The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America--and What We Can Do to Stop It
Thom Hartmann - 2013
In THE CRASH OF 2016, Thom Hartmann argues that the facade of our once-great United States will soon disintegrate to reveal the rotting core where corporate and billionaire power and greed have replaced democratic infrastructure and governance. Our once-enlightened political and economic systems have been manipulated to ensure the success of only a fraction of the population at the expense of the rest of us. The result is a "for the rich, by the rich" scheme leading to policies that only benefit the highest bidders. Hartmann outlines the destructive forces-planted by Lewis Powell in 1971 and come to fruition with the "Reagan Revolution"-that have looted our nation over the past decade, and how their actions fit into a cycle of American history that lets such forces rise to power every four generations. However, a backlash is now palpable against the "economic royalists"-a term coined by FDR to describe those hoarding power and wealth-including the banksters, oligarchs, and politicians who have plunged our nation into economic chaos and social instability. Although we are in the midst of what could become the most catastrophic economic crash in American History, a way forward is emerging, just as it did in the previous great crashes of the 1760s, 1856, and 1929. The choices we make now will redefine American culture. Before us stands a genuine opportunity to embrace the moral motive over the profit motive-and to rebuild the American economic model that once yielded great success. Thoroughly researched and passionately argued, THE CRASH OF 2016 is not just a roadmap to redemption in post-Crash America, but a critical wake-up call, challenging us to act. Only if the right reforms are enacted and the moral choices are made, can we avert disaster and make our nation whole again.
Strange History
Bathroom Readers' Institute - 2016
From the 20th century to the Old West, from the Age of Enlightenment to the Dark Ages, from ancient cultures all the way back to the dawn of time, Strange History is overflowing with mysterious artifacts, macabre legends, kooky inventions, reality-challenged rulers, boneheaded blunders, and mind-blowing facts. Read about…*The curse of Macbeth*Stupid history: Hollywood style*The secret LSD experiments of the 1960s*In search of the lost “Cloud People” of Peru*The Swedish queen who declared war on fleas*Unearthing the past with the Outhouse Detectives*The Apollo astronaut who swears he saw a UFO*How to brew a batch of 5,000-year-old beer*The brutal bloodbaths at Rome’s Coliseum*Ghostly soup from ancient China*The bathroom of the 1970s And much, much more!
Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits
Kevin Roose - 2014
Every year, thousands of eager college graduates are hired by the world's financial giants, where they're taught the secrets of making obscene amounts of money-- as well as how to dress, talk, date, drink, and schmooze like real financiers. Young Money is the inside story of this well-guarded world. Kevin Roose, New York magazine business writer and author of the critically acclaimed The Unlikely Disciple, spent more than three years shadowing eight entry-level workers at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and other leading investment firms. Roose chronicled their triumphs and disappointments, their million-dollar trades and runaway Excel spreadsheets, and got an unprecedented (and unauthorized) glimpse of the financial world's initiation process. Roose's young bankers are exposed to the exhausting workloads, huge bonuses, and recreational drugs that have always characterized Wall Street life. But they experience something new, too: an industry forever changed by the massive financial collapse of 2008. And as they get their Wall Street educations, they face hard questions about morality, prestige, and the value of their work.Young Money is more than an expose of excess; it's the story of how the financial crisis changed a generation-and remade Wall Street from the bottom up.
