For many Americans, the recovery from the 2007 recession, a recovery that officially began in 2009, feels very remote, or nonexistent. Even as the stock market surges and millions of jobs have been created, they see a very different picture. Many Americans still believe in the basic notion that anyone who works hard should be able to support a family and get ahead. What can we do to make that happen? This issue guide presents three options for deliberation: Create New Opportunities We should make it easier for people to start new enterprises that will improve their circumstances. Whether it's starting a house painting business on the side or opening a restaurant, when individuals start new firms, it helps spur economic growth. More skilled tradespeople are needed, for example, as construction bounces back. Half of all private-sector jobs in the US are at small businesses, and in recent years small businesses have supplied two-thirds of all new jobs. Strengthen the Safety Net We should secure and expand safeguards so that changes in the economy don't push people into poverty or leave families with children homeless or hungry. In the last decade, millions of people found themselves unemployed or underemployed with few or no benefits, sometimes indefinitely. Fewer people work with one company for decades, employee benefits have shrunk, technology and globalization have eliminated jobs, and more people are employed in freelance work. We need to make sure people will not face catastrophic losses as they adapt to these changes. To do this, we should strengthen the unemployment insurance program, protect workers' retirement, and make benefits more portable. Reduce Inequality We should shrink the income gap. Today, the richest 10 percent of the country's population earn more than half of its total income. It is not right that CEOs make hundreds of times more than their employees, even as their companies cut workers' hours to avoid paying overtime and offering benefits. Some inequality helps drive people to succeed and become wealthier, but if people can't move into or stay in the middle class, or if the wealthy manipulate the system to their benefit, then we all lose. To reduce the large gaps between the very rich and the rest of society, schools should be funded more equally, we should do more to control college costs, and people who don't go to college should be able to get decent-paying jobs that allow them to stay in the middle class.
Drug abuse, a problem the United States has faced for decades, has taken a sharply more lethal turn with the rise of opioids--both legal pain- killers, such as oxycodone and fentanyl, and illegal ones like heroin. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50. More than 64,000 Americans were killed by drug overdoses in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That is worse than the death toll at the peak of the HIV epidemic in 1995 and more than the number of US combat deaths in the entire Vietnam War. At least two-thirds of those 2016 drug deaths were caused by opioids. This issue advisory presents three options for deliberation. Each option offers advantages as well as drawbacks. If we increase enforcement, for example, this may result in putting many more people in prison. If we reduce the number of prescriptions written, we may increase suffering among people with painful illnesses. Each option is based on differing views about what we hold most valuable. Each represents a general direction and suggests a number of actions that can be carried out by different people or groups.
Since 1996, states have been responsible for moving people from the welfare rolls into jobs. The results have been mixed, and states are still struggling to find the right combination of programs to help individuals and families make that transition. Most people agree that it is best if they find jobs, but not everyone has the skills to land jobs, and even people with skills sometimes lack transportation and/or child care. As a result, many questions are still confounding the nation as the transition from welfare to work continues. This National Issues Forums (NIF) issue booklet gives an overview of the issue and outlines three perspectives for public deliberation. Perspectives are: (1) "Everyone Should Work" (everyone should work regardless of skill and ability); (2) "Help Those Who Can't Work" (it is unrealistic that everyone work); and (3) "Prepare Productive Citizens" (address first the social problems that keep people poor and unskilled). Each perspective contains arguments for and against the perspective, and a final summary compares the three perspectives. (Contains sample pre-forum and post-forum questionnaires.) (BT)
One in five Americans will have mental health problems in any given year. Unaddressed mental illness hurts individuals and their families and results in lost productivity. In rare cases, it can result in violence. This issue guide presents a framework that asks: How can we reduce the impact of mental illness in America? The issue guide presents three options for consideration: Put safety first This option holds that more preventive action is necessary to deal with mentally ill individuals who are potentially dangerous to themselves or others. We should identify those who need help and intervene where necessary to prevent them from harming themselves and others. These individuals should be sought out and their needs addressed. Ensure mental health services are available to all who need them This option holds that people should be encouraged to take control over their own mental health and be provided the tools to do so. We should make sure that everyone who wishes can get the needed help. Let people plot their own course This option holds that we should not rely on so many medical approaches. We should reduce our dependence on drugs and allow people the freedom to plot their own course to healthy lives. In many cases, simple changes to lifestyle can improve mental health.
