This book shows you: Why the Internet has barely gotten stared and how to capitalize on it.Why the technology gap is whee you'll find the greatest economic potential.Why home- based business entrepreneurs will be among the richest in our new economy.Why recent changes in tax law have given home-based entrepreneurs the competitive edge.Why direct selling has become the wealthcreation vehicle of choice for millions.

    Infuriated by government corruption and corporate communism, incensed by banksters shaking down taxpayers, and despairing of an ailing health care system, an age-old dependency on foreign oil, and a failing educational system, Ratigan sees an America that has allowed itself to be swindled and robbed. In this book, his first, he rips the lid off our deeply crooked system—and offers a way out. This country, now more than ever, needs passionate debate and smart policy, a brazen willingness to scrap what doesn’t work, and the entrepreneurial spirit to try what does. Ratigan has compiled brash and fresh solutions for building a new and better America, and with this book he has started the debate America deserves. With you, he wants to take back the country from the six vampires sucking this nation dry: • A political system in which lobbyists write legislation, lawmakers place “secret holds” to create more pork for their districts, and money drives the whole process. • A banking system that uses capital for speculation and debt creation, rather than productive investment. • A “master-slave” relationship with our Chinese bankers, making our corporations and politicians complicit in a system that rigs our currency and leaves us with permanent joblessness and massive trade deficits. • A health care system that is among the priciest and least sustainable in the industrialized world. • An educational system that prizes prestige but produces mediocrity. • An addiction to foreign oil that has sapped us of our willingness to innovate, made us reliant on inefficient technologies, and left us supportive of corrupt governments. To combat these vampires and to isolate the systematic ways in which our once productive industries and our government have been breached, Ratigan does not offer a grab bag of flimsy suggestions or useless hot air. Instead he provides readers with a set of values that together form the answer for how each of us can not only understand what has gone wrong—but join together to make it right.

    It shouldn't take a worldwide pandemic and nationwide protests to bring economic and racial inequality to the forefront of problems we desperately need to solve. But now that the opportunity is here, what should we do? How can we create more equality, opportunity, and growth for everyone? Not someday, but what can government and the private sector do right now to disrupt a status quo that almost everyone wants to change?In Common Sense, the New York Times best-selling author Joel Greenblatt offers an investor's perspective on building an economy that truly works for everyone. With dry wit and engaging storytelling, he makes a lively and provocative case for disruptive new approaches--some drawn from personal experience, some from the outside looking in. How can leading corporations immediately disrupt our education establishment while creating high-paying job opportunities for those currently left behind? If we want a living wage for everyone, how can we afford it while using an existing program to get it done now? If we subsidize banks, what simple changes can we make to the way we capitalize and regulate them to help grow the economy, increase access, and create more jobs (while keeping the risks and benefits where they belong)? Greenblatt also explains how dramatically increasing immigration would be like giving every American a giant bonus and the reason Australia might be the best place to learn about saving for retirement.Not everyone will agree with what Greenblatt has to say--but all of us can benefit from the conversations he aims to start.

    

    Disenchantment with the market economy hasreached the point that many even question capitalism itself.Allan H. Meltzer disagrees, passionately and persuasively. Drawing on deep expertise as a financial historian and authority on economic theory, he provides a resounding answer to the question, why capitalism? Only capitalism, he writes, maximizes both growth and individual freedom. Unlikesocialism, capitalism is adaptive, not rigid--private ownership of the means of production flourishes wherever it takes root, regardless of culture. Laws intended to tamper with its fundamental dynamics, such as those that redistribute wealth, fail. European countries boasting extensive welfareprograms have not surpassed the more market-oriented United States. Capitalism does require a strong legal framework, Meltzer writes, and it does not solve all problems efficiently. But he finds that its problems stem from universal human weaknesses--such as dishonesty, venality, andexpediency--which are not specific to capitalism. Along the way, he systematically analyzes the role of government, positing that regulations are static, but markets are dynamic, usually seeking ways to skirt the rules. Regulation is socially useful if it brings private costs into line with socialcosts (for example, the cost of taxes to hire policemen compared to that of the impact of rampant crime); if it doesn't, regulation simply invites circumvention.Vigorously argued, sweeping in scope, Why Capitalism? reminds us of the fundamental vitality of the one economic system that has survived every challenge, and risen to dominate the globe.

    As wildly successful young entrepreneur Cameron Johnson shows, you don't have to live that way. We've entered a new age of entrepreneurship, with the Web making it easier than ever to start and run your own company. As Johnson's remarkable story reveals, the entrepreneurial way of life is a great way to make sure you love what you do -- and it offers the potential to achieve extraordinary success by following your gut instincts and going for what you really want.What about the risks? Don't you need lots of money? Don't most start-ups fail? Johnson shares his essential secrets to entrepreneurial success that show you how he got into the life at very low risk, and, with very little money, took an idea that excited him and ran with it, achieving great success and satisfaction with businesses he loved. He didn't have an MBA; he didn't even have a college degree. But he had learned the simple yet vital secrets he reveals.Cameron Johnson is a seriously happy entrepreneur who started his first business when he was nine with $50 and a home computer. Before he'd turned twenty-one he'd started twelve successful businesses and was offered $10 million in venture capital to grow his hot Web company CertificateSwap.com -- praised by "Entrepreneur" magazine as one of the Web businesses helping the tech industry get its groove back -- even bigger. He has never taken out a loan or racked up any debt, and every one of his businesses has been highlyprofitable -- so profitable that he made his first million before graduating from high school, and he's put away enough cash so that he could retire today. But that's the last thing on earth he'd want to do; he's much too happy starting up new companies.Through the story of his own impressive career so far, in "You Call the Shots," Johnson takes you behind the scenes of entrepreneurial success and empowers you to hit the ground running with your own great business idea, no matter how young you are or how little money you have to invest.