Barbarians Led by Bill Gates: Microsoft From The Inside: How The World's Richest Corporation Wields Its Power
Jennifer Edstrom - 1998
District Judge Stanley Sporkin. Teamed with the daughter of one of Bill Gates's closest associates, thirteen-year Microsoft veteran Marlin Eller shows us what it was like at every step along Gates's route to world domination, making all that's been written before seem like a rough guess. If the Justice Department had Eller and Edstrom investigating the current-headline-making antitrust case, they would have on the record many of Microsoft's most respected developers directly contradicting the "authorized" version of events being presented in court. They would know the real scoop on how Windows was developed in the first place, shedding new light on the 1988 Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit over the alleged copying of the Mac. They would even know the real story of how Microsoft killed off Go Corporation, told for the first time by the man who did the deed, Marlin Eller himself. Revealing the smoke-and-mirror deals, the palms greased to help launch a product that didn't exist, and the boneyard of once-thriving competitors targeted by the Gates juggernaut, this book demonstrates with often hilariously damning detail the Microsoft muddle that passes for strategic direction, offset by Gates's uncanny ability to come from behind to crush whoever's on top.
If you want to learn Early African History START HERE (Reklaw Education Lecture Series)
Robin Oliver Walker - 2011
Moreover, the achievements of the early people of Africa are as amazing and inspiring as the achievements of any other people.This history is much older than the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.The author introduces his readers to the early civilizations of Africa that existed long before the coming of the Europeans. Among these were the Songhai Empire, the Benin Empire, the Kanem-Borno Empire, the Monomotapa Empire, the Swahili Confederation, the Medieval Nubian kingdoms and the Axumite Empire.The author also introduces the ancient civilizations of Africa particularly those of the Nile Valley such as Nubia and Ancient Egypt.The book is illustrated with 18 images and maps. Finally, the book recommends other books for more in depth study.
Ethereum: The Ultimate Guide to the World of Ethereum, Ethereum Mining, Ethereum Investing, Smart Contracts, Dapps and DAOs, Ether, Blockchain Technology
Ikuya Takashima - 2017
This book is going to provide you with everything you need to know about Ethereum and whether it is worth investing in now. Like many people, I became interested in Bitcoin years ago, when Bitcoin was still relatively new, but hinting at a huge profit margin for those who took the risk and invested. It was after a couple of years playing around on the Bitcoin market that I heard about a new type of blockchain technology, one that wasn’t just a digital form of payment, but one that could support potentially endless different types of applications. Not only that, but it comes with its own currency. This, to me, sounded like a potentially profitable situation, so I decided to dig a little deeper. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum is still largely unknown to those who don’t keep up with the cryptocurrency world, so the amount of information available is limited or highly technical. Still, it was fascinating and the more I read about Ethereum, the more I began to see its huge potential. And I’m not alone. More and more Fortune 500 companies are investing in Ethereum technology as it becomes increasingly lucrative and poises to change business processes as we know them. I decided to condense my research and share my knowledge on Ethereum by writing this book. The book is designed for those who are new to cryptocurrency, but want to invest in it or learn more about it, as well as for more experienced traders looking to expand their portfolios. With a 5,000% increase in value in the first few months of 2017, Ethereum is proving to be a profitable currency. Still, as it is so new – it was only launched in 2015 – it comes with many infancy-related risks. It’s partly this that makes it so exciting. This book will help you make your own investment decisions and decide if Ethereum is the right coin for you after weighing up the pros and cons that are presented here. So far, Ethereum has made me good money and I was lucky to make the investment when I did. However, now is not too late to invest, not by a long shot. In fact, now is the perfect moment to make the most of Ethereum’s infancy and gain potential first-mover advantages. Ethereum’s technology is only at the beginning of its potential growth stages, possibly reaching to dozens of industries and thousands of services. If its technology is adopted the way it is expected to be, Ethereum will enjoy a long and lucrative spot at the top. The profits are ripe for the taking. Here Is A Preview Of What’s Included… What Is Ethereum? Smart Contracts, Dapps, And DAOs The Technology Behind Ethereum What Is Ethereum Mining? Uses Of Ethereum What Is Ether? The Financial History Of Ether How to Buy, Sell, And Store Ether The Mining Process Of Ether Should I Invest In Ether? The Future Of Ethereum Much, Much More! Get your copy today!
