `93 lakh crore ($1.4 trillion). Corrupt businessmen, corrupt politicians, and corrupt members of the executive (bureaucrats, police and the judiciary) are responsible for controlling the black economy and enabling its growth. If the black economy were to be dismantled and turned into a part of the ‘white’ economy, the country’s rate of growth would be 12 per cent. If it had not grown the way it has since the 1970s, India’s per capita income today would be approximately `7 lakh per annum ($11,000) and India would become the second largest economy in the world. If the black economy were taxed at current rates, it would generate `37 lakh crore in additional taxes and the union budget would show a surplus of `31 lakh crore instead of a deficit.The failure of successive governments to tackle the problem effectively has been the single biggest obstacle to eradicating poverty. It is the cause of both widespread policy failure and the inability of the nation to improve its living conditions rapidly.

    His tragic suicide in 2013 at the age of twenty-six after being aggressively prosecuted for copyright infringement shocked the nation and the world.Here for the first time in print is revealed the quintessential Aaron Swartz: besides being a technical genius and a passionate activist, he was also an insightful, compelling, and cutting essayist. With a technical understanding of the Internet and of intellectual property law surpassing that of many seasoned professionals, he wrote thoughtfully and humorously about intellectual property, copyright, and the architecture of the Internet. He wrote as well about unexpected topics such as pop culture, politics both electoral and idealistic, dieting, and lifehacking. Including three in-depth and previously unpublished essays about education, governance, and cities, The Boy Who Could Change the World contains the life’s work of one of the most original minds of our time.