Plunder and Blunder chronicles the growth and collapse of the stock and housing bubbles, explains how policy changes since 1980 laid the groundwork for catastrophic—but completely predictable—market meltdowns, and offers prescriptions for avoiding these disasters in the future. Dean Baker argues not only that competent economists should have recognized the developing housing bubble, but also that policy makers and the media cheerfully neglected those economists who did predict danger. Baker doesn’t engage in 20-20 hindsight, but thoroughly documents how fundamental policy shifts destabilized the economy and eroded the broad prosperity of the post-war period. His expert analysis explains the outcomes clearly so we can prevent similar financial disasters. "Dean Baker warned us what was coming. Now we can read why Dean got it right when so many experts were blind. The story is intriguing—and deeply disturbing." —William Greider, national affairs correspondent, The Nation, and author of Come Home, America

Daniel Gross, Yahoo! financial columnist and author of Dumb Money , offers a refreshingly optimistic take on our nation’s economic prospects, examining the positive trends that point to a better, stronger future. Financial meltdown, a deep recession, and political polarization—combined with strong growth outside the U.S.—have led to a global bubble of pessimism surrounding the U.S. and its economic prospects. Bloated with debt, outpaced by China, India, and other emerging markets, the U.S. has been left for dead as an economic force. But, Daniel Gross, widely respected for his Newsweek and Slate coverage of the crash and the recovery, shows that much of the talk about decline is misplaced. In the wake of the crash, rather than accept the inevitability of a Japan-style lost decade, America’s businesses and institutions tapped into the very strengths that built the nation’s economy into the global powerhouse in the first place: speed, ingenuity, adaptability, pragmatism, entrepreneurship, and, most significantly, an ability to engage with the world. As the U.S. wallowed in self-pity, the world continued to see promise in what America has to offer—buying exports, investing in the U.S., and adapting American companies and business models as their own. Global growth, it turns out, is not a zero-sum game. These same attributes can propel the world’s largest economy forward through the significant headwinds it faces. Better, Stronger, Faster is a narrative of the remarkable reconstruction and reorientation that started in March 2009, a period that Gross compares to March 1933. Both marked the start of unexpected recoveries and monumental shifts in our nation’s history. As Gross explains, through stories of innovative solutions devised by policymakers, businesses, investors, and consumers, America has the potential to emerge from this period, not as the unrivaled ruler of the global economy, but as a leader and enabler of growth.

The implications of capital mobility for growth and stability are some of the most contentious and least understood contemporary issues in economics. In this book, Barry Eichengreen discusses historical, theoretical, empirical, and policy aspects of the effects, both positive and negative, of capital flows. He focuses on the connections between capital flows and crises as well as on those between capital flows and growth. Eichengreen argues that international financial liberalization, like other forms of economic liberalization, can positively affect the efficiency of resource allocation and the rate of economic growth. But analyses of both recent and historical experience also show an undeniable association between capital mobility and crises, especially when domestic institutions are weak and the harmonization of capital account liberalization and other policy reforms is inadequate. In his conclusion, Eichengreen makes suggestions for policy design to maximize the benefits of international financial liberalization while minimizing the risks of financial instability.

This collection of Seligman's articles and addresses on fiscal theory and policy includes "Comparative Tax Burdens in the Twentieth Century," "Income Taxes and the Price Level," "Are Stock Dividends Income," "The Sales Tax," "The Problem of Tax-exempt Securities," and "The Reform of Municipal Taxation."

"Legendary economist Hyman Minsky identified author William H. Janeway as a 'theorist-practitioner' of financial economics; this book is an expression of that double life. Interweaving his unique professional perspective with political and financial history, Janeway narrates the dynamics of the innovation economy from the standpoint of a seasoned practitioner of venture capital, operating on the frontier where financial speculation intersects with novel technology. In this fully revised and updated edition, Janeway develops his theory that asset bubbles play a central role in financing technological innovation and that state investment in national goals enable the innovation process. Now, the Digital Revolution, sponsored by the state and funded by speculation, has matured to attack the authority, and even the legitimacy, of governments. The populist response in the West, especially in the United States, opens the door for China to seize leadership of the innovation economy from America"--

