American Finance

Political gridlock in Washington…the lingering effects of the financial crisis…structural problems such as unemployment and the skills gap of our work force…the mediocre K-12 educational system. Are our best days behind us? Joel Kurtzman persuasively shows why all the talk about America's decline is not only baseless but dead wrong. Our best days, are, in fact, ahead of us.

This book examines the idea of the phenomenon of how the American working class supports the economic elite. This is in direct contradiction to the notion prevalent in the Western world about the rise of populism, the inaccurate assessment of the American working class being against the economic elite.

Between 1865 and 1890, in the aftermath of the Civil War, virtually every important American labor reform organization advocated "cooperation" over "competitive" capitalism and several thousand cooperatives opened for business during this era. The men and women who built cooperatives were practical reformers and they established businesses to stabilize their work lives, families, and communities. Yet they were also utopians - envisioning a world free from conflict where workers would receive the full value of their labor.

Mass Motorization and Mass Transit examines how the United States became the world's most thoroughly motorized nation and why mass transit has been more displaced in the United States than in any other advanced industrial nation. The book's historical and international perspective provides a uniquely effective framework for understanding both the intensity of US motorization and the difficulties the country will face in moderating its demands on the world's oil supply and reducing the CO2 emissions generated by motor vehicles.

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 US, most of the benefits of economic growth have been captured by the richest 10 percent, 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.

A lyrical work of narrative nonfiction that portrays how the largest domestic oil discovery in half a century transformed a forgotten corner of the American West into a crucible of breakneck capitalism. As North Dakota became the nation's second-largest oil producer, Maya Rao set out in steel-toe boots to join a wave of drifters, dreamers, entrepreneurs, and criminals. With an eye for the dark, absurd, and humorous, Rao fearlessly immersed herself in their world to chronicle this modern-day gold rush, from its heady beginnings to OPEC's price war against the US oil industry.

America’s unique prosperity is based on its creation of a middle class. In the 20th century, that middle class provided the workforce, the educated skills, and the demand that gave life to the world’s greatest consumer economy. It was innovative and dynamic; it eclipsed old imperial systems and colonial archetypes. It gave rise to a dream: that if you worked hard and followed the rules you would prosper in America, and your children would enjoy a better life than yours. Incredibly, however, for more than 30 years, government and big business in America have conspired to roll back the American dream....

Sheila Ramos’s story mirrors the lives of millions of Americans who have lost their homes since the beginning of the housing crisis in 2007. The Great American Foreclosure Story details with clarity and empathy the road that led Ramos and so many like her toward financial ruin. Alongside Ramos’s story are additional investigations documenting the systematic failures at banks, mortgage servicers, and government watchdogs that have exacerbated the country’s most severe foreclosure crisis since the Great Depression.

At a time when debate is raging about how to create jobs and revive the American economy, veteran business writer William J. Holstein argues that the best way for us to recover our economic footing is to do what Americans do best - innovate and create new industries. Contrary to the perception that the American economy has run out of inspiration and new ideas, Holstein uses compelling case studies to celebrate the innovation and business success being experienced in many industries....

The United States bills itself as the land of opportunity, a place where anyone can achieve success and a better life through hard work and determination. But the facts tell a different story - the US today lags behind most other developed nations in measures of inequality and economic mobility. For decades, wages have stagnated for the majority of workers while economic gains have disproportionately gone to the top one percent.

It may be hard to believe in an era of Walmart, Citizens United, and the Koch brothers, but corporations are on the decline. The number of American companies listed on the stock market dropped by half between 1996 and 2012. In recent years we've seen some of the most storied corporations go bankrupt (General Motors, Chrysler, Eastman Kodak) or disappear entirely (Bethlehem Steel, Lehman Brothers, Borders).

Your legacy is more than your money and property. In this audiobook, you’ll discover powerful strategies to leave future generations the knowledge to build a successful life, including family stories, traditions, heirlooms, life lessons, and your own experiences. This book is the vision of a community of individuals who desire to preserve and pass on their legacy, fusing financial, legal, and legacy planning into a movement of positive cultural transformation.

What if I told you there was a looming crisis brewing in America right now? Something no one is really talking about. It's a protection crisis and a pension crisis. Pensions are becoming rarer and rarer, and the pension that 50 precent of retirees rely on for 90 percent of their income might not be paying out after 2034. In this audiobook, we are going to talk a lot about the landscape of pensions and the ongoing challenges they face. Also, we are going to focus on a life insurance strategy called pension maximization using an indexed universal life insurance plan. 

Following in the rich tradition of Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, Dr. Ken Odiwé, himself a rags to riches New American Millionaire, continues to explore the secrets that self-made millionaires share. As you will soon discover, many self-made millionaires started out with much less than you have. In fact, the interesting people you will meet here came to America with nothing more than a few meagre belongings, a few bucks in their pockets, and a burning desire to succeed.

At the start of 1932, the nation's worst economic crisis has left one-in-four workers without a job, countless families facing eviction, banks shutting down as desperate depositors withdraw their savings, and growing social and political unrest. Amid this turmoil, a political decision looms that will determine the course of the nation. It's a choice between two men with very different visions of America: Incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover and New York's Democratic Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

This book examines how the human mind, in particular that of the American working class, navigates the various cultural factors that have composed the American economy.

Instead of going where other journalists have gone in search of this story - the board rooms and trading floors of the big Wall Street firms - Scheer goes back to Washington, D.C., a veritable crime scene, beginning in the 1980s, where the captains of the finance industry, their lobbyists and allies among leading politicians destroyed an American regulatory system that had been functioning effectively since the era of the New Deal.

The Patrons of Husbandry - or the Grange - is the longest-lived US agricultural society and, since its founding shortly after the Civil War, has had immeasurable influence on social change as enacted by ordinary Americans. The Grange sought to relieve the struggles of small farmers by encouraging collaboration. Pathbreaking for its inclusion of women, the Grange is also well known for its association with Gilded Age laws aimed at curbing the monopoly power of railroads.

Will China be the leading global power of this century? Otto Tien-Pok Xing argues that China is set to be the dominant superpower in 10 years.

Accountable examines present-day conditions and the consequences for America. At its core, this book is a tool with which the community can evaluate the successes or failures of its political leaders and of itself. This insightful book acknowledges the mistakes of the past while offering hope and inspiration for a better future.