Why are there wars? Why do countries have a hard time cooperating to prevent genocides or global environmental problems? Why are some countries rich while others are poor? Organized around the puzzles that draw scholars and students alike to the study of world politics, this book gives students the tools they need to think analytically about compelling questions like these.World Politics introduces a contemporary analytical framework based on interests, interactions, and institutions. Drawing extensively on recent research, the authors use this flexible framework throughout the text to get students thinking like political scientists as they explore the major topics in international relations. .

    He then gave a disastrous speech in Cairo in which he apologized for the United State's alleged misdeeds, bowed to the Saudi King whose government funds Islamic jihad worldwide, and praised the new Islamist government in Turkey after the Turkish-sponsored "Gaza Flotilla" incident. But perhaps the most troubling aspects of his plan to hit the "reset" button with Islam have been his abandonment of Israel as a way of currying favor with Muslim autocracies and his efforts to hamstring our intelligence community by effectively banning the truth about Islam. Now into his second term, it is hard to imagine that the consequences of his actions will not eventually be catastrophic.

    A unifying framework uses a few core principles to organize readers' thinking then examines the models as real-world scenarios from a practitioner's perspective. By analyzing these applications, readers develop the critical-thinking and problem-solving skills necessary to respond to challenging situations in their future careers. Introduction: Why Study Financial Markets and Institutions?; Overview of the Financial System. Fundamentals of Financial Markets: What Do Interest Rates Mean and What Is Their Role in Valuation?; Why Do Interest Rates Change?; How Do Risk and Term Structure Affect Interest Rates?; Are Financial Markets Efficient? Central Banking and the Conduct of Monetary Policy: Structure of Central Banks and the Federal Reserve System; Conduct of Monetary Policy: Tools, Goals, Strategy, and Tactics. Financial Markets: The Money Markets; The Bond Market; The Stock Market; The Mortgage Markets; The Foreign Exchange Market; The International Financial System. Fundamentals of Financial Institutions: Why Do Financial Institutions Exist?; What Should Be Done About Conflicts of Interest? A Central Issue in Business Ethics. The Financial Institutions Industry: Banking and the Management of Financial Institutions; Commercial Banking Industry: Structure and Competition; Savings Associations and Credit Unions; Banking Regulation; The Mutual Fund Industry; Insurance Companies and Pension Funds; Investment Banks, Security Brokers and Dealers, and Venture Capital Firms. The Management of Financial Institutions: Risk Management in Financial Institutions; Hedging with Financial Derivatives. On the Web: Finance Companies. For all readers interested in financial markets and institutions.

    While philanthropy continues to be a transformative force for good, global philanthropic funds, even when combined with the development or aid budgets of many national governments, add up to mere billions of dollars. Meanwhile, the cost of solving the world’s problems runs into the trillions.In The Power of Impact Investing, Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin and Margot Brandenburg, two of the foremost experts in the field, explain what impact investing is, how it compares to philanthropy and traditional investments, where opportunities are evolving around the world, and how to get started.By sharing moving stories of impact investors and the exciting social enterprises benefiting from these investments, Rodin and Brandenburg offer a compelling resource for anyone interested in better understanding the power of impact investing—including retail investors, high-net-worth individuals, and heads of family offices, foundations, banks, and pension funds—while also offering experienced impact investors an opportunity to deepen their knowledge and benefit from the perspectives of other investors.

    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.