'Bower's book is a devastating indictment' Sunday Times 'Explosive ... Bower reveals a remarkable and sinister picture of the man who likes to appear as the ever-smiling hero' Daily Mail A sensational critical biography of the man and his business practices. No British tycoon is better known, few claim to be richer and none has masterminded a more recognisable brand than Richard Branson. What is behind the success of the buccaneering balloonist, the tabloids' favourite celebrity nude, the 'grinning jumper' and the scourge of corporate goliaths? Tom Bower has a uncovered a different tale to the one so eagerly promoted by Virgin's publicists. Here is the full story of Branson: his businesses, his friendships, his ambition, his law-breaking, his drug-taking, his bullying. Offering an intimate scrutiny of exactly how Richard Branson created and sold himself, this biography reveals Branson to be a single-minded profiteer who, while occasionally generous to others, has a fixed purpose to enhance his family's wealth in secret off-shore trust funds. Instead of a glittering saint, Branson emerges as a devious actor, proud of plucking for his own profit the good ideas of others.

This book and the other three books in Making the Most of Your Money series provide readers with practical and usable information about money. The Basics of Investing offers a clear road map for readers to follow when handling money and making decisions about what to do with it. It answers these fundamental questions: Why is saving not enough? When is the right time to begin investing? What are the goals of investing, and how do they change over the investor's lifetime? What investment alternatives are right for each type of investor? How can a new investor build a solid portfolio? Should investors manage their own porfolios? The Basics of Investing is written for consumers who are confused about their finances and need a well-written, easy-to-understand guide to making safe, sound investments.

The traditional assumption holds that the territory of money coincides precisely with the political frontiers of each nation state: France has the franc, the United Kingdom has the pound, the United States has the dollar. But the disparity between that simple mental landscape and the actual organization of currency spaces has grown in recent years, as territorial boundaries of individual states limit currency circulation less and less. Many currencies are used outside their "home" country for transactions either between nations or within foreign states. In this book, Benjamin J. Cohen asks what this new geography of money reveals about financial and political power. Cohen shows how recent changes in the geography of money challenge state sovereignty. He examines the role of money and the scope of cross-border currency competition in today's world. Drawing on new work in geography and network theory to explain the new spatial organization of monetary relations, Cohen suggests that international relations, political as well as economic, are being dramatically reshaped by the increasing interpenetration of national monetary spaces. This process, he explains, generates tensions and insecurities as well as opportunities for cooperation.

In Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate Warren Rudman focuses on four historic Senate actions in which he played a central the Gramm-Rudman act--the audacious 1985 attempt to force a balanced budget on an unwilling Congress and President; the Keating Five ethics committee hearings, which revealed the thin line between campaign finance and corruption; the Iran-Contra investigation, Rudman's no-holds-barred account of the Reagan administration's biggest scandal; and the appointment of his colleague and close friend David Souter to the Supreme Court. Rudman offers vivid portraits of the men he worked Dole, Packwood, Baker, Helms, Gramm, and the two presidents he served under--Reagan and Bush. He writes unflinchingly about his colleagues and about the legislative process. Here is the inner world of the Senate club, revealed by the man who was often called "the conscience of the Senate." Combat is one of the most important books on American politics to be published in years.

When Mickie Siebert arrived in New York in the mid-1950s, she had $500 in her wallet and drove a used Studebaker. Almost fifty years later she is known as the "First Woman of Finance," the only woman to head a publicly traded national brokerage firm. Pithy, vastly entertaining, and full of behind-the-scenes anecdotes, Changing the Rules reveals how Siebert forged her phenomenal success in the chaotic and cutthroat world of Wall Street. Three four-letter words are behind Siebert's career success: One is work -- she learned everything there was to know about a company before recommending its stock. The second is luck -- as an analyst in training, she had the good fortune to follow a fledgling industry that nobody else wanted. (The "dog" industry was airlines.) The third word is risk -- she knew how to assess liability and make a decision. Siebert recounts the resistance of the good gray Stock Exchange when she dared to infiltrate the boys' club, threatening to have a Port-O-San delivered to the NYSE luncheon club if they didn't add a women's bathroom. She reveals the backstage stories about saving Lockheed and selling Conrail (at the time, the largest stock offering in Wall Street history), as well as the changes on the Street that led to May Day, 1975, when she was first in line as a discount broker (and considered a pariah by industry standards). She tells of her memorable encounters with such legendary figures as Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, the World War I flying ace who ran Eastern Airlines, and Robert Brimberg, the iconoclastic "Scarsdale Fats" whose investing acumen was the envy of the Street. Writing with equal candor about the politics of finance and the finance of politics, Siebert recalls her five years as Superintendent of Banking for New York State -- when she helped to prevent a national fiscal crisis during the Iran hostage situation -- and her experiences as a pro-choice Republican senatorial candidate. Siebert's reputation for rocking the boat is legendary, and Changing the Rules is both a fascinating biography of a true pioneer, and a valuable strategic and informational tool for anyone who deals with or dabbles in the money game.

