Showing titles in Economic Conditions

The growing wealth inequality continues to dominate headlines. The divide between the haves and have nots in America is increasingly political and tensions are rising. On one side, the wealthy wield power and advantage, keeping the system operating in their favor, all while retreating into enclaves that separate them further and further from the poor and working class.

David Stockman was the architect of the Reagan Revolution that was meant to restore sound money principles to the U.S. government. It failed, derailed by politics, special interests, welfare, and warfare. Stockman describes how the working of free markets and democracy has long been under threat in America and provides a surprising, nonpartisan catalog of the corrupters and defenders. His analysis shows how both liberal and neoconservative interference in markets has proved damaging and often dangerous.

The second global downturn in a dozen years is upon us - but do lessons learned during the Great Recession still apply? What must you and your business do, now, to ensure you come out the other side intact? Global Recession: Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will help you understand the smartest ways to cut costs intelligently, find opportunities amid upheaval, and reshape your business to seize advantage in the upswing. 

Crisis seems to follow crisis. Inequality is rising, growth is stagnant, the environment is suffering, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed every crack in the system. We hear more calls for radical change, even the overthrow of capitalism. But the answer to our problems is not revolution. The answer is to create a better capitalism by understanding and harnessing the power of creative destruction - innovation that disrupts, but that over the past 200 years has also lifted societies to previously unimagined prosperity. 

As the Foreign Affairs columnist for The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman has traveled to the four corners of the globe, interviewing people from all walks of contemporary life -- peasants in the Amazon rain forest, new entrepreneurs in Indonesia, Islamic students in Teheran, and the financial...

Tough times won’t last, but tough people will. Many people have lost money and many are losing their jobs, homes, or at least making cutbacks. Many others have faced life-changing natural disasters, such as hurricanes and fires, as well as health and family difficulties Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tough Times, Tough People is all about overcoming adversity, pulling together, making do with less, facing challenges, and finding new joys in a simpler life. Includes 10 bonus stories of faith.

Of the 20 most costly catastrophes since 1970, more than half have occurred since 2001. Is this an omen of what the 21st century will be? How might we behave in this new, uncertain and more dangerous environment? Will our actions be rational or irrational?

Now revised and updated, this "inspired, impactful, and important" book shows how to achieve the ultimate success by rectifying the small problems that can sink a business (Stephen R, Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). Once every few years a book comes along with an...

Progress and Poverty by Henry George explores the paradox of increasing inequality in periods of economic growth. George proposes that land speculation is the root cause of wealth disparities, advocating for a single tax on land value to promote fairness and reduce poverty. This influential work is critical for understanding economic and social theories regarding land reform and taxation.

Over the last 40 years our choices have narrowed, our opportunities have shrunk, and our lives have become governed by a handful of very large and very powerful corporations. Today, practically everything we buy, everywhere we shop, and every service we secure comes from a heavily concentrated market. This is a world where four major banks control most of our money, four airlines shuttle most of us around the country, and four major cell phone providers connect most of our communications. 

Peak Everything addresses many of the cultural, psychological and practical changes we will have to make as nature rapidly dictates our new limits. This latest book from Richard Heinberg, author of three of the most important books on Peak Oil, touches on the most important aspects of the human condition at this unique moment in time.

A combination of wry commentary and sober forecasting on subjects as diverse as farming and industrial design, this book tells how we might make the transition from The Age of Excess to the Era of Modesty with grace and satisfaction....

Is Wall Street bad for Main Street America? "A well-told exploration of why our current economy is leaving too many behind." —The New York Times In looking at the forces that shaped the 2016 presidential election, one thing is clear: much of the population believes that our economic system is...

Default is the riveting story of Argentina's sovereign debt drama, which reveals the obscure inner workings of sovereign debt restructuring. This detailed case study describes the intense fight over the role of the IMF in Argentina's 2005 debt restructuring and the ensuing bitter decade of litigation with holdout creditors, demonstrating that outcomes for sovereign debt are determined by a complex interplay between financial markets, governments, the IMF, the press, and the courts.

In an expose of the 2008 financial meltdown from the inside, Ziad K. Abdelnour argues that the political and financial elites have done nothing to fix the structural problems. By creating more market bubbles, they are actually waging a war on the most productive members of society. Abdelnour offers several solutions, including understanding that the government's primary objective is to create an environment conducive to the creation of wealth, not job creation, and not providing lifetime support to those who choose not to take advantage of the innumerable opportunities....

Explore the deadly elegance of finance's hidden powerhouse. The Money Formula takes you inside the engine room of the global economy to explore the little-understood world of quantitative finance, and show how the future of our economy rests on the backs of this all-but-impenetrable industry. 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.

Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed.

Economist Richard Holden examines the virtues and risks of low interest rates, mobile money, and cryptocurrencies and explains how these three elemental forces will continue to play out—in our wallets, on the blockchain, and throughout major economies—in the decades to come. Holden weaves in the stories of three people who have exerted massive influence over the future of modern money: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, and Raghuram Rajan, chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

Many were stunned to see The Big Short and realize that there were a few savvy traders who saw the subprime crisis in advance, and used that knowledge to make a fortune in the financial markets. Shockingly, a similar situation is playing out in the silver market at this very moment, and The Big Silver Short provides the perfectly timed handguide to profit from one of the greatest investing opportunities in history!

The internationally acclaimed author team of William Bonner and Addison Wiggin return to reveal how the epic financial bubble that is plaguing the United States will soon bring an end to this once great empire. They offer a frightening look at the United States' precarious position and discuss how government control of the economy and financial system - combined with unfettered deficit spending and gluttonous consumption - has ravaged the business environment.

Understanding the rise of state capitalism and its threat to global free markets, The End of the Free Market details the growing phenomenon of state capitalism, a system in which governments drive local economies through ownership of market-dominant companies and large pools of excess capital, using them for political gain. This trend threatens America's competitive edge and the conduct of free markets everywhere.