Thorough and timely . . .essential reading for those who seek insight into the process and the personalities that will shape Fed policy."-Barron's A compelling and intricate portrait of the enigmatic Alan Greenspan and the powerful institution he heads "Steven Beckner, as knowledgeable a Fed watcher as there is in the land, has done a great job telling the story of the challenging and successful Greenspan years."-L. William Seidman Chief Commentator, CNBC, and former head of the FDIC "Beckner does a yeoman's job of chronicling the Fed policy of the past decade."-Business Week "No matter what [Beckner] writes these days, people on Wall Street assign magical properties to his words."-Michael Lewis New York Times Magazine "Fed watcher extraordinaire Steven Beckner chronicles the incredible tenure of Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. . . . Read and reread this extraordinary book."-Dow Jones Asset Management "Accessible to the financially uninitiated, this dynamic, seemingly day-to-day chronicle may be the ultimate Fed watcher's guide."-Publishers Weekly
Is an investors’ “perfect storm” brewing? If you’re not careful, it could sweep your wealth away. Long-dormant inflation looks to be catching fire. A stock market in overdrive may crash and burn for years. And taxes to fund deficits and social programs look to be rising to punishing levels not seen in a generation. This triple threat could mean a financial apocalypse from which many investors won’t ever recover. Getting straight talk on smart wealth management has never been more critical. With Social Security and Medicare tracking to go belly-up in a few short years, there will be dire consequences for millions. Already-retired boomers, living far longer than ever expected, will strain government resources and risk running out of money. Who will pay for it all? Without smart planning, your taxes may rise to confiscatory levels, sapping net worth and lifestyle quality. Your retirement lifestyle and legacy for your kids could get crushed. Some may never be able to retire. Investors and savers of every age and stripe will want to pay careful attention to the concentrated wisdom in this book and take proactive steps to protect themselves while there’s still time.
Wall Street has a history far richer than the Hunts' attempt to corner the silver market and the development of the "junk bond." Walter Werner and Steven Smith explore the relationship between the securities markets and the historic development of the American economy in Wall Street, emphasizing the importance of the period 1790 through 1840. The book focuses on the corporate response to the capital needs of the developing economy, and the role of the securities markets in mobilizing and allocating that capital. Werner and Smith argue that a long view of our corporate history demonstrates that the line of development from the corporate system of 1790 is direct and continuous. The authors contend there was no corporate revolution; rather, each successive era set the stage for the next, and all have built on the foundations laid during the period from 1790-1840, which they call the Bank Age. The authors view the history of the corporate system as a process of continuous maturation where securities markets and public corporations have always been of vital importance to each other. Wall Street is written in non-technical language for the general reader and provides insight into the early years of the bull, the bear, and the buck.
In this innovative and exhaustive study, Steven A. Ramirez posits that the subprime mortgage crisis, as well as the global macroeconomic catastrophe it spawned, is traceable to a gross failure of law. The rule of law must appropriately channel and constrain the exercise of economic and political power. Used effectively, it ensures that economic opportunity isn’t limited to a small group of elites that enjoy growth at the expense of many, particularly those in vulnerable economic situations. In Lawless Capitalism, Ramirez calls for the rule of law to displace crony capitalism. Only through the rule of law, he argues, can capitalism be reconstructed.
A New York Times–bestselling manifesto for the future addressing the world’s concerns like food, water, energy, education, healthcare, and freedom. Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—and fast. In Abundance, space entrepreneur turned innovation pioneer Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler document how progress in artificial intelligence, robotics, infinite computing, ubiquitous broadband networks, digital manufacturing, nanomaterials, synthetic biology, and many other exponentially growing technologies will enable us to make greater gains in the next two hundred years. We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every person on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. Breaking down human needs by category—water, food, energy, healthcare, education, freedom—Diamandis and Kotler introduce us to innovators and industry captains making tremendous strides in each area. “Not only is Abundance a riveting page-turner . . . but it’s a book that gives us a future worth fighting for” (The Christian Science Monitor).