This issue book asks: What should we do about the national debt? In addressing it, we have many things to consider and weigh. This book lays out three possible options to approach the national debt. Each suggests actions that we might take to address it, but every action has trade-offs we should consider. By working through each option, we can come to our own individual and collective decisions about what we would support and under what conditions. The guide presents three options for deliberation: Agree to Make Sacrifices Now We need to compromise on our differences and act now to reduce the national debt. If this generation doesn't make needed sacrifices, we're simply passing the burden to the next generation. It's time to face this urgent problem. We need to raise taxes and cut spending; neither will get the job done alone. Strengthen Checks and Balances We cannot just hope that personal discipline and basic legislative safeguards will control the urge to spend. Taxpayers willingly accept more benefits than government can afford and both major political parties are too willing to help us dig this hole. Our top priority should be to make systemic changes to increase fiscal responsibility. Invest in Growth First We need to encourage economic growth and invest in research, development, infrastructure, and science education. Growing the economy will boost tax revenues, make the debt more manageable, and will be better for the country in the long run. Drastic cost-cutting measures would likely harm the economy as it tries to recover. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name: "Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow: yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent: ""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .0001pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;} /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name: "Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow: yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent: ""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .0001pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;}
President Donald J. Trump lays out his professional and personal worldview in this classic work—a firsthand account of the rise of America’s foremost deal-maker. “I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”—Donald J. Trump Here is Trump in action—how he runs his organization and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker’s art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur—the ultimate read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight. Praise for Trump: The Art of the Deal “Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again.”—The New York Times “Donald Trump is a deal maker. He is a deal maker the way lions are carnivores and water is wet.”—Chicago Tribune “Fascinating . . . wholly absorbing . . . conveys Trump’s larger-than-life demeanor so vibrantly that the reader’s attention is instantly and fully claimed.”—Boston Herald “A chatty, generous, chutzpa-filled autobiography.”—New York Post
President Donald J. Trump lays out his professional and personal worldview in this classic work—a firsthand account of the rise of America’s foremost deal-maker. “I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”—Donald J. Trump Here is Trump in action—how he runs his organization and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker’s art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur—the ultimate read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight. Praise for Trump: The Art of the Deal “Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again.”—The New York Times “Donald Trump is a deal maker. He is a deal maker the way lions are carnivores and water is wet.”—Chicago Tribune “Fascinating . . . wholly absorbing . . . conveys Trump’s larger-than-life demeanor so vibrantly that the reader’s attention is instantly and fully claimed.”—Boston Herald “A chatty, generous, chutzpa-filled autobiography.”—New York Post
The most daring heist since the Great Train Robberya bored, complacent parole officer concocts the perfect crime. His plan is to rob an express train carrying millions of worn paper money on its way to the Treasury for destruction and replacement. No one loses anything. After all it is only paper on its way to a government furnace. Without involving himself directly, he enlists the aid of there of his parolees. Colin McCurdy, and ex-marijuana smuggler and pilot who always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; Charlie Webb, a small-time fight promoter heavily in debt to loan sharks, but willing to give his all to make the biggest score of his life; Penny Warren, a gorgeous blond thirst for revenge against the system that put her away for six years for a crime she didnt commit. The Money Burn is based on an actual incident that took place in the early 70's. It is an action packed thriller with a bizarre cast of characters and a fast-paced plot that includes double-crosses, love among thieves, police chases, a final shoot-out and a surprise ending.
As both a politically engaged and stylistically versatile poet, W.H. Auden is one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. His work is not only widely studied and read, but has been used in musical scores and quoted in Hollywood films. This guide to Auden’s compelling work offers: an accessible introduction to the contexts and many interpretations of Auden’s texts, from publication to the present an introduction to key critical texts and perspectives on Auden’s life and work, situated in a broader critical history cross-references between sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism suggestions for further reading. Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of W.H. Auden and seeking not only a guide to his works but also a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds them.
This book is about the relationship of the American writer to his land and language - to the 'scene' and the 'sign', to the natural landscape and the inscriptions imposed upon it by men. Among the questions considered in the first section of the book are how does American Romantic writing differ from European; what are the peculiar problems faced by the American artist, and what roles does he adopt to tackle them; what kind of writing results when authors as different as Henry Adams and Mark Twain lament the vanishing of an earlier America, or when Adams and Henry James review their complex relationship to their homeland, or when W. D. Howells and Stephen Crane seek to define their themes in a specifically American setting. The second section of the book examines similar concerns in a number of contemporary writers, notably Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Donald Barthelme, John DeLillo, and William Gass.
First Published in 1998. This text explores how economists and public policy makers are re-thinking the way in which governments monitor, measure and influence an economy in an unbounded global environment where output is largely intangible and organisations are becoming are becoming increasingly non-national in scope. Through a collection of seminal articles written by prominent business people, academics, and public policy makers, this three anthology examines the key issues surrounding the economic impact of knowledge-based growth.
Dynamic Competitive Strategy by best –selling author Dr Tony Grundy casts a radically new light on Competitive Strategy by showing you the dynamic dimension of existing strategy tools and new ones created to deal with rapid innovation and turbulent change. He shows us refreshing and challenging ways of developing strategy, including: Agile approaches to Strategy and Planning The art of the Cunning Plan –with 101 ways of being innovative The alien approach: how might an alien see your industry and business? A whole new set of dynamic strategy tools Scenario storytelling and the art of mental time travel How emotional value can leverage competitive advantag Dynamic stakeholder analysis and influencing He also includes case studies of Arsenal, Brexit, Dyson, Metrobank, Tesco, the infamous honey badger and others from everyday life. This book provides an overall theory and a wealth of practical guidance based on 30 years of Strategy Consulting and Management Research and Teaching that will transform your thinking about strategy. Tony truly "turns strategy upside down," as he does on the cover.
