End of an Era: How China's Authoritarian Revival Is Undermining Its Rise


Carl Minzner - 2018
    Core factors that characterized it-political stability, ideological openness, and rapid economic growth-are unraveling. Since the 1990s, Beijing's leaders have firmly rejected any fundamental reform of their authoritarian one-party political system, and on thesurface, their efforts have been a success. But as Carl Minzner shows, a closer look at China's reform era reveals a different truth. Over the past three decades, a frozen political system has fueled both the rise of entrenched interests within the Communist Party itself, and the systematicunderdevelopment of institutions of governance among state and society at large. Economic cleavages have widened. Social unrest has worsened. Ideological polarization has deepened. Now, to address these looming problems, China's leaders are progressively cannibalizing institutional norms andpractices that have formed the bedrock of the regime's stability in the reform era. End of an Era explains how China arrived at this dangerous turning point, and outlines the potential outcomes that could result.

Economics in the Age of COVID-19


Joshua Gans - 2020
    

China's Superbank: Debt, Oil and Influence - How China Development Bank Is Rewriting the Rules of Finance


Henry Sanderson - 2012
    Anyone wanting a primer on the secret of China's economic success need look no further than China Development Bank (CDB)--which has displaced the World Bank as the world's biggest development bank, lending billions to countries around the globe to further Chinese policy goals. In "China's World Bank," Bloomberg authors Michael Forsythe and Henry Sanderson outline how the bank is at the center of China's domestic economic growth and how it is helping to expand China's influence in strategically important overseas markets.100 percent owned by the Chinese government, the CDB holds the key to understanding the inner workings of China's state-led economic development model, and its most glaring flaws. The bank is at the center of the country's efforts to build a world-class network of highways, railroads, and power grids, pioneering a lending scheme to local governments that threatens to spawn trillions of yuan in bad loans. It is doling out credit lines by the billions to Chinese solar and wind power makers, threatening to bury global competitors with a flood of cheap products. Another $45 billion in credit has been given to the country's two biggest telecom equipment makers who are using the money to win contracts around the globe, helping fulfill the goal of China's leaders for its leading companies to "go global."Bringing the story of China Development Bank to life by crisscrossing China to investigate the quality of its loans, "China's World Bank" travels the globe, from Africa, where its China-Africa fund is displacing Western lenders in a battle for influence, to the oil fields of Venezuela.Offers a fascinating insight into the China Development Bank (CDB), the driver of China's rapid economic developmentTravels the globe to show how the CDB is helping Chinese businesses "go global"Written by two respected reporters at Bloomberg NewsAs China's influence continues to grow around the world, many people are asking how far it will extend. "China's World Bank" addresses these vital questions, looking at the institution at the heart of this growth.

Capital and Ideology


Thomas Piketty - 2019
    In this audacious follow-up, Piketty challenges us to revolutionize how we think about politics, ideology, and history. He exposes the ideas that have sustained inequality for the past millennium, reveals why the shallow politics of right and left are failing us today, and outlines the structure of a fairer economic system.Our economy, Piketty observes, is not a natural fact. Markets, profits, and capital are all historical constructs that depend on choices. Piketty explores the material and ideological interactions of conflicting social groups that have given us slavery, serfdom, colonialism, communism, and hypercapitalism, shaping the lives of billions. He concludes that the great driver of human progress over the centuries has been the struggle for equality and education and not, as often argued, the assertion of property rights or the pursuit of stability. The new era of extreme inequality that has derailed that progress since the 1980s, he shows, is partly a reaction against communism, but it is also the fruit of ignorance, intellectual specialization, and our drift toward the dead-end politics of identity.Once we understand this, we can begin to envision a more balanced approach to economics and politics. Piketty argues for a new "participatory" socialism, a system founded on an ideology of equality, social property, education, and the sharing of knowledge and power. Capital and Ideology is destined to be one of the indispensable books of our time, a work that will not only help us understand the world, but that will change it.

Israel's Edge: The Story of The IDF's Most Elite Unit - Talpiot


Jason Gewirtz - 2016
    In order to join this unit they have to commit to being in the army for ten years, rather than the three years a normal soldier serves.Talpiots are taught advanced level physics, math and computer science as they train with soldiers from every other branch of the IDF. The result: young men and women become research and development machines. Talpiots have developed battle ready weapons that only Israel's top military officers and political leaders know about. They have also dramatically improved much of the weapons already in Israel's arsenal.Talpiot has been tasked with keeping Israel a generation ahead of a rapidly strengthening and technologically capable Iran. Talpiots contribute to all of the areas that will be most important to the IDF as Iran becomes even more powerful including missile technology, anti-missile defense, cyber-warfare, intelligence, satellite technology and high powered imaging. Talpiot soldiers have also been a major factor in the never ending fight against Israel's other enemies and many have left the R&D lab to fly fighter planes, serve in the field as commanders of elite army ground units and at sea commanding Israel's fleet of naval ships.After leaving the army, Talpiots have become a major force in the Israeli economy, developing some of Israel's most famous and powerful companies.Israel's Edge contains dozens of interviews with Talpiot graduates and some of the early founders of the program. It explains Talpiot's highly successful recruiting methods and discloses many of the secrets of the program's success. The book also profiles some of the most successful businesses founded by Talpiot graduates including CheckPoint, Compugen, Anobit, recently bought by Apple, and XIV, recently bought by IBM. No other military unit has had more of an impact on the State of Israel and no other unit will have more of an impact in the years ahead. The soldiers of Talpiot are truly unsung heroes.