In this updated and expanded edition of climate scientist Steven Koonin’s groundbreaking book, go behind the headlines to discover the latest eye-opening data about climate change—with unbiased facts and realistic steps for the future. "Greenland’s ice loss is accelerating." "Extreme temperatures are causing more fatalities." "Rapid 'climate action' is essential to avoid a future climate disaster." You've heard all this presented as fact. But according to science, all of these statements are profoundly misleading. With the new edition of Unsettled, Steven Koonin draws on decades of experience—including as a top science advisor to the Obama administration—to clear away the fog and explain what science really says (and doesn't say). With a new introduction, this edition now features reflections on an additional three years of eye-opening data, alternatives to unrealistic “net zero” solutions, global energy inequalities, and the energy crisis arising from the war in Ukraine. When it comes to climate change, the media, politicians, and other prominent voices have declared that “the science is settled.” In reality, the climate is changing, but the why and how aren’t as clear as you’ve probably been led to believe. Koonin takes readers behind the headlines, dispels popular myths, and unveils little-known truths: Despite rising greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures decreased from 1940 to 1970 Models currently used to predict the future do not accurately describe the climate of the past, and modelers themselves strongly doubt their regional predictions There is no compelling evidence that hurricanes are becoming more frequent—or that predictions of rapid sea level rise have any validity Unsettled is a reality check buoyed by hope, offering the truth about climate science—what we know, what we don’t, and what it all means for our future.
The Brainwashing of the American InvestorRevised Edition is the updated, hands-on investing manual that challenges the prevailing wisdom to put your trust blindly in Wall Street.
The legendary bestseller that made millions look at the world in a radically different way returns in a new edition, now including an exclusive discussion between the authors and bestselling professor of psychology Angela Duckworth. Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? Which should be feared more: snakes or french fries? Why do sumo wrestlers cheat? In this groundbreaking book, leading economist Steven Levitt—Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and winner of the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark medal for the economist under 40 who has made the greatest contribution to the discipline—reveals that the answers. Joined by acclaimed author and podcast host Stephen J. Dubner, Levitt presents a brilliant—and brilliantly entertaining—account of how incentives of the most hidden sort drive behavior in ways that turn conventional wisdom on its head.
Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling more than four million copies. Now Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with SuperFreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that this freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first. SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? What's the best way to catch a terrorist? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Are people hardwired for altruism or selfishness? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically.
Everywhere you look, all you see is green. People are "living green," businesses are "going green," and consumers are "buying green." But soon, this trendy "green" lifestyle won't be voluntary-it will be mandatory.
This handbook is a one-stop forum for nonpartisan discussion of the major proposals for addressing Social Security's coming financial crisis. This timely volume details the history and development of the American system of Social Security and examines the serious problems it faces. It covers the "prehistory" of Social Security dating back to the 19th century and projects the program's likely future over the next several generations. Thematically, the book chronicles the origination of the initial Social Security Act of 1935, each major reform to the act through today, the nature and magnitude of the current difficulty facing Social Security, and each major remedy that has been proposed. It also examines programs in other nations and how they have attempted to address similar problems. This handbook is essential reading for anyone trying to understand how this vital program evolved and where it could be going.