This book tells the story of the Dönme, the descendents of Jews who resided in the Ottoman Empire and converted to Islam along with their messiah, Rabbi Shabbatai Tzevi, in the seventeenth century. For two centuries following their conversion, the Dönme were accepted as Muslims, and by the end of the nineteenth century rose to the top of Salonikan society. The Dönme helped transform Salonika into a cosmopolitan city, promoting the newest innovation in trade and finance, urban reform, and modern education. They eventually became the driving force behind the 1908 revolution that led to the overthrow of the Ottoman sultan and the establishment of a secular republic. To their proponents, the Dönme are enlightened secularists and Turkish nationalists who fought against the dark forces of superstition and religious obscurantism. To their opponents, they were simply crypto-Jews engaged in a plot to dissolve the Islamic empire. Both points of view assume the Dönme were anti-religious, whether couched as critique or praise. But it is time that we take these religious people seriously on their own terms. In the Ottoman Empire, the Dönme promoted morality, ethics, spirituality, and a syncretistic religion that reflected their origins at the intersection of Jewish Kabbalah and Islamic Sufism. This is the first book to tell their story, from their origins to their near total dissolution as they became secular Turks in the mid-twentieth century.

The first Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book to be written by the Archbishop Justin Welby himself. In his first full-length book Justin Welby looks at the subject of money and materialism. Designed for study in the weeks of Lent leading up to Easter, Dethroning Mammon reflects on the impact of our own attitudes, and of the pressures that surround us, on how we handle the power of money, called Mammon in this book. Who will be on the throne of our lives? Who will direct our actions and attitudes? Is it Jesus Christ, who brings truth, hope and freedom? Or is it Mammon, so attractive, so clear, but leading us into paths that tangle, trip and deceive? Archbishop Justin explores the tensions that arise in a society dominated by Mammon's modern aliases, economics and finance, and by the pressures of our culture to conform to Mammon's expectations. Following the Gospels towards Easter, this book asks the reader what it means to dethrone Mammon in the values and priorities of our civilisation and in our own existence. In Dethroning Mammon , Archbishop Justin challenges us to use Lent as a time of learning to trust in the abundance and grace of God.

The story many have told can lead one to believe in the existence of a united Jewish people: rich, powerful, placed under centralized command and responsible for establishing a worldwide power strategy through money. Such a belief would merge with the fantasies that have spread across every century from Trajan to Constantine, from Matthew to Luther, from Marlow to Voltaire, from the Protocol of the Elders of Zion to Mein Kampf, to all that which is propagated today via the anonymity of the Internet. This is the story ripe to be challenged and retold. Herein lies the history of the relationship between the Jewish people, money and the world at large. The author is well aware of the subversive nature of this subject. It is a topic that has unleashed so many controversies and brought about so many massacres as to have become a veritable taboo, a topic that must not be evoked under any circumstance for fear of provoking some age-old catastrophe. Today, no one dares write on this topic, as if centuries of study have served no purpose other than to fuel book burning. It remains nevertheless in the best interest of modern mankind to understand how those who discovered monotheism also founded the ethics of capitalism, how some became its primary brokers and leading bankers, while others its most unrelenting enemy. In this book the author tackles the facts and the lies of the history of the relationship between the Jewish people, money and the world at large. "It seems essential that our world, and Jewish people themselves, face a part of their history that they may not care for but of which they have every reason to be proud." REVIEWS "The Economic History of the Jewish People by Jacques Attali is set to be as controversial as it is well documented and thoroughly researched by one of the foremost financial authorities of Europe, the Head of the Commission to Promote Economic Growth in France. Attali has written numerous books and knows this subject thoroughly. He has tackled it from the standpoint of history, myth, and dirty stories, proving some and dispelling others with facts. He has traced the economic experiences, leadership, and fall of the Jewish people from 2,000 years BC until present upheavals of economy worldwide. The book is fascinating for anyone interested in history, finance, or the Jewish people. It is an eye-opener in some instances and shows the influence, admitted or behind-the-scenes, which the Jewish people have had on the entire history of our world through the ages and how they have been rewarded or persecuted along the way for their use of any kind of tender (legal or illegal) around the world for 4,000 years. Really interesting and so very well written." Bonnie Neely, Amazon Top 1000 Reviewer, 2010/05/24

