Enjoy the Decline


Aaron Clarey - 2013
    Readers of Aaron's blog will be familiar with the basic thesis of this book. Namely that the economic and cultural condition of the United States is so dire that decline and economic collapse is inevitable. If you are of a “person of the left” you’ll probably disagree. To leftists, feminists, socialists and other economic parasites this is a golden age. Ironically Aaron agrees. Unfortunately golden ages do not last and this one is already past its best before date. Given that collapse is baked into the system what can one do but enjoy the decline. This book outlines practical steps you can take to minimize your parasite load and maximize your happiness while society crumbles around you.

The Age of Deleveraging


A. Gary Shilling - 2010
    Shilling explains in clear language and compelling logic why the world economy will struggle for several more years and what investors can do to protect and grow their wealth in the difficult times ahead. The investment strategies that worked for last 25 years will not work in the next 10 years. Shilling advises readers to avoid broad exposure to stocks, real estate, and commodities and to focus on high-quality bonds, high-dividend stocks, and consumer staple and food stocks. Written by one of today's best forecasters of economic trends-twice voted by Institutional Investor as Wall Street's top economist Clearly explains what to invest in, what to avoid, and how to cope with a deflationary, slow-growth economy Demonstrates how Shilling has been consistently right about major economic trends since he began forecasting in the early 1980s Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, this timely guide lays out a convincing case for why investors need to be prepared for a long period of weak growth and deflation-not inflation-and what you can do to prosper in the difficult times ahead.

Og Mandino's Great Trilogy


Og Mandino - 1981
    However, some fundamental problems - such as the pulsational mode and the mass-loss mechanism - remain a mystery.

The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century


Peter Watson - 2000
    Peter Watson has produced a fluent and engaging narrative of the intellectual tradition of the twentieth century, and the men and women who created it.

Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek


Manu Saadia - 2016
    It’s also a universe where war and poverty have been eradicated, money doesn’t exist, and work is indistinguishable from leisure. In this ground-breaking book, timed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Star Trek’s first episode, Manu Saadia takes a deep dive into the show’s most radical and provocative aspect: its detailed and consistent economic vision. Could we create such a utopia here on Earth? And why has Star Trek’s future had such staying power in our cultural imagination? Trekonomics looks at the morals, values, and hard economics that underpin the series’ ideal society, and its sources of inspiration both inside and outside the science-fiction canon. After reading this book, you’ll be able to answer the question: If you could live in Star Trek’s economic utopia, would you want to?

Connections


James Burke - 1978
    He untangles the pattern of interconnecting events, the accidents of time, circumstance, and place that gave rise to major inventions of the world. Says Burke, "My purpose is to acquaint the reader with some of the forces that have caused change in the past, looking in particular at eight innovations - the computer, the production line, telecommunications, the airplane, the atomic bomb, plastics, the guided rocket, and television - which may be most influential in structuring our own futures.... Each one of these is part of a family of similar devices, and is the result of a sequence of closely connected events extending from the ancient world until the present day. Each has enormous potential for humankind's benefit - or destruction."

Embrace the Chaos: How India Taught Me to Stop Overthinking and Start Living


Bob Miglani - 2013
    He worried constantly about his job, his finances, and his family. It was a chance invitation to India, the land of his birth, that finally freed him.India, Miglani writes, is “the capital of chaos”: over a billion people living on one-third the space of the United States. And it was there that he learned to let go. The secret is to stop trying to control the chaos and focus on what you can control—your own actions, words, and thoughts. Move forward, make mistakes, trust your intuition, find your purpose.In this inspiring book, Miglani shares the experiences and encounters that helped him finally get it. What happens when you find yourself in an Indian village with no money and a plane to catch? How could an educated urban woman agree to a marriage after two dates? What keeps a rural health worker motivated despite the enormous need and such limited ability to help? What does trying to catch an insanely overcrowded bus teach you about perfection? Embracing the chaos, Miglani found, “leads us down paths we never would have walked on...It brings out strengths we never knew existed inside of us.”

Rasputin: The Holy Devil


René Fülöp-Miller - 1928
    Contents: Rasputin; The Cellar Preacher; Before the High Priests; The Fateful Idyll of Tsarskoe Selo; The Friend; The Penitential Journey of the Great Sinner; In the Holy of Holies; The Revolt Against the Holy Devil; The Murderer with the Guitar; The Death Ship; Bibliography; Index.

