Global Finance

Weak, corrupt, and politically unstable, the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are dismissed as isolated and irrelevant to the outside world. But are they? This hard-hitting book argues that Central Asia is in reality a globalization leader with more extensive involvement in economics, politics, and security dynamics beyond its borders than any other world region. Yet Central Asia's international activities are mostly hidden from view, with disturbing implications for world security.

Six Billion Shoppers takes listeners on an exciting and colorful journey around the world to visit the next e-commerce mega markets and explore how a new e-commerce boom is opening opportunities for entrepreneurs and global brands alike. Traveling through Nigeria, China, India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, Porter Erisman addresses e-commerce across these new markets and what it means for Western brands.

There is no single theory of what caused the Great Depression and never will be, Morris argues. Macreconomics is a social science, and such a massive event always takes its shape from a terrible confluence of factors. The mismanagement of the gold standard, the growth in consumer credit, the insistence on deflation, and the inability of the major European belligerents of World War I to agree on a reconstruction agenda are just a few of the shocks that pushed the world into an economic Armageddon.

The NYU Stern School of Business is one of the top business schools in the world thanks to the leading academics, researchers, and provocative thinkers who call it home. In Regulating Wall Street: The New Architecture of Global Finance, an impressive group of the Stern school's top authorities on finance combine their expertise in capital markets, risk management, banking, and derivatives to assess the strengths and weaknesses of new regulations in response to the recent global financial crisis.

Just think for a moment: With over $5.1 trillion changing hands every single day in forex and currencies of different countries changing hands in the process, you can be sure that if you know what you are doing, you can make full-time income with forex! But, you may be wondering: That’s true, but how do I begin? Is forex trading something that a complete beginner can do? How do I decide which currencies to trade?

The rising unhappiness that leaders didn’t see. That’s because while leaders pay close attention to measures like GDP or unemployment, almost none of them track their citizens’ well-being. The implications of this blind spot are significant and far-reaching—leaders missed the citizen unhappiness that triggered events ranging from the Arab uprisings to Brexit to the election of Donald Trump. What are they going to miss next?

We live in an age of extreme corporate concentration, in which global industries are controlled by just a few giant firms - big banks, big pharma, and big tech, just to name a few. But concern over what Louis Brandeis called the "curse of bigness" can no longer remain the province of specialist lawyers and economists, for it has spilled over into policy and politics, even threatening democracy itself.

Remember those summer vacations when you were a kid? Well, that’s what your retirement can feel like…but without returning to school anymore. Don’t feel guilty about using your savings to do as you wish or go wherever you want—the beautiful country of Costa Rica is ready to welcome you. The Baby Boomer's Guide to Costa Rica Retirement will show you how to settle down in Costa Rica in a cost-effective way, even if you think you need a hefty savings to afford the cost of living (which you definitely don’t!).

A groundbreaking chronicle of the birth - and death - of a pair of jeans, that exposes the fractures in our global supply chains, and our relationships to each other, ourselves, and the planet.

In September 2014, a Chinese company that most Americans had never heard of held the largest IPO in history - bigger than Google, Facebook, and Twitter combined. Alibaba, now the world's largest ecommerce company, mostly escaped Western notice for over 10 years, while building a customer base larger than Amazon's and handling the bulk of ecommerce transactions in China. How did it happen? And what was it like to be along for such a revolutionary ride?

Corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and acting ethically are all accepted business aims, but their meaning and implementation in a global context is far less clear-cut. Global Business Ethics cuts through the confusion to provide a coherent basis for ethical decision-making within the complications of the international business landscape.

It is imperative that investors have a good understanding of market conditions when trading these assets as they can be volatile, sometimes considered overbought. With this in mind, knowledge of technical analysis and risk management strategies will help ensure informed decisions are made on when it is best to buy or sell. Having good relationships with software engineers is also invaluable for those hoping to trade electronically, as they will often have the resources and expertise necessary for managing complex transactions safely and efficiently.

Today’s investment world has a low cost of entry and is more convenient than at any time in history. Easier access to the marketplace for retail investors has made a dazzling array of financial products available. The huge selection of passively managed funds, such as index funds and exchange-traded funds, keeps costs down and allows beginners to build a diverse portfolio without spending long hours doing research.

Conventional wisdom says most startups need to be in Silicon Valley, started by young engineers around a sexy new idea and backed by VC funding. But as Mikkel Svane reveals in Startupland, the story of founding Zendesk was anything but conventional. Founded in a Copenhagen loft by three 30-something friends looking to break free from corporate doldrums, Zendesk Inc. became one of the hottest enterprise software companies, rapidly growing with customers in 150 countries. But its success was anything but predestined.

All the experts agree: The 21st century belongs to China. Given America's looming insolvency and the possibility of the collapse of the US dollar, who can doubt that China is poised to take over the role of economic superpower? Written by political economist and leading financial journalist James Gorrie, this audiobook offers a highly controversial, contrarian view of contemporary China. Drawing upon a wealth of historical and up-to-the-minute data, Gorrie makes a strong case that China, itself, is on the verge of an economic crisis of epic proportions.

Global warming's physical impacts can be separated into three broad categories: melt, drought, and deluge. Funk travels to two dozen countries to profile entrepreneurial people who see a potential windfall in each of these forces. The melt is a boon for newly arable, mineral rich regions of the Arctic, such as Greenland - and for the man-made snow trade. Drought creates opportunities for private firefighters working for insurance companies as well as for fund managers backing south Sudanese warlords who control local farmland.

When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, most experts expected the WTO rules and procedures would liberalize China and make it "a responsible stakeholder in the liberal world order". But the experts made the wrong bet. China today is liberalizing neither economically nor politically but, if anything, becoming more authoritarian and mercantilist. In this book, renowned globalization and Asia expert Clyde Prestowitz describes the key challenges posed by China and the strategies America and the Free World must adopt to meet them.

From the best-selling authors of The Right Nation, a visionary argument that our current crisis in government is nothing less than the fourth radical transition in the history of the nation-state. Dysfunctional government: It' s become a cliché, and most of us are resigned to the fact that nothing is ever going to change. As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge show us, that is a seriously limited view of things. In fact, there have been three great revolutions in government in the history of the modern world.

The US tax code is a total write-off. Overstuffed with loopholes and special interest provisions, it works for no one - except tax lawyers, accountants, and corporations, that is - certainly not me and you. Not for the first time, we have to tear it up and start over. That happened in 1922, and again in 1954, and again in 1986. There's a pattern here; we reach this point every 32 years. Which means the next complete re-write of the tax code is due in 2018. Can we write a new tax code that is fair and simple? In fact, we can.

Let’s face it. No real estate market ever stays the same. The market goes up and down. Anyone can make money in an up market. The trick it to make money on a down market. This book will show you how to not just survive, but thrive in both!