Inside the House of Money lifts the veil on the typically opaque world of hedge funds, offering a rare glimpse at how today's highest paid money managers approach their craft. Author Steven Drobny demystifies how these star traders make billions for well-heeled investors, revealing their theories, strategies and approaches to markets. Drobny, cofounder of Drobny Global Advisors, an international macroeconomic research and advisory firm, has tapped into his network and beyond in order assemble this collection of thirteen interviews with the industry's best minds. Along the way, you'll get an inside look at firsthand trading experiences through some of the major world financial crises of the last few decades. Whether Russian bonds, Pakistani stocks, Southeast Asian currencies or stakes in African brewing companies, no market or instrument is out of bounds for these elite global macro hedge fund managers. Highly accessible and filled with in-depth expert opinion, Inside the House of Money is a must-read for financial professionals and anyone else interested in understanding the complexities at stake in world financial markets. "The ruminations of supposedly hush-hush hedge fund operators are richly illuminating." --New York Times
Why, in the world's most affluent nation, are so many corporations squeezing their employees dry? In this fresh, carefully researched book, New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse explores the economic, political, and social trends that are transforming America's workplaces, including the decline of the social contract that created the world's largest middle class and guaranteed job security and good pensions. We meet all kinds of workers—white-collar and blue-collar, high-tech and low-tech, middle-class and low-income—as we see shocking examples of injustice, including employees who are locked in during a hurricane or fired after suffering debilitating, on-the-job injuries. With pragmatic recommendations on what government, business and labor should do to alleviate the economic crunch, The Big Squeeze is a balanced, consistently revealing look at a major American crisis.
Who caused the Great Recession? We did. In Disequilibrium,economist Steven Ricchiuto traces how destructive changes in our economic systems have created our present unbalanced economy. He expertly shows how today’s disequilibrium between supply and demand came from decades of misguided economic policies made in response to the Great Inflation of the 1970s and 1980s. Ricchiuto then goes even further, investigating how economic forces created in the World War II era laid the groundwork for this destructive shift. Ricchiuto's timely book offers a method for assessing macro economic credit quality and suggests policy makers alter their behavior to handle new macro dynamics. Today’s economic framework cannot be counted on to protect us forever. In Disequilibrium, Ricchiuto shows us where we went wrong in the past so that we can work to get the future right.
If anyone can save capitalism from the capitalists, it’s Steven Pearlstein. This lucid, brilliant book refuses to abandon capitalism to those who believe morality and justice irrelevant to an economic system." —Ezra Klein, founder and editor-at-large, Vox Pulitzer Prize-winning economics journalist Steven Pearlstein argues that our thirty year experiment in unfettered markets has undermined core values required to make capitalism and democracy work. With a New Introduction by the Author Thirty years ago, “greed is good” and “maximizing shareholder value” became the new mantras woven into the fabric of our business culture, economy, and politics. Although, around the world, free market capitalism has lifted more than a billion people from poverty, in the United States most of the benefits of economic growth have been captured by the richest 10%, along with providing justification for squeezing workers, cheating customers, avoiding taxes, and leaving communities in the lurch. As a result, Americans are losing faith that a free market economy is the best system. In Moral Capitalism, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steven Pearlstein chronicles our descent and challenges the theories being taught in business schools and exercised in boardrooms around the country. We’re missing a key tenet of Adam Smith’s wealth of nations: without trust and social capital, democratic capitalism cannot survive. Further, equality of incomes and opportunity need not come at the expense of economic growth. Pearlstein lays out bold steps we can take as a country: a guaranteed minimum income paired with universal national service, tax incentives for companies to share profits with workers, ending class segregation in public education, and restoring competition to markets. He provides a path forward that will create the shared prosperity that will sustain capitalism over the long term. Previously published as Can American Capitalism Survive?