The Naked Trader's Guide to Spread Betting: How to make money from shares in up or down markets


Robbie Burns - 2010
    But it's not a world populated by pinstriped men waiting to rob you, steal your savings and do nasty things to small kittens. You can win. (And you never have to pay a penny in tax!) This book shows you how. Robbie Burns, bestselling author of The Naked Trader, has been spread betting for years. He explains why it's an indispensable tool to use alongside normal investing or trading. Especially as you can make money even if the market goes down. Robbie takes you through everything from how it works, to managing your risk, working out exposure, and how, often, doing nothing is the best move! He explains the ins and outs of successfully betting on shares in his trademark down-to-earth style, covering everything you need to know. From the simple stuff through to proven strategies, including those that can be used in different markets - it's all here. There are also behind-the-scenes visits to two top spread betting firms. But it's a big, bad old world out there, and there are a whole heap of mistakes you can make, an awful lot of money you can lose. Rounding up spine-chilling traders' tales of spread bets gone wrong, and using all he has learnt from making silly mistakes himself, Robbie also helps you learn what not to do. This is the ultimate guide to spread betting - how to do it, have fun and hopefully make a few quid.

Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now—Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything


David Sirota - 2011
    Fights over taxes. Racial resentments. A Lakers-Celtics championship. The Karate Kid topping the box-office charts. Bon Jovi touring the country. These words could describe our current moment—or the vaunted iconography of three decades past.In this wide-ranging and wickedly entertaining book, New York Times bestselling journalist David Sirota takes readers on a rollicking DeLorean ride back in time to reveal how so many of our present-day conflicts are rooted in the larger-than-life pop culture of the 1980s—from the “Greed is good” ethos of Gordon Gekko (and Bernie Madoff) to the “Make my day” foreign policy of Ronald Reagan (and George W. Bush) to the “transcendence” of Cliff Huxtable (and Barack Obama).Today’s mindless militarism and hypernarcissism, Sirota argues, first became the norm when an ’80s generation weaned on Rambo one-liners and “Just Do It” exhortations embraced a new religion—with comic books, cartoons, sneaker commercials, videogames, and even children’s toys serving as the key instruments of cultural indoctrination. Meanwhile, in productions such as Back to the Future, Family Ties, and The Big Chill, a campaign was launched to reimagine the 1950s as America’s lost golden age and vilify the 1960s as the source of all our troubles. That 1980s revisionism, Sirota shows, still rages today, with Barack Obama cast as the 60s hippie being assailed by Alex P. Keaton–esque Republicans who long for a return to Eisenhower-era conservatism. “The past is never dead,” William Faulkner wrote. “It’s not even past.” The 1980s—even more so. With the native dexterity only a child of the Atari Age could possess, David Sirota twists and turns this multicolored Rubik’s Cube of a decade, exposing it as a warning for our own troubled present—and possible future.

Market Mind Games: Profiting from the New Psychology of Risk, Uncertainty, and the Convergence of Trading with Investing