A Brief History of Britain 1066-1485
Nicholas Vincent - 2010
Over the next four hundred years, under royal dynasties that looked principally to France for inspiration and ideas, an English identity was born, based in part upon struggle for control over the other parts of the British Isles (Scotland, Wales and Ireland), in part upon rivalry with the kings of France. From these struggles emerged English law and an English Parliament, the English language, English humour and England’s first overseas empires.In this thrilling and accessible account, Nicholas Vincent not only tells the story of the rise and fall of dynasties, but investigates the lives and obsessions of a host of lesser men and women, from archbishops to peasants, and from soldiers to scholars, upon whose enterprise the social and intellectual foundations of Englishness now rest.This the first book in the four volume Brief History of Britain which brings together some of the leading historians to tell our nation’s story from the Norman Conquest of 1066 to the present-day. Combining the latest research with accessible and entertaining story telling, it is the ideal introduction for students and general readers.
Wartime Farm
Peter Ginn - 2012
Accompanying an 8-part BBC series and written by the three presenters who spend a year living on a reconstructed farm from the era, Wartime Farm sets these changes within a historical context and looks at the day-to-day life of that time. Exploring a fascinating chapter in Britain's recent history, we see how our predecessors lived and thrived in difficult conditions with extreme frugality and ingenuity. From growing your own vegetables and keeping chickens in the back yard, to having to 'make do and mend', many of the challenges faced by wartime Britons have resonance today. Fascinating historical detail and atmospheric story-telling make this a truly compelling read.
Oil: Money, Politics, and Power in the 21st Century
Tom Bower - 2009
Oil Money, Politics, and Power in the 21st Century Twenty years ago oil cost about $7 a barrel. In 2008 the price soared to $148 and then fell to below $40. In the midst of this extraordinary volatility, the major oil conglomerates still spent over a trillion dollars in an increasingly frantic search for more. The story of oil is a story of high stakes and extreme risk. It is the story of the crushing rivalries between men and women exploring for oil five miles beneath the sea, battling for control of the world's biggest corporations, and gambling billions of dollars twenty-four hours every day on oil's prices. It is the story of corporate chieftains in Dallas and London, traders in New York, oil-oligarchs in Moscow, and globe-trotting politicians-all maneuvering for power. With the world as his canvas, acclaimed investigative reporter Tom Bower gathers unprecedented firsthand information from hundreds of sources to give readers the definitive, untold modern history of oil . . . the ultimate story of arrogance, intrigue, and greed.
The Triumph Of The Political Class
Peter Oborne - 2007
The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation
Michael Perelman - 2000
But, in the great texts of that discourse, these writers downplayed a crucial requirement for capitalism’s creation: For it to succeed, peasants would have to abandon their self-sufficient lifestyle and go to work for wages in a factory. Why would they willingly do this? Clearly, they did not go willingly. As Michael Perelman shows, they were forced into the factories with the active support of the same economists who were making theoretical claims for capitalism as a self-correcting mechanism that thrived without needing government intervention. Directly contradicting the laissez-faire principles they claimed to espouse, these men advocated government policies that deprived the peasantry of the means for self-provision in order to coerce these small farmers into wage labor. To show how Adam Smith and the other classical economists appear to have deliberately obscured the nature of the control of labor and how policies attacking the economic independence of the rural peasantry were essentially conceived to foster primitive accumulation, Perelman examines diaries, letters, and the more practical writings of the classical economists. He argues that these private and practical writings reveal the real intentions and goals of classical political economy—to separate a rural peasantry from their access to land. This rereading of the history of classical political economy sheds important light on the rise of capitalism to its present state of world dominance. Historians of political economy and Marxist thought will find that this book broadens their understanding of how capitalism took hold in the industrial age.
Accidental India: A History of The Nation's Passage Through Crisis and Change
Shankkar Aiyar - 2012
He argues that these turning points in the country’s history were not the result of foresight or careful planning but were rather the accidental consequences of major crises that had to be resolved at any cost.