Grass Roots Leaders galvanizes the emotional enthusiasm of the workforce and taps the wealth of their brain power to create an engine of innovation that ripples through the organization from the bottom up and powers it forward. Tony Buzan, Tony Dottino and Richard Israel pick up a theme they first introduced nearly a decade ago in The Brain Smart Leader and document a way of fundamentally changing the perspective and behaviour of leaders and employees in your organization. Their approach shows how to: * use the brain's capacity for solving problems and implementing innovative plans to make the organization's vision a reality; * adopt a three-speed technique - first gear to slow down and allow new learning or support for difficult transition periods. Second gear shifts up to a productive work outcome, and then third gear revs up to champion innovation and change; * apply a series of proven models for dealing with information overload, making the best use of scarce resources, such as time, and keeping sight of successful outcomes as they are developed. The book accurately captures the current state of thinking in organizations, as well as the latest research on how our brains work, to deliver a radical blueprint for how organizations need to change to survive and what this means to their managers and to their employees. If you are a leader who longs to use the grass roots intellectual capital in your organization but, given the quantity of meetings, e-mail, crises and reorganizations, you simply haven't had the time, this book is for you. And if you are an employee who is sick and tired of daily stress, bad planning and poorly thought-through changes and implementations, customer complaints but no improvements, this book is for you, too. A Brain Smart Revolution in Business starts with one person. You.
In this remarkable book, Tony Hilfer provides a major survey of the wealth of post-war American fiction. He analyses the major modes and genres of writing, from realist to postmodernist metafiction and black humour, the fiction of social protest, women's writing, and the traditions of African-American, Southern and Jewish-American fiction. Key writers discussed include William Faulkner, Norman Mailer, Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Vladimir Nabokov and Joyce Carol Oates. The book concludes by exploring contemporary trends through detailed case-studies of Donald Barthelme and Toni Morrison.
There has been growing concern and debate over the impact of social and economic change upon young people and the consequences of this for welfare practice. Within social policy, working with young people has become increasingly important. This book brings together a series of specially commissioned essays which direct attention to both the realities of youth work and the structuring of youth policy. In an area of welfare where the boundaries of responsibility and control are shaped by the competing interest of government, central and local, and a historically powerful voluntary sector, little has actually been written about those who specialise in this area or the structures and policy context in which they operate and from which policies emerge. Welfare and Youth Work Practice is designed to fill a number of long-standing gaps in the literature and thinking about youth work and youth policy.
Fully updated and revised to include the latest case studies and examples from a broad range of industry sectors, this second edition of Strategic Marketing: An Introduction is a concise, thorough and enlightening textbook that demonstrates how organizations can cope with a myriad of demands by better understanding themselves, their products or services, and the world around them. From assessing internal relationships to planning and implementing marketing strategies, and featuring analysis of relationship marketing and strategic alliances, Proctor uses insights from a range of key models and theoretical frameworks to illustrate how an organization can successfully take advantage of ‘strategic windows’ to improve its position. Core issues covered include: marketing strategy analyzing the business environment the customer in the market place targeting and positioning marketing mix strategy. This textbook is the complete guide to assessing and imposing a realistic and successful marketing strategy to fit an organization, its resources and objectives, and the environment in which it operates. Accessibly written and supported by a user-friendly companion website, this new edition of Strategic Marketing: An Introduction is an essential resource for all students of marketing and business and management. A companion website provides additional material for lecturers and students alike: www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415458160/
A park ranger and a robot team up to save Earth from changing magnetic fields which could spell disaster. They discover the change is the work of intelligent beings living inside Earth.
Yoga Consciousness in Ancient Mystery Religions provides a fascinating new perspective on some traditional fairy tales that we all thought we knew. We are taught from an early age that these stories can give us useful guidance for life, even if they seem obscure. Tony Butcher shows us how to unravel the meanings, drawing on the ancient teachings of the mystery schools and, in particular, the teaching of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The first section of the book takes us through the philosophy behind it all, originating in the writings of Thoth (also known as Hermes), upon which ancient Egyptian teaching was based. Transcendence, various states of consciousness and the Yoga Sutras all pave the way towards enlightenment and freedom from the bonds of the material, earthly world.
The role of business in global governance is now widely recognized, but exploration of its role in global financial governance has been more haphazard than systematic. This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the role of transnational financial associations (TFAs) in the organization of global finance. This book develops three theoretical themes of assemblage, functionality, and power as enrolment. These themes challenge approaches that treat financial power as emanating from a single location or force. Whilst existing approaches tend to treat TFAs as irrelevant or as merely transmitting power originating elsewhere, this book argues that power must be created by painstakingly assembling actors, networks, and objects that are often quite autonomous and working at cross purposes to one another--a process in which TFAs play a central role. The book explores these themes in chapters examining the roles of TFAs in interacting with public authorities, constructing global financial markets, and creating financial communities. The authors additionally analyse the roles of TFAs in the European Union, in the Global South, and in promoting goals other than profitability, including Islamic finance, microfinancing, savings banks and cooperatives. Making a distinctive contribution to our understanding of global finance and global governance, Transnational Financial Associations and the Governance of Global Finance is an important book for students and scholars of international political economy, finance, global governance and international relations.
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