Denise Shull - 2011
    Read this first and you will learn that the surest path to success will be to start with yourself; solve that conundrum and challenges like understanding how you do and should react to markets will come to be solvable."--Marvin Zonis, Professor Emeritus, Booth School of Business, The University of Chicago"When it comes to fast-moving global financial markets, professional investors strive to evaluate complex economic conditions from data analysis, economic reasoning, and professional judgment. This is what is taught in business schools. Denise Shull demonstrates how investment decision making is also determined by unconscious emotions and perceptions. "Market Mind Games" is a fascinating book that proposes a new and unexpected hypothesis about the factors that drive financial decision-making."--A.G. Malliaris, Professor of Economics and Finance, Loyola University Chicago"Denise Shull wants us to get in touch with our feelings, not to beat our bare chests and utter primordial screams. Far from it--her techniques are focused on making more money."--"Financial Times""Denise Shull's gem of a book is long overdue. . . . "Market Mind Games"] has made the ability to analyze and overcome our unconscious biases and prejudices available to everyone."--Dr. Donald T. Wargo, Department of Economics, Temple University""Market Mind Games" is iconoclastic to say the very least Pay attention to the last word in the subtitle: "risk." This book will change your perspective on how to approach and think about the markets and your life "--Michael J. Levas, Founder, Senior Managing Principal, and Director of Trading, Olympian Capital Management, LLC"Denise changes the way you look at yourself and investing. Her insights and methods are necessary to succeed in the markets, period."--Jared Levy, Portfolio Manager and author of "Your Options Handbook """Market Mind Games" offers a new school of trading psychology. Truly an important work that needs to be on the bookshelf of every serious market participant."--Mike Bellafiore, author of "One Good Trade""Masterful explanation of not only why emotionless trading is a myth, but how we can take advantage of our natural wiring to gain an edge."--Derek Hernquist, Chief Investment Officer, Integrative Capital, LLC"Shull details ways to learn how you 'feel' before you 'act' so that your buy, sell, or hold decisions become more successful."--E. Bernstein, OPUS Trading"A must-read for those who want to make their livelihood as a professional investor, trader, or algorithmic trading developer."--Larry Tabb, founder and CEO, Tabb Group"Denise Shull enlightens the reader how to effectively unlock one's psychological capital and translate that awareness into clear and concise investment decisions."--Grant Mashek, Managing Member, Palm Equity, LLC"Shull's book is not only a great read but lays out an entirely more effective approach to thinking about any decision that involves the unknown--market related or not."--Leslie Shaw, Ph.D., Behavioral Economics, and trained psychoanalystAbout the Book:What if the mystery of market crashes stems from a simple but total misunderstanding of our own minds? Could everything we think we know about ourselves--intelligence and rationality versus emotion and irrationality--be wildly off the mark? Simply put: yes.With these words, Denise Shull introduces her radical--and supremely rational-- approach to risk. Her vision stems from the indisputable fact that human beings can't make any decision at all without emotion and that emotion gets the first--and last--word when it comes to our perceptions and judgments.Shull should know. She started out managing major accounts for IBM and then chose to research unconscious emotional patterns instead of getting her MBA. Next she became a trader and trading desk manager while continuing to study biopsychology.We are all taught that sidelining our emotions is the best way to make good decisions-- Shull declares the converse: "emotions inform us." Attempting to control them actually increases the risks we take. Shull advocates treating feelings as data, and she convincingly argues that doing so eradicates the baffling question that repeats itself in our heads after making a poor investing decision: "What was I thinking?"Through a series of "lectures," Shull logically but engagingly connects emotions, beliefs, and context to our innate reaction to uncertainty and risk (yes, the two are different). In "Market Mind Games," she merges more than 20 years of studying risk decisions into a single, astoundingly effective strategy.A reasonable approach to emotion is the best and only way to win the investing game. The methods Shull details in "Market Mind Games" shake the foundation of conventional market and decision psychology. And, most important, they work.

Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else


Chrystia Freeland - 2012
    Forget the 1%; it's the wealthiest .01% who are fast outpacing the rest of us. Today's colossal fortunes are amassed by the diligent toiling of smart, perceptive businessmen who see themselves as deserving victors in a cutthroat international competition.  Cracking open this tight-knit world is Chrystia Freeland, an acclaimed business journalist. At ease in Davos or Dubai, Freeland has reported on the lives and minds of these new super-elites for nearly a decade. Grounding her interviews in the economics and history of modern capitalism, she provides examples of the new wealth and its consequences. She showcases the $3 million birthday party of a New York financier months before the financial meltdown; details the closed-door 2005 SEC meeting where the US government allowed investment banks to write their own regulatory laws; and tells how the Bank of Canada's Mark Carney became a key figure in the central battle between the plutocracy and the rest of us.  Brightly written and powerfully researched, Freeland's Plutocrats will be a lightning rod event in the midst of the US election season.

Wealth Made Easy: Millionaires and Billionaires Help You Crack the Code to Getting Rich


Greg S. Reid - 2019
    You need to win and keep winning. To get there you need great connections and insider advice.But it's not as simple as tracking down the elite few - the wealth hackers of the world - and getting them to spill their secrets. . . Or is it?©2019 Dr. Greg Reid (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets


Nassim Nicholas Taleb - 2001
    The other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile,and The Bed of Procrustes.

The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy


Stephanie Kelton - 2020
    Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country.Kelton busts through the myths that prevent us from taking action: that the federal government should budget like a household, that deficits will harm the next generation, crowd out private investment, and undermine long-term growth, and that entitlements are propelling us toward a grave fiscal crisis.MMT, as Kelton shows, shifts the terrain from narrow budgetary questions to one of broader economic and social benefits. With its important new ways of understanding money, taxes, and the critical role of deficit spending, MMT redefines how to responsibly use our resources so that we can maximize our potential as a society. MMT gives us the power to imagine a new politics and a new economy and move from a narrative of scarcity to one of opportunity.