    In The Curse of Cash, Kenneth Rogoff, one of the world's leading economists, makes a persuasive and fascinating case for an idea that until recently would have seemed outlandish: getting rid of most paper money.Even as people in advanced economies are using less paper money, there is more cash in circulation--a record $1.4 trillion in U.S. dollars alone, or $4,200 for every American, mostly in $100 bills. And the United States is hardly exceptional. So what is all that cash being used for? The answer is simple: a large part is feeding tax evasion, corruption, terrorism, the drug trade, human trafficking, and the rest of a massive global underground economy.As Rogoff shows, paper money can also cripple monetary policy. In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, central banks have been unable to stimulate growth and inflation by cutting interest rates significantly below zero for fear that it would drive investors to abandon treasury bills and stockpile cash. This constraint has paralyzed monetary policy in virtually every advanced economy, and is likely to be a recurring problem in the future.The Curse of Cash offers a plan for phasing out most paper money--while leaving small-denomination bills and coins in circulation indefinitely--and addresses the issues the transition will pose, ranging from fears about privacy and price stability to the need to provide subsidized debit cards for the poor.While phasing out the bulk of paper money will hardly solve the world's problems, it would be a significant step toward addressing a surprising number of very big ones. Provocative, engaging, and backed by compelling original arguments and evidence, The Curse of Cash is certain to spark widespread debate.

    Why are experts so bad at making predictions? Why do rich people take outsized risks to reach for money they don't need? Is America's manufacturing base really dwindling? What did we learn about risk after 9/11? Those questions and many more are tackled in these 21 irreverent and contrarian essays, which will have readers thinking differently about the conventional wisdom.

    Taylor discusses all the fundamental aspects of Austrian thought, from subjectivism and marginal utility to inflation and the business cycle. This new and revised edition is widely influential among economics students.For the newcomer, this work represents a concise introduction to both the historical setting of the Austrian School and to the ideas espoused by its members.This volume includes chapters on:Social Cooperation and Resource Allocation Economic Calculation The Subjective Theory of Value The Market and Market Prices Production in an Evenly Rotating Economy From an Evenly Rotating Economy to the Real World Inflation and the Business Trade Cycle96 pp. (pb)

    The costs of this overwork are enormous, both personally and societally. This bracing collection of essays is both a wide-ranging analysis of the phenomenon and a blueprint for change. With contributions by such notable names as Vicki Robin, author of Your Money or Your Life, and David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World, this book shows what ordinary citizens can do to restore balance to themselves and their communities. Take Back Your Time is the official handbook for Take Back Your Time Day, a national event rallying support for reclaiming a proper work-life balance.

    The daughter of Lang Hancock – legendary arch-conservative, secessionist, mining millionaire and discoverer of the world's largest iron deposit in the Pilbara – Gina has grown up in a family known as much for its front-page legal stoushes as for its business acumen and toughness.With her reported wealth more than doubling in the last twelve months, Rinehart is beginning to flex the enormous power her money gives, buying large shareholdings in television's Ten Network and newspaper group Fairfax Media. They are moves that will give Rinehart and her controversial views a major place in Australian life and public affairs.Based on painstaking research and a wealth of interviews with Rinehart's colleagues, friends, family and former employees, award-winning journalist Adele Ferguson has written the definitive biography, shining a light into the private world of Gina Rinehart, her family, her feuds and the iron determination that has driven her relentless rise.

    Originally commissioned by the U.S. Gold Commission and subsequently issued as a minority report of the Commission, The Case for Gold was the first official U.S. government investigation into the feasibility of a gold standards in more than 120 years.

    The book includes three core chapters from the original bestseller that focus on market research, marketing, and spreading word-of-mouth among your best customers. Sure, you already know that customers are writing about your products on blogs or talking about your brand on Twitter and Facebook. Now, turn that interest into opportunity and profit. In these economic times, marketers like you are increasing their investment in social technologies, while cutting back on more traditional expenses. Why? Because they work—no matter the economic climate. Marketing in the Groundswell shows you how you can build social applications, measure their results, and use the social technology movement to your company's advantage.

    In addition to fine-tuning and streamlining the prose and the overall presentation, the authors have comprehensively updated the text and the applications to reflect recent economic developments and topics of current interest. Students in particular will find the Study Guide, with its practice questions, exercises, and problems, to be an excellent source of study support and extra review material. It is available in both a one- and a two-volume edition.

    Crafting an engrossing journey from the gushing Pennsylvania oil fields of the 1860s to today's fraught and fractious Middle East, Crude Volatility explains how past periods of stability and volatility in oil prices help us understand the new boom-bust era. Oil's notorious volatility has always been considered a scourge afflicting not only the oil industry but also the broader economy and geopolitical landscape; Robert McNally makes sense of how oil became so central to our world and why it is subject to such extreme price fluctuations.Tracing a history marked by conflict, intrigue, and extreme uncertainty, McNally shows how--even from the oil industry's first years--wild and harmful price volatility prompted industry leaders and officials to undertake extraordinary efforts to stabilize oil prices by controlling production. Herculean market interventions--first, by Rockefeller's Standard Oil, then, by U.S. state regulators in partnership with major international oil companies, and, finally, by OPEC--succeeded to varying degrees in taming the beast. McNally, a veteran oil market and policy expert, explains the consequences of the ebbing of OPEC's power, debunking myths and offering recommendations--including mistakes to avoid--as we confront the unwelcome return of boom and bust oil prices.