Rotten Heart of Europe: The Dirty War for Europe's Money


Bernard Connolly - 1995
    Book by Connolly, Bernard

Taxes Made Simple: Income Taxes Explained in 100 Pages or Less


Mike Piper - 2008
    the standard deduction Several money-saving deductions and credits and how to make sure you qualify for them How to calculate your refund How to know which tax forms to fill out State income taxes Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) Capital Gains and Losses

Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays


Thomas Sowell - 1993
    Sowell challenges all the assumptions of contemporary liberalism on issues ranging from the economy to race to education in this collection of controversial essays, and captures his thoughts on politics, race, and common sense with a section at the end for thought-provoking quotes.

Learn to Earn: A Beginner's Guide to the Basics of Investing and Business


Peter Lynch - 1995
    The reason, say Lynch and Rothchild, is that the basics of investing—the fundamentals of our economic system and what they have to do with the stock market—aren’t taught in school. At a time when individuals have to make important decisions about saving for college and 401(k) retirement funds, this failure to provide a basic education in investing can have tragic consequences. For those who know what to look for, investment opportunities are everywhere. The average high school student is familiar with Nike, Reebok, McDonald’s, the Gap, and The Body Shop. Nearly every teenager in America drinks Coke or Pepsi, but only a very few own shares in either company or even understand how to buy them. Every student studies American history, but few realize that our country was settled by European colonists financed by public companies in England and Holland—and the basic principles behind public companies haven’t changed in more than three hundred years. In Learn to Earn, Lynch and Rothchild explain in a style accessible to anyone who is high school age or older how to read a stock table in the daily newspaper, how to understand a company annual report, and why everyone should pay attention to the stock market. They explain not only how to invest, but also how to think like an investor.

The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic


Ganesh Sitaraman - 2017
    A New York Times Notable Book of 2017For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable--and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America's republic. Over the next two centuries, generations of Americans fought to sustain the economic preconditions for our constitutional system. But today, with economic and political inequality on the rise, Sitaraman says Americans face a choice: Will we accept rising economic inequality and risk oligarchy or will we rebuild the middle class and reclaim our republic?The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution is a tour de force of history, philosophy, law, and politics. It makes a compelling case that inequality is more than just a moral or economic problem; it threatens the very core of our constitutional system.

Black Skin Privilege and the American Dream


David Horowitz - 2013
    Weatherman was a fringe group most of whose ideas were rejected by the dominant culture. But unfortunately their views on race were not. In succeeding decades the idea of "white skin privilege" became the new default position for racial crusaders and race hustlers alike who believed that white skin privilege was alive and well in our society -- not because white Americans were actively racist, but because they enjoyed the invisible privileges and prerogatives that go along with their skin color. In this searing pamphlet on the racial realities of contemporary America, David Horowitz and John Perazzo show that in fact the most insidious bias in our culture today is black skin privilege. Black skin privilege means the press will fail to report an epidemic of race riots targeting whites for beatings, shooting and other violence in major American cities over the last several years. Black skin privilege means that whites -- as in the case of the Duke lacrosse players -- will be presumed guilty of racial crimes when they are clearly innocent and then never accorded an apology by those who have stigmatized them. Black skin privilege has created an optical illusion in the liberal culture that white on black attacks are commonplace events when in fact there are five times as many black attacks on whites as the reverse. (As Horowitz and Perazzo note, in 2010, blacks committed more than 25 times the number of acts of interracial violence than whites did.) Black skin privilege exists in the affirmative action programs of our system of higher education and in our culture, where a black racist like Al Sharpton could be regarded by the national media as a civil rights leader and then hired as a TV anchor by NBC. This pamphlet gives the statistics and hard numbers the mainstream media conceal. It also probes the double standards and double talk that has come to dominate the way America talks when it talks about race.

Understanding China: A Guide to China's Economy, History, and Political Culture


John Bryan Starr - 1997
    In this revised edition of his essential book, Starr focuses his shrewd attention on them all. He furnishes additional material on China's relations with Taiwan and Tibet, the transfer of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, China's nuclear weapons program, and its environmental and human rights records.

Smart Investors Keep It Simple: Investing in dividend stocks for passive income


Giovanni Rigters - 2015
    You’ve probably heard both good and bad things about it. Still, you want to learn more about the stock market. It could also be that you want to start investing but don’t know where to begin or how much to invest. If you’re already investing, you want to learn better ways to grow your investments, because you want to be more confident about your financial future. Up until now, you probably didn’t have enough time to learn about investing and it might seem too confusing, because there is so much information out there about investing. You also don’t want to lose your money or don’t have enough money to begin investing. What if you had the confidence to start investing on your own, so you could show off your investment performance to family and friends? Leave the stress of an insecure financial future behind you and create sustainable wealth, which you can pass down to your family. In this book I give you a quick overview about what you need to know about the stock market, how to begin, what to do if you don’t have enough cash, how to generate passive income, and how to analyze companies. I also give you a list of companies I personally invest in and I try to answer all the questions you might have that are stopping you from getting started or progressing in your investing journey. I'll show you why you need to watch out with investment vehicles such as the 401K and index funds. This book is a quick read and great to keep as a reference. Best of all, you can get started immediately after reading it. **Don’t wait and buy the book now. It’s on sale, but the price will increase in the near future.**

India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond


Shashi Tharoor - 1997
    Tharoor is undersecretary general for communications and public information at the United Nations. He lives in New York City.

International Political Economy


Thomas Oatley - 2009
    This text surveys major interests and institutions and examines how state and non-state actors pursue wealth and power. Emphasizing fundamental economic concepts as well as the interplay between domestic and international politics, International Political Economy not only explains how the global economy works; it also encourages students to think critically about how economic policy is made in the context of globalization.