Understand the current and future research into technologies that underpin the increasing capabilities of automation technologies and their impact on the working world of the future. Rapid advances in automation and robotics technologies are often reported in the trade and general media, often relying on scary headlines such as “Jobs Lost to Robots.” It is certainly true that work will change with the advent of smarter and faster automated workers; however, the scope and scale of the changes is still unknown. Automation may seem to be here already, but we are only at the early stages. Automation and Collaborative Robotics explores the output of current research projects that are improving the building blocks of an automated world. Research into collaborative robotics (cobotics) is merging digital, audio, and visual data to generate a commonly held view between cobots and their human collaborators. Low-power machine learning at the edge of the network can deliver decision making on cobots or to their manipulations. Topics covered in this book include: Robotic process automation, chatbots, and their impact in the near future The hype of automation and headlines leading to concerns over the future of work Component technologies that are still in the research labs Foundational technologies and collaboration that will enable many tasks to be automated with human workers being re-skilled and displaced rather than replaced What You Will Learn Be aware of the technologies currently being researched to improve or deliver automation Understand the impact of robotics, other automation technologies, and the impact of AI on automation Get an idea of how far we are from implementation of an automated future Know what work will look like in the future with the deployment of these technologies Who This Book Is For Technical and business managers interested in the future of automation and robotics, and the impact it will have on their organizations, customers, and the business world in general
For years, America has been plagued by slow economic growth and increasing inequality. In The Captured Economy, Brink Lindsey and Steven M. Teles identify a common factor behind these twin ills: breakdowns in democratic governance that allow wealthy special interests to capture the policymaking process for their own benefit. They document the proliferation of regressive regulations that redistribute wealth and income up the economic scale while stifling entrepreneurship and innovation. They also detail the most important cases of regulatory barriers that have worked to shield the powerful from the rigors of competition, thereby inflating their incomes: subsidies for the financial sector's excessive risk taking, overprotection of copyrights and patents, favoritism toward incumbent businesses through occupational licensing schemes, and the NIMBY-led escalation of land use controls that drive up rents for everyone else. An original and counterintuitive interpretation of the forces driving inequality and stagnation, The Captured Economy will be necessary reading for anyone concerned about America's mounting economic problems and how to improve the social tensions they are sparking.
This is the story of the slow evolution of Goldman Sachs—addressing why and how the firm changed from an ethical standard to a legal one as it grew to be a leading global corporation. In What Happened to Goldman Sachs, Steven G. Mandis uncovers the forces behind what he calls Goldman’s “organizational drift.” Drawing from his firsthand experience; sociological research; analysis of SEC, congressional, and other filings; and a wide array of interviews with former clients, detractors, and current and former partners, Mandis uncovers the pressures that forced Goldman to slowly drift away from the very principles on which its reputation was built. Mandis evaluates what made Goldman Sachs so successful in the first place, how it responded to pressures to grow, why it moved away from the values and partnership culture that sustained it for so many years, what forces accelerated this drift, and why insiders can’t—or won’t—recognize this crucial change. Combining insightful analysis with engaging storytelling, Mandis has written an insider’s history that offers invaluable perspectives to business leaders interested in understanding and managing organizational drift in their own firms.
The global financial crisis of 2008 was resolved over the course of two years after the collapse of the US housing bubble, but the world economy did not vigorously rebound as expected. The West has been torpid, while Asian economic vitality has steadily waned. These developments have been diversely interpreted and authorities have responded with a series of institutional reforms and policy fixes, without coming to grips with accumulating national debts, the kinds of speculative practices that caused the financial crisis, and the inadequacies of neoclassical and Keynesian macroeconomic explanations.Global Economic Turmoil and the Public Good presents the cumulative research of both authors. It updates the readers on global economic developments since 2008, while providing a concise, yet comprehensive survey of the causes and protracted consequences of the 2008 financial crisis. The book explains the global financial disequilibrium and catastrophic crisis risks; surveys and appraises institutional reforms designed to reinvigorate growth and ameliorate financial crisis risk; and proposes specific actions which will prevent another global financial crisis and its economic fallout.
In Symptomatic to Systemic, Steven Ricchiuto examines an exhaustive data set of analytics around each postwar business cycle. He identifies the underlying causes precipitating downturns in the economy and finds that financial dislocations and debacles have undergone a distressing evolution. They are no longer the result of a classic economic contraction, but seemingly systemic causes that operate independently of traditional predictors of recessions. Ricchiuto's book helps readers recognize the factors that are driving key markets and interpret the new indicators of economic health. Symptomatic to Systemic provides clues as to where the next contraction may surface so that readers won't be caught unaware.