The essays in this volume, by veteran economists as well as younger scholars, are part of a radical attempt to grapple with the problems of advanced capitalist development without discarding the real theoretical breakthroughs made by Keynes. The contributors argue that Keynes was correct in pointing to the economic contradictions stemming from unemployment, income inequality, and speculative finance, but failed to consider the class composition of social output, the macroeconomic effects of the modern firm, and the atrophy of investment under conditions of capitalist maturity. They thus seek to uncover the sources of stagnation under monopoly capitalism by building on the work of three of the great economists of modern times: Marx, Keynes, and Kalecki.

The influential book that established the mathematical discipline of linear programming In the worlds of finance, business, and management, mathematicians and economists frequently encounter problems of optimization. In this classic book, George Dantzig shows how the methods of linear programming can provide solutions. Drawing on a wealth of examples, he introduces the basic theory of linear inequalities and describes the powerful simplex method used to solve them. He discusses the price concept, the transportation problem, and matrix methods, and covers key mathematical concepts such as the properties of convex sets and linear vector spaces. Dantzig demonstrates how linear programming can be applied to a host of optimization problems, from minimizing traffic congestion to maximizing the scheduling of airline flights. An invaluable resource for students and practitioners alike, Linear Programming and Extensions is an extraordinary account of the development and uses of this versatile mathematical technique, blending foundational research in mathematical theory with computation, economic analysis, and applications to industrial problems.

Edwin Black s latest book, Financing the Flames: How Tax-Exempt and Public Money Fuel a Culture of Confrontation and Terrorism in Israel, pulls the cover off the robust use of US tax-exempt, tax-subsidized, and public monies to foment agitation, systematically destabilize the Israel Defense Forces, and finance terrorists in Israel. In a far-flung investigation in the United States, Israel and the West Bank, human-rights investigative reporter Edwin Black documents that it is actually the highly politicized human rights organizations and NGOs themselves all American taxpayer supported which are financing the flames that make peace in Israel difficult if not impossible. Black spotlights key charitable organizations such as the Ford Foundation, George Soros s Open Society Foundations, the New Israel Fund, and many others, as well as American taxpayers as a group. Instead of promoting peace and reconciliation between Arabs and Israelis, a variety of taxpayer-subsidized organizations have funded a culture where peace does not pay, but warfare and confrontation do. Ironically, several Jewish organizations, scooping up millions in tax-subsidized donations, stand at the forefront of the problem. At the same time, the author details at great length the laudable and helpful activities of such groups as the New Israel Fund; he chronicles a heartbreaking conflict between stated intent and true impact on the ground. In addition to documenting questionable 501(c)(3) activity, Black documents the direct relationship between taxpayer assistance to the Palestinian Authority and individuals engaged in terrorism against civilians.

