Accounting & Finance

During the Great Depression, legendary British economist Keynes advocated using government money to fill the economic void until consumer spending and business investment recovered. But what happens when governments can't do that anymore? You've arrived at "The Keynesian Endpoint": when the money has run out before the economy has been rescued. That's where we are. Exhausted balance sheets leave policy makers with few viable options to bolster economic growth; increasingly, they point leaders and citizens towards brutal choices that were previously unimaginable. Meanwhile, investors struggle to navigate volatile markets overwhelmed by sovereign debt—and, as they do, they lose tolerance for fiscal recklessness.

 

In the U.S. and around the world, debt-fueled spending programs devised to cure the global financial crisis are now morphing into poison. In Beyond The Keynesian Endpoint, PIMCO Executive Vice President and market strategist Tony Crescenzi illuminates the mounting sovereign debt crisis, dissects each of the many scenarios now swirling around it, and reveals the profound implications for governments, investors, and the world economy.

“You need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the wit, snap, economy . . . and incisiveness of [Moneyball]. Lewis has hit another one out of the park.” —Janet Maslin, New York Times

Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s general manager, is leading a revolution. Reinventing his team on a budget, he needs to outsmart the richer teams. He signs undervalued players whom the scouts consider flawed but who have a knack for getting on base, scoring runs, and winning games. Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball and a tale of the search for new baseball knowledge—insights that will give the little guy who is willing to discard old wisdom the edge over big money.

Critically and textually up-to-date, this new edition of the classic translation (Samuel Moore, 1888) features an introduction and notes by the eminent Marx scholar David McLellan, prefaces written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels subsequent to the original 1848 publication, and corrections of errors made in earlier versions. Regarded as one of the most influential political tracts ever written, The Communist Manifesto serves as the foundation document of the Marxist movement. This summary of the Marxist vision is an incisive account of the world-view Marx and Engels had evolved during their hectic intellectual and political collaboration of the previous few years.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

In this stunning new audiobook, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.
Brilliant and entertaining, OUTLIERS is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate. (2009)

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower--and middle--class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking.

Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely--really unlikely--heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.

The #1 New York Times bestseller: "It is the work of our greatest financial journalist, at the top of his game. And it's essential reading."—Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair

As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge.

Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish.

Michael Lewis's investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American reader to a comfortable complacency: oh, those foolish foreigners. But when he turns a merciless eye on California and Washington, DC, we see that the narrative is a trap baited with humor, and we understand the reckoning that awaits the greatest and greediest of debtor nations.

Based on the success of the distinctive Infinite Success series, Infinite Ideas has now brought together some of the best ideas from that series to form a themed compendium. In Make more money, Karen McCreadie and Steve Shipside combine some of the greatest financial and economic concepts from their interpretations of these classics: Napoleon Hill's Think and grow Rich, Benjamin Franklin's The Way to Wealth and George S. Clason's The Richest Man in Babylon. Here, in one handy volume Shipside and McCreadie interpret the key ideas in these classics by using twenty-first century case studies and examples for the modern world of business and life.

Anthem by Ayn Rand is not a book or governmental treatise. Rather, as Ayn Rand herself admitted, it has neither a real plot nor a real climax. Anthem is a poem. Its final two chapters are (according to Rand) the "anthem"--the celebration of the human ego. This is not done in logical terms, but in pure emotional exultation. Rand's writing throughout the book is skilled, passionate and evocative, but in the last two chapters she really shines. For presentations of Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, in logical form, read Atlas Shrugged. For a ruthless, beautiful evocation of the emotional aspect of Rand's philosophy of egoism, read Anthem. If you have socialist leanings, or simply have always assumed the many is more important that the one, the book may disturb you greatly. If you read Anthem with the knowledge that it is a poem, your understanding of it will be enhanced and, and the very minimum, it will challenge the way you think.

The host of the eponymous MSNBC show, Dylan Ratigan offers a bold and original post-partisan program to resuscitate the American Dream.

At a time of deep concern with the state of America’s economy and government, it seems that all the media can give us is talking (or screaming) heads who revel in partisan brinkmanship. Then there’s Dylan Ratigan—an award-winning journalist respected and admired across the political spectrum. In Greedy Bastards, he rips the lid off of our deeply crooked system—and offers a way out.

Employing the nuanced reporting and critical analysis that have earned him so much respect, Ratigan describes the five “vampires” that are sucking the nation dry, including an educational system that values mediocrity above all else; a healthcare system that is among the priciest and least-effective infrastructures in the industrialized world; a political system in which lobbyists write legislation; a “master-slave” relationship with our Chinese bankers; and an addiction to foreign oil that has sapped our willingness to innovate. In offering solutions to these formidable and entrenched obstacles, he does nothing less than lay the groundwork for a political movement dedicated to tackling the rot at the heart of the country.

In its desperation, America needs more than just endless stock tips and Wall Street navel-gazing. It needs passionate debate and smart policy—and a hero to take on the establishment. Dylan Ratigan is that hero, and this is the work that will rally people behind him.