Are the Rich Necessary? is an ideal introduction to economics, a subject on everyone's mind following the global Crash of 2008. Transparently clear and easy to follow, Rich takes the reader through the great economic arguments of our day in an objective, fair, and always lively point-counterpoint format. It lays out the different value systems that guide all our economic choices. The book also offers a radical new proposal that transcends conventional liberal/conservative thinking. Whether you want to understand economics better, or need answers to vital questions that affect your job, your economic future, and the way you vote, this book will bring you much-needed clarity. Book jacket.
Are the Rich Necessary? presents the most fundamental and gripping economic arguments that underlie just about all economic quarrels. For the most part, the author avoids taking sides. He lays out one side of the argument, then the other. To borrow super-lawyer Robert Strauss' quip, he aims to teach it flat and teach it round and then let the reader choose.
Even as inequalities widen, the effects of austerity deepen, and the consequences of recession linger, in many countries the wealth of the rich has soared. Why We Can't Afford the Rich exposes the unjust and dysfunctional mechanisms that allow the top 1% to siphon off wealth produced by others through the control of property and money. Leading social scientist Andrew Sayer shows how over the past three decades the rich worldwide have increased their ability to hide their wealth, create indebtedness, and expand their political influence. Aimed at all engaged citizens, this important and accessible book uses simple distinctions to burst the myth of the rich as especially talented wealth creators. But more than this, as the risk of runaway climate change grows, it shows how the rich are threatening the planet by banking on unsustainable growth. Forcefully arguing that the crises of economy and climate can only be resolved by radical change, Sayer makes clear that we must make economies sustainable, fair, and conducive to well being for all.
Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution--and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it--occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich--and why did it make large parts of the world even poorer? In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark tackles these profound questions and suggests a new and provocative way in which culture--not exploitation, geography, or resources--explains the wealth, and the poverty, of nations. Countering the prevailing theory that the Industrial Revolution was sparked by the sudden development of stable political, legal, and economic institutions in seventeenth-century Europe, Clark shows that such institutions existed long before industrialization. He argues instead that these institutions gradually led to deep cultural changes by encouraging people to abandon hunter-gatherer instincts-violence, impatience, and economy of effort-and adopt economic habits-hard work, rationality, and education. The problem, Clark says, is that only societies that have long histories of settlement and security seem to develop the cultural characteristics and effective workforces that enable economic growth. For the many societies that have not enjoyed long periods of stability, industrialization has not been a blessing. Clark also dissects the notion, championed by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, that natural endowments such as geography account for differences in the wealth of nations. A brilliant and sobering challenge to the idea that poor societies can be economically developed through outside intervention, A Farewell to Alms may change the way global economic history is understood.
Since the great recession hit in 2008, the 1% has only grown richer while the rest find life increasingly tough. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has turned into a chasm. While the rich have found new ways of protecting their wealth, everyone else has suffered the penalties of austerity. But inequality is more than just economics. Being born outside the 1% has a dramatic impact on a person's potential: reducing life expectancy, limiting education and work prospects, and even affecting mental health. What is to be done? In Inequality and the 1% leading social thinker Danny Dorling lays bare the extent and true cost of the division in our society and asks what have the superrich ever done for us. He shows that inquality is the greatest threat we face and why we must urgently redress the balance.
A groundbreaking history of why governments do—and don't—tax the rich In today's social climate of acknowledged and growing inequality, why are there not greater efforts to tax the rich? In this wide-ranging and provocative book, Kenneth Scheve and David Stasavage ask when and why countries tax their wealthiest citizens—and their answers may surprise you. Taxing the Rich draws on unparalleled evidence from twenty countries over the last two centuries to provide the broadest and most in-depth history of progressive taxation available. Scheve and Stasavage explore the intellectual and political debates surrounding the taxation of the wealthy while also providing the most detailed examination to date of when taxes have been levied against the rich and when they haven't. Fairness in debates about taxing the rich has depended on different views of what it means to treat people as equals and whether taxing the rich advances or undermines this norm. Scheve and Stasavage argue that governments don't tax the rich just because inequality is high or rising—they do it when people believe that such taxes compensate for the state unfairly privileging the wealthy. Progressive taxation saw its heyday in the twentieth century, when compensatory arguments for taxing the rich focused on unequal sacrifice in mass warfare. Today, as technology gives rise to wars of more limited mobilization, such arguments are no longer persuasive. Taxing the Rich shows how the future of tax reform will depend on whether political and economic conditions allow for new compensatory arguments to be made.
Finger-wagging moralizers say the love of money is the root of all evil. They assume that making a lot of money requires exploiting others, and that the best way to wash off the resulting stain is to give a lot of it away. In Why It’s OK to Want to Be Rich, Jason Brennan shows that the moralizers have it backwards. He argues that, in general, the more money you make, the more you already do for others, and that even an average wage earner is productively “giving back” to society just by doing her job. In addition, wealth liberates us to have the best chance of leading a life that’s authentically our own. Brennan also demonstrates how money-based societies create nicer, more trustworthy, and more cooperative citizens. And in another chapter that takes on the new historians of capitalism, Brennan argues that wealthy nations became wealthy because of their healthy institutions, not from their horrific histories of slavery or colonialism. While writing that the more money one has, the more one should help others, Brennan also notes that we weren’t born into a perpetual debt to society. It’s OK to get rich and it’s OK to enjoy being rich, too. --- Key Features Shows how the desire to become wealthy in an open and fair market helps maximize cooperation and lessens the chance of violence and war Argues that it is much easier for the average for-profit business to add value to the world than it is for the average non-profit Demonstrates that the kinds of virtues (e.g., conscientiousness, thoughtfulness, hard work) that lead to desirable personal and civic states (e.g., happy marriages, stable families, engaged citizens) also make people richer Argues that living in small clans for most of their history has given humans a negative attitude towards anyone acquiring more than her "fair share," an attitude that’s ill-suited for our market-driven, globally connected world In a final, provocative chapter, maintains that ideal economic growth is infinite.
Profit from a powerful, proven investment strategy The Little Book That Makes You Rich is the latest book in the popular "Little Book, Big Profits" series. Written by Louis Navellier -- one of the most well-respected and successful growth investors of our day -- this book offers a fundamental understanding of how to get rich using the best in growth investing strategies. Navellier has made a living by picking top, actively traded stocks and capturing unparalleled profits from them in the process. Now, with The Little Book That Makes You Rich, he shows you how to find stocks that are poised for rapid price increases, regardless of overall stock market direction. Navellier also offers the statistical and quantitative measures needed to measure risk and reward along the path to profitable growth stock investing. Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, The Little Book That Makes You Rich gives individual investors specific tools for selecting stocks based on the factors that years of research have proven to lead to growth stock profits. These factors include analysts' moves, profit margins expansion, and rapid sales growth. In addition to offering you tips for not paying too much for growth, the author also addresses essential issues that every growth investor must be aware of, including which signs will tell you when it's time to get rid of a stock and how to monitor a portfolio in order to maintain its overall quality. Accessible and engaging, The Little Book That Makes You Rich outlines an effective approach to building true wealth in today's markets. Louis Navellier (Reno, NV) has one of the most exceptional long-term track records of any financial newsletter editor in America. As a financial analyst and editor of investment newsletters since 1980, Navellier's recommendations (published in Emerging Growth) have gained over 