In this poignant and timely biography, Unprecedented Power: Jesse Jones, Capitalism and the Common Good shows how the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) saved the United States economy during the Great Depression and militarized industry in time to win World War II. RFC strategies and Jesse Jones’s approaches can be adapted now to address the impacts of the new coronavirus and climate change. President Herbert Hoover had established the RFC in 1932 to make loans to banks, railroads and insurance companies and appointed Jesse Jones—Houston’s preeminent developer and a former finance chair of the Democratic National Committee—to the bi-partisan board. With clear implications today, Jones complained the RFC was slow and a year late and said if it had judiciously loaned five to seven billion dollars in 1931 and ’32, economic collapse would have been prevented. Soon after his inauguration, President Franklin Roosevelt supercharged the RFC, made Jones chair and the government agency began buying preferred stock in banks to stabilize and help them lend again. Jones knew capital rather than debt was needed to save the banks and revive the flow of credit, just as it was when the program was duplicated in 2008 as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, better known as TARP. Under Jones’s leadership, the RFC became the largest investor in the nation and rescued banks, businesses, homes and farms; saved the railroads; rebuilt communities after environmental calamities; built bridges, dams and aqueducts across the nation; and brought electricity and appliances to rural America. The RFC helped people and saved businesses during the Great Depression through judicious lending, not spending, and remarkably returned a profit to the government and its taxpayers. As war spread, Jones and FDR shifted the RFC’s focus from domestic economics to global defense. In its second cover story about Jones, TIME magazine reported, “In all the U.S. today there is only one man whose power is greater: Franklin Roosevelt … The President knows Congress will give more to Jones without debate than he can get after a fight … Emperor Jones is the greatest lender of all time.” Accordingly, after Germany’s European victories, Congress on June 25, 1940, gave Jones and the RFC the authority to build, buy and lease plants to develop and manufacture metals, ships, airplanes, tanks and guns; to train aviators; and, with FDR’s approval, to do anything required to arm the Allied Forces. Almost half of its outsized investments went to corporations to help convert their production to war-time needs. One of its largest new plants—the Dodge-Chicago plant—covered 145 acres and took in raw metal at one end and produced finished airplane engines at the other. Like all its new factories, the plant was built and owned by the federal government’s RFC, leased to corporations to operate and sold to private interests after the war. Likewise, coordinated national large-scale efforts and government investments can be made to address today’s daunting challenges. Unprecedented Power dramatically describes how Jesse Jones and the RFC used every option to save life, democracy and capitalism during two of the 20th century’s most threatening events. Unprecedented Power provides models for today by looking at successes from the past.
A new approach to investing based on how Wall Street insiders approach the market The Indomitable Investor deconstructs the stock market as the public has come to know it and reconstitutes it from the inside out from the perspective of the fortunate few who dominate Wall Street. By revealing how top investors and traders think and act Steven Sears shows the stock market to be an undulating ocean of money, with seasoned investors reading the waves others cannot. Teaching readers to think about the market in radically different ways, The Indomitable Investor shows how to improve returns—and, just as importantly, avoid losses—with disciplines deployed by people who almost always do exactly the opposite of what Wall Street says to do. Laying bare great fallacies, the book explains that non-professional investors wrongly think the stock market is a place to make money, which is what Wall Street wants them to try to do. The Indomitable Investor says otherwise and shows how Wall Street's best investors have a completely different focus. Explains the critical ideas and insights of top traders and investors in language anyone can understand and implement Packed with material rarely shared off Wall Street that is used every day by professional investors Introduces the 17 most important words on Wall Street Teaches critical skills, including: How to increase returns by focusing on risk, not potential profits; how to use the stock market's historical patterns to optimize investment decisions; understanding key relationships between stocks and the economy that predict what will happen to stocks and the broader market; how to increase mutual fund returns with an easy adjustment that redirects the bulk of profits to you—not mutual fund companies, and how to analyze information like seasoned investors to move beyond "statement of the obvious" news reports that turn ordinary investors into Dumb Money Accessible to readers of all backgrounds, including those with a limited understanding of investing, The Indomitable Investor will change how investors view the stock market, Wall Street, and themselves.
