Government Finance

The industrial age made possible by fossil fuels will surely decline as these fuels run out. In The Ecotechnic Future John Michael Greer alerts the listener to possible changes future generations may face as these dwindling fuel supplies lead first to a deindustrial age, then to a society which salvages the remnants of our current plenty, and eventually to a time in which people may learn to live in balance with the environment: an ecotechnic society.

Armed with clear and powerful evidence, Atif Mian and Amir Sufi reveal in House of Debt how the Great Recession and Great Depression, as well as the current economic malaise in Europe, were caused by a large run-up in household debt followed by a significantly large drop in household spending. Though the banking crisis captured the public's attention, Mian and Sufi argue strongly with actual data that current policy is too heavily biased toward protecting banks and creditors.

The major social problems of the United States - deteriorating education, lawlessness and crime, homelessness, the collapse of family values, the crisis in medical care - have been produced by well-intended actions of government. That is easy to document. The difficult task is understanding why government is the problem. The power of special interests arising from the concentrated benefits of most government actions and their dispersed costs is only part of the answer.

Inventing the Future is a bold new manifesto for life after capitalism. Against the confused understanding of our high-tech world by both the right and the left, this book claims that the emancipatory and future-oriented possibilities of our society can be reclaimed. Instead of running from a complex future, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams demand a postcapitalist economy capable of advancing standards, liberating humanity from work and developing technologies that expand our freedoms.

Stop working just to pay for daycare. If you’re a parent of a toddler (ages 0-5) stuck in the low-income trap, this guide isn't about traditional budgeting—it’s about legally, aggressively, and safely eliminating your biggest monthly bills. The system taught in this audiobook is designed to free up an average of $1,000 or more per month by helping you maximize hidden government aid and adopt extreme frugal hacks that zero out major expenses.

A new field of collective intelligence has emerged in the last few years, prompted by a wave of digital technologies that make it possible for organizations and societies to think at large scale. This "bigger mind" - human and machine capabilities working together - has the potential to solve the great challenges of our time. So why do smart technologies not automatically lead to smart results?

Authors Barry Eichengreen, Asmaa El-Ganainy, Rui Esteves, and Kris James Mitchener argue that the ability of governments to issue debt has played a critical role in addressing emergencies—from wars and pandemics to economic and financial crises, as well as in funding essential public goods and services such as transportation, education, and healthcare. None of this is to deny that debt problems, debt crises, and debt defaults occur. But these dramatic events, which attract much attention, are not the entire story. In Defense of Public Debt redresses the balance.

The twenty-first century began optimistically in Latin America. Left-leaning leaders armed with programs to reduce poverty and reclaim national wealth were seeing results—but as the aughts gave way to the teens, they began to fall like dominos. Where did the dreams of this "pink tide" go? Look no further than the original culprits of Latin American disenfranchisement: resource-rich land and unscrupulous extraction.

Leading experts from business and academia consider coffee's history, global spread, cultivation, preparation, marketing, and the environmental and social issues surrounding it today. They discuss, for example, the impact of globalization; the many definitions of organic, direct trade, and fair trade; the health of female farmers; the relationships among shade, birds, and coffee; roasting as an art and a science; and where profits are made in the commodity chain.

In this landmark work, acclaimed historian Joshua Freeman has created an epic portrait of a nation both galvanized by change and driven by conflict. Beginning in 1945, the economic juggernaut awakened by World War II transformed a country once defined by its regional character into a uniform and cohesive power and set the stage for the United States’ rise to global dominance. Meanwhile, Freeman locates the profound tragedy that has shaped the path of American civic life.

China's economic growth is sputtering, the Euro is under threat, and the United States is combating serious trade disadvantages. Another Great Depression? Not quite. Noted economist and China expert Michael Pettis argues instead that we are undergoing a critical rebalancing of the world economies.

The bastard step-child of Milton Friedman and Anthony Bourdain, Socialism Sucks is a bar crawl through former, current, and wannabe socialist countries around the world. Free-market economists Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell travel to countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, and Sweden to investigate the dangers and idiocies of socialism - while drinking a lot of beer.

Living in exile in England, where this work was largely written, Marx drew on a wide-ranging knowledge of its society to support his analysis. Arguing that capitalism would cause an ever-increasing division in wealth and welfare, he predicted its abolition and replacement by a system with common ownership of the means of production. Capital rapidly acquired readership throughout the world, to become a work described by Marx's collaborator Friedrich Engels as 'the Bible of the working class'.

Morgan Simon is an investment professional who works at the nexus of social finance and social justice. In Real Impact, she teaches us how to get it right, leveraging the world's resources to truly transform the economy. Over the past 17 years, Simon has influenced over $150 billion from endowments, families, and foundations. In Real Impact, Simon shares her experience as both investor and activist to offer clear strategies for investors, community leaders, and entrepreneurs alike. Real Impact is essential listening for anyone seeking real change in the world.

Can a country be a democracy if its government only responds to the preferences of the rich? In an ideal democracy, all citizens should have equal influence on government policy - but as this book demonstrates, America's policymakers respond almost exclusively to the preferences of the economically advantaged.

Shortly after arriving in the White House in early 1933, Franklin Roosevelt took the United States off the gold standard. His opponents thought his decision unwise at best and ruinous at worst. But they could not have been more wrong. With The Money Makers, Eric Rauchway tells the absorbing story of how FDR and his advisors pulled the levers of monetary policy to save the domestic economy and propel the United States to unprecedented prosperity and superpower status.

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.

The United States has two separate banking systems today - one serving the well-to-do and another exploiting everyone else. How the Other Half Banks contributes to the growing conversation on American inequality by highlighting one of its prime causes: unequal credit. Mehrsa Baradaran examines how a significant portion of the population, deserted by banks, is forced to wander through a Wild West of payday lenders and check-cashing services to cover emergency expenses and pay for necessities - all thanks to deregulation that began in the 1970s.

In this Collector's Edition of their celebrated How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes, Peter Schiff, economic expert and best-selling author of Crash Proof and The Real Crash, once again teams up with his brother Andrew to spin a lively economic fable that untangles many of the fallacies preventing people from really understanding what drives an economy. The 2010 original has been described as a "Flintstones" take on economics that entertainingly explains the beauty of free markets. The new edition has been greatly expanded in both quantity and quality.

Author Jeremy Rifkin presents an insider's account of the next great economic era: the Third Industrial Revolution, when a new ethic of sustainability will revolutionize the world we live in.