Government Money

Edwin Black, award-winning author of IBM and the Holocaust, has mined scores of corporate and governmental archives to assemble thousands of previously uncovered and long-forgotten documents and studies into this dramatic story. Black traces a continuum of rapacious energy cartels and special interests dating back nearly 5,000 years, from wood to coal to oil, and then to the bicycle and electric battery cartels of the 1890s, which created thousands of electric vehicles that plied American streets a century ago.

Understanding cash, currencies and the financial system is vital for making sense of what is going on in our world, especially now. Since the 2008 financial crisis, money has rarely been out of the headlines. Central banks have launched extraordinary policies, like quantitative easing or negative interest rates. New means of payment are changing how we interact with money and how governments and corporations keep track of our spending. Radical politicians in the US and UK are urging us to transform our financial system and make it the servant of social justice.

The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is a critically acclaimed narrative that illuminates the globalization debates and reveals the key factors to success in global business. Tracing a T-shirt's life story from a Texas cotton field to a Chinese factory and back to a US storefront before arriving at the used clothing market in Africa, the book uncovers the political and economic forces at work in the global economy.

Life After the State is a book that will change the way you think about money, education, healthcare and social justice forever. Combining the storytelling skills of Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money with the number-crunching investigative style of Tim Harford’s Undercover Economist, this is a quest into a topic too many of us take for granted–at our peril.

We've all heard that the American Dream is vanishing, and that the cause is rising income inequality. The rich are getting richer by rigging the system in their favor, leaving the rest of us to struggle just to keep our heads above water. To save the American Dream, we're told that we need to fight inequality through tax hikes, wealth redistribution schemes, and a far higher minimum wage.

Today, in the midst of a new economic crisis and severe political discord, the nature of capitalism in United States is at a crossroads. Since the market crash and Great Recession of 2008, historian Jonathan Levy has been teaching a course to help his students understand everything that had happened to reach that disaster and the current state of the economy, but in doing so he discovered something more fundamental about American history. Now, in an ambitious single-volume history of the United States, he reveals how capitalism in America has evolved through four distinct ages.

The Theft of a Decade is a contrarian, revelatory analysis of how one generation pulled the rug out from under another and the myriad consequences that has set in store for all of us. The millennial generation was the unfortunate victim of several generations of economic theories that made life harder for them than it was for their grandparents. Then came the crash of 2008, and the boomer generation's reaction to it was brutal: politicians and policymakers made deliberate decisions that favored the interests of the boomer generation over their heirs.

Blending history and cutting-edge economic analysis, and writing in lively and jargon-free prose, Saez and Zucman dissect the deliberate choices (and sins of indecision) that have brought us to today: the gradual exemption of capital owners; the surge of a new tax avoidance industry; and the spiral of tax competition among nations. With clarity and concision, they explain how America turned away from the most progressive tax system in history to embrace policies that only serve to compound the wealth of a few.

From an internationally acclaimed economist, a provocative call to jump-start economic growth by aggressively overhauling liberal democracy. Around the world, people who are angry at stagnant wages and growing inequality have rebelled against established governments and turned to political extremes. Liberal democracy, history's greatest engine of growth, now struggles to overcome unprecedented economic headwinds - from aging populations to scarce resources to unsustainable debt burdens.

From the sprawling barricadas of Lima to the garbage hills of Manila, urbanization has been disconnected from industrialization, even economic growth. Davis portrays a vast humanity warehoused in shantytowns and exiled from the formal world economy. He argues that the rise of this informal urban proletariat is a wholly original development unforeseen by either classical Marxism or neoliberal theory. Are the great slums, as a terrified Victorian middle class once imagined, volcanoes waiting to erupt?

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.

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.

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.

Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy - both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. His argument speaks to all of us who are concerned about the state of America in the global future.

In order to illuminate the fallacies of economism, James Kwak first offers a primer on supply and demand, market equilibrium, and social welfare: the underpinnings of most popular economic arguments. Then he provides a historical account of how economism became a prevalent mode of thought in the United States - focusing on the people who packaged Econ 101 into sound bites that were then repeated until they took on the aura of truth.

Using dozens of vivid examples to show how society overprescribed competition as a solution and when unbridled rivalry hurts consumers, kills entrepreneurship, and increases economic inequality, two free-market thinkers diagnose the sickness caused by competition overdose and provide remedies that will promote sustainable growth and progress for everyone, not just wealthy shareholders and those at the top.

In Putinomics, Chris Miller examines the making of Russian economic policy since Vladimir Putin took power in 1999. Miller argues that Putin's economic strategy has functioned far more effectively than most Westerners realize. While acknowledging that part of Putin's successes - above all, quadrupling per capita GDP in just a decade and a half - can be attributed to cashing in on high oil prices, Miller details the government policies that have also been fundamental to Russia's growth.

The 21st century has seen a rise in the global middle class that brings an unprecedented convergence of interests and perceptions, cultures and values. Kishore Mahbubani is optimistic. We are creating a new global civilization. Eighty-eight percent of the world's population outside the West is rising to Western living standards, and sharing Western aspirations. Yet Mahbubani, one of the most perceptive global commentators, also warns that a new global order needs new policies and attitudes.

Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy - both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. His argument speaks to all of us who are concerned about the state of America in the global future.

Our current democratic capitalist system is close to imploding. This book is the first to reveal the secret financial system dominating capitalism today and shows how we can create accountability to restore our democracy.