    Our long history of illicit imports has ranged from West Indies molasses and Dutch gunpowder in the 18th century, to British industrial technologies and African slaves in the 19th century, to French condoms and Canadian booze in the early 20th century, to Mexican workers and Colombian cocaine in the modern era. Contraband capitalism, it turns out, has been an integral part of American capitalism.Providing a sweeping narrative history from colonial times to the present, Smuggler Nation is now available in paperback to retell the story of America -- and of its engagement with its neighbors and the rest of the world -- as a series of highly contentious battles over clandestine commerce. As Peter Andreas demonstrates in this provocative and fascinating work, smuggling has played a pivotal and too often overlooked role in America's birth, westward expansion, and economic development, while anti-smuggling campaigns have dramatically enhanced the federal government's policing powers. The great irony, Andreas tells us, is that a country that was born and grew up through smuggling is today the world's leading anti-smuggling crusader. In tracing America's long and often tortuous relationship with the murky underworld of smuggling, Andreas provides a much-needed antidote to today's hyperbolic depictions of out-of-control borders and growing global crime threats. Urgent calls by politicians and pundits to regain control of the nation's borders suffer from a severe case of historical amnesia, nostalgically implying that they were ever actually under control. This is pure mythology, says Andreas. For better and for worse, America's borders have always been highly porous. Far from being a new and unprecedented danger to America, the illicit underside of globalization is actually an old American tradition. As Andreas shows, it goes back not just decades but centuries. And its impact has been decidedly double-edged, not only subverting U.S. laws but also helping to fuel America's evolution from a remote British colony to the world's pre-eminent superpower.

    What's complicated is what we do with money. We use money to soothe our feelings and buy respect, to show how much we care or how little. We don't simply earn, save, and spend money: we flirt with it, crave it, and scorn it; we punish and reward ourselves with it.Without realizing it, we give money meaning it doesn't really have--what former psychiatrist and current business coach David Krueger calls our "money story." And in the process of playing out that money story, we often sacrifice the most important things in our life: our health, freedom, relationships, and happiness.What is your money story?Do you consistently spend more than you have?Do you follow the herd in your investments--even though you know the herd is usually wrong?Have you neglected to save for the future, even when you have the means?Do you feel controlled or shackled by debt?Is your money somehow never "enough"?Is money, or the lack of it, always on your mind?The Secret Language of Money is a guided tour to the subconscious meanings we give money, the conflicted ways our braindeals with money, the reasons we tend to make the same money mistakes over and over--and most importantly, how you can change all that.A brilliant blend of cutting-edge science and real-world application, The Secret Language of Money helps you rewrite your money story and find that elusive balance of wealth, health, and joy we all seek.

    In Maestro, Bob Woodward uses his proven interviewing and research techniques to take you inside the Fed and Greenspan's thinking. Woodward presents the Greenspan years as a gripping narrative, a remarkable portrait of a man who has become the symbol of American economic preeminence.

    'Poisoned Wells' exposes the root causes of this paradox of poverty from plenty.

    And he demonstrates how much better off we'd be by making government much smaller. Most important, he provides a realistic blueprint for getting from where we are now to a small government and a freer, more prosperous society.

    But few know the palace intrigue behind their long-standing triangular relationship. Going behind the headlines, documentaries and mini-series, PRINCE ANDREW exposes for the first time the unknown details of the Epstein scandal behind secretive palace gates and how it impacted on the power struggle between Andrew and his older brother Prince Charles.Rife with machinations and plots, it paints a rare and riveting, insider picture of vice and rarified daily life at the royal court. It is an unbelievable story how a boy from Coney Island befriended the world's foremost royal family. PRINCE ANDREW casts a truly eye-watering light on one of the dirtiest stories of our time, giving the reader much-needed forensic insight into all the facts, allegations and counter-allegations.

    He has launched and grown his own highly successful businesses and mentored dozens of entrepreneurs, helping them build their own successful companies.Built, Not Born shows readers:How going against the grain can be a great strategy for finding business opportunities and why it pays to question conventional wisdom.Why the pregnant pause can be an effective weapon in negotiations and when interviewing potential employees.Why a prenuptial or even a postnuptial agreement is critical to any business owner.What potential buyers and funding sources look for, and the best way to present a business plan.And finally, the key growth and leadership strategies that have helped Paychex sustain its incredible level of growth and profitability.