The untold story of the global poor: “Powerful, lucid, and revelatory, The Great Surge…offers indispensable prescriptions about sustaining global economic progress into the future” (George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management). We live today at a time of great progress for the global poor. Never before have so many people, in so many developing countries, made so much progress, in so short a time in reducing poverty, increasing incomes, improving health, reducing conflict and war, and spreading democracy. Most people believe the opposite: that with a few exceptions like China and India, the majority of developing countries are hopelessly mired in deep poverty, led by inept dictators, and have little hope for change. But a major transformation is underway—and has been for two decades now. Since the early 1990s more than 700 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty, six million fewer children die every year from disease, tens of millions more girls are in school, millions more people have access to clean water, and democracy—often fragile and imperfect—has become the norm in developing countries around the world. “A terrific book” (Nick Kristof, The New York Times), The Great Surge chronicles this unprecedented economic, social, and political transformation. It shows how the end of the Cold War, the development of new technologies, globalization, and courageous local leadership have combined to improve the fate of hundreds of millions of people in poor countries around the world. Most importantly, The Great Surge reveals how we can accelerate the progress.
With tipping points and extreme global warming looming, the key to understanding our climate future lies in our distant past With rising emissions, we are on track to cause rapid global warming with devastating con- sequences. But how bad could climate change get and what might it do to planet Earth and humanity? Runaway Climate explores the causes of the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) rapid climate-heating episode, its dramatic impact on life on Earth, and lessons for our climate future. Fifty-six million years ago our planet experienced a period of intense warming known as the PETM, resulting in a rapid global temperature increase of about 7°C. Triggered by natural geological processes over millennia and magnified by strong climate feedback loops, the PETM lasted for about 180,000 years and drastically altered life on Earth. Yet in only a few short decades we've pumped similar amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, making the PETM an unsettlingly apt analogy for our current predicament. This deeply cautionary tale explores: The runaway feedbacks that pushed the PETM's climate past the tipping point Subsequent cascades of environmental devastation—from plant and animal migrations to ocean acidification, extreme weather, and mass extinctions A sobering vision of life on hothouse Earth—a hostile world of desertification, sea-level rise, climate refugees, and agricultural collapse The urgent need for decisive individual and collective actions to slash carbon emissions, stabilize the climate, and undertake a rapid transition to a cleaner and healthier future. Scientifically rigorous, yet accessible to a wide audience, Runaway Climate is essential reading for every- one committed to understanding and taking action on the climate emergency.
A slipcased hardback edition of Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's bestselling phenomenon, with the original first Penguin edition artwork.What do estate agents and the Ku Klux Klan have in common?Why do drug dealers live with their mothers?How can your name affect how well you do in life?The answer: Freakonomics. It's at the heart of everything we do and the things that affect us daily, from sex to crime, parenting to politics, fat to cheating, fear to traffic jams. And it's all about using information about the world around us to get to the heart of what's really happening under the surface of everyday life.Now updated with the authors' New York Times columns and blog entries, this cult bestseller will show you how, by unravelling your life's secret codes, you can discover a totally new way of seeing the world.
A HUMDINGER' THE TIMES BIGGER, BETTER AND MORE CONTROVERSIAL, THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING FREAKQUEL IS HERE IN A SUPER-DELUXE, SUPER-ILLUSTRATED EDITION. Steven Levitt, the original rogue economist, and Stephen Dubner look deeper, question harder and uncover even more hidden truths about our world, from terrorism to shark attacks, cable TV to hurricanes. They ask, among other things- What's a sure-fire way to catch a terrorist? Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness? Which cancer does chemotherapy work best for? Why is saving the planet easier than we think? With this illustrated edition, Levitt and Dubner bring alive their unique analysis and storytelling with an explosion of visual evidence to reveal the world in a bold, new way. Seeing is believing . . .
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.