PROMISE AND FULFILMENT Palestine TO ABRAM AND JASHA WEINSHALL CITIZENS OF ISRAEL AS A TOKEN OF A QUARTER-CENTURY OF FRIENDSHIP ACKNOWLEDGMENTS MY sincere thanks are due to R. H. S. Grossman, M. P., and Messrs. Hamish Hamilton, for permission to use the long extract pp. 102-7 from Grossmans Palestine Mission to a member of the Israeli Foreign Office, who wishes to remain anonymous, for per mission to print his Report from Jerusalem pp. 234-8 to Mr. George Pape, Librarian of the Public Information Office in Tel Aviv, and Dr. G. Pollack of the Israeli Ministry of Finance, for valuable research work and to Miss Daphne Wood ward, for helping with the proofs. A. K. PREFACE THIS book consists of three parts, Background, Close-up and Perspective . The first part is a survey of the develop ments which led to the foundation of the State of Israel. It lays no claim to historical completeness, and is written from a specific angle which stresses the part played by irrational forces and emotive bias in history. I am not sure whether this emphasis has not occasionally resulted in over-emphasis as is almost in evitable when one tries to redress a balance by spot-lighting aspects which are currently neglected. But it was certainly not my intention, by underlining the psychological factor, to deny or minimize the importance of the politico-economic forces. My aim was rather to present, if I may borrow a current medical term, a psycho-somatic view of one of the most curious episodes in modern history. The second part, Close-up, is meant to give the reader a close and coloured, but not I hope technicoloured, view of the Jewish war and of everyday life in the new State. It opens and ends with extracts fromthe diary of my last sojourn as a war correspondent in Israel. The emphasis here is on life in the towns, with only occasional glimpses of the collective settlements, since I have given a detailed description of these in an earlier book. The third part, Perspective, is an attempt to present to the reader a comprehensive survey of the social and political structure, the cultural trends and future prospects of the Jewish State. I have tried to show elsewhere that the creative processes of the artist and the scientist follow the same mental pattern, and that the sciences may legitimately be called neutral arts, separated from the emotive arts not by any distinct barrier but merely by the quality of our emotive reactions. In this sense vii Viii PROMISE AND FULFILMENT history, too, is a neutral art with mythology and bardic folklore as connecting links to the emotive arts of drama and fiction. But the emotive neutrality which should characterize the chronicler is not the same thing as indifference, and his object ivity can only be the result of a subjective passion for the pursuit of truth. It is a poor sort of impartiality which stands outside the parties, untouched by their emotions the good judge, like the playwright and historian, absorbs the subjective truth con tained in each of the conflicting pleas, and his verdict is a syn thesis of their part-truths, not their denial. In other words, r objectivity is a state of balanced emotions, not an emotive vacuum. This book, then, should be regarded as a subjective pursuit of the objective truth. I lived in Palestine from my twentieth to my twenty-third year, as a farmer, tramp, and on various odd jobs finally as a foreign correspondent. Ihave since revisited the country at fairly regular intervals, and each of these visits provided an occasion not only to study developments in the country, but also my personal attitude to it. The last phase of this pilgrims progress through a thicket of emotive and ideo logical entanglements is summed up in the Epilogue. It may also be read as a prologue, and serve as an indication of the point of view from which certain controversial problems are treated in this book...

"Miller and Upton is by far the most cited macroeconomics text in front line academic research journals over the last ten years. It has become a contemporary classic."—Roger C. Kormendi, University of Michigan "The most innovative approach to introducing macroeconomics that I have seen. . . . A 'classic' in the sense that every serious student of macroeconomics is likely to want it in his or her library."—John P. Gould, University of Chicago "The task the authors set out to perform is ambitious: to write a macroeconomics textbook structured around a neoclassical growth model. And in this task they have succeeded."—Clifford W. Smith, Jr., Journal of Finance "This is a superb book. As a vehicle for teaching economics I have to place it right behind Henderson and Quant ( Microeconomics ) and Dorfman, Samuelson, and Solow ( Linear Programming ). Moreover, it is an exciting book both to read and to think about. . . . It is not just that these authors have something to say, but their way of saying it is generally superior."—F. E. Banks, Kyklos

This book provides a framework for thinking about economic institutions such as firms. The basic idea is that institutions arise in situations where people write incomplete contracts and where the allocation of power or control is therefore important. Power and control are not standard concepts in economic theory. The book begins by pointing out that traditional approaches cannot explain on the one hand why all transactions do not take place in one huge firm and on the other hand why firms matter at all. An incomplete contracting or property rights approach is then developed. It is argued that this approach can throw light on the boundaries of firms and on the meaning of asset ownership. In the remainder of the book, incomplete contracting ideas are applied to understand firms' financial decisions, in particular, the nature of debt and equity (why equity has votes and creditors have foreclosure rights); the capital structure decisions of public companies; bankruptcy procedure; and the allocation of voting rights across a company's shares. The book is written in a fairly non-technical style and includes many examples. It is aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate students, academic and business economists, and lawyers, as well as those with an interest in corporate finance, privatization and regulation, and the transition from socialism to capitalism. Little background knowledge is required, since the concepts are developed as the book progresses and the existing literature is fully reviewed.