    Written not from a post-crisis perspective – but from a preventative point of view – this book traces the development of financial derivatives from bonds to credit default swaps, and shows how mathematical formulas went beyond pricing to expand their use to the point where they dwarfed the real economy. You'll learn how the deadly allure of their ice-cold beauty has misled generations of economists and investors, and how continued reliance on these formulas can either assist future economic development, or send the global economy into the financial equivalent of a cardiac arrest. Rather than rehash tales of post-crisis fallout, this book focuses on preventing the next one. By exploring the heart of the shadow economy, you'll be better prepared to ride the rough waves of finance into the turbulent future. Delve into one of the world's least-understood but highest-impact industries Understand the key principles of quantitative finance and the evolution of the field Learn what quantitative finance has become, and how it affects us all Discover how the industry's next steps dictate the economy's future How do you create a quadrillion dollars out of nothing, blow it away and leave a hole so large that even years of "quantitative easing" can't fill it – and then go back to doing the same thing? Even amidst global recovery, the financial system still has the potential to seize up at any moment. The Money Formula explores the how and why of financial disaster, what must happen to prevent the next one.

    Until that moment, the United States used military power to defend against threats (real and perceived) that its leaders thought would either weaken America's position in the world order or--in the worst case--threaten the homeland. For the first time ever, the United States militarily was now actively involved in states that represented no threat, and with missions that were largely humanitarian and socio-political. After establishing the Kurdish no-fly zone, the US in quick succession intervened in Somalia, Haiti, and Kosovo. Even after 9/11, it decided that it had a duty to not just invade Iraq, but reconstruct Iraqi society along Western lines. In Mission Failure, the eminent international relations scholar Michael Mandelbaum provides a sweeping interpretive history of American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era to show why this new approach was doomed to failure. America had always adhered to a mission-based foreign policy, but in the post-Cold War era it swung away from security concerns to a near-exclusive emphasis on implanting Western institutions wherever it could. Many good things happened in this era, including a broad expansion of democracy and strong growth in the global economy. But the U.S. never had either the capacity or the will to change societies that were dramatically different from our own. Over two decades later, we can see the wreckage: a broken Iraq a teetering Afghanistan, a China that laughs at our demands that they adopt a human rights regime, and a still-impoverished Haiti. Mandelbaum does not deny that American foreign policy has always had a strong ideological component. Instead, he argues that emphasizing that particular feature generally leads to mission failure. We are able to defend ourselves well and effectively project power, but we have very little capacity to change other societies. If nothing else, that is what the last quarter century has taught us.

    How Capitalism Saved America explodes the myths spun by Michael Moore, the liberal media, Hollywood, academia, and the rest of the anticapitalist establishment.Whether it’s Michael Moore or the New York Times, Hollywood or academia, a growing segment in America is waging a war on capitalism. We hear that greedy plutocrats exploit the American public; that capitalism harms consumers, the working class, and the environment; that the government needs to rein in capitalism; and on and on. Anticapitalist critiques have only grown more fevered in the wake of corporate scandals like Enron and WorldCom. Indeed, the 2004 presidential campaign has brought frequent calls to re-regulate the American economy.But the anticapitalist arguments are pure bunk, as Thomas J. DiLorenzo reveals in How Capitalism Saved America. DiLorenzo, a professor of economics, shows how capitalism has made America the most prosperous nation on earth—and how the sort of government regulation that politicians and pundits endorse has hindered economic growth, caused higher unemployment, raised prices, and created many other problems. He propels the reader along with a fresh and compelling look at critical events in American history—covering everything from the Pilgrims to Bill Gates. And just as he did in his last book, The Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo explodes numerous myths that have become conventional wisdom. How Capitalism Saved America reveals:• How the introduction of a capitalist system saved the Pilgrims from starvation• How the American Revolution was in large part a revolt against Britain’s stifling economic controls• How the so-called robber barons actually improved the lives of millions of Americans by providing newer and better products at lower prices• How the New Deal made the Great Depression worse• How deregulation got this country out of the energy crisis of the 1970s—and was not the cause of recent blackouts in California and the Northeast• And much moreHow Capitalism Saved America is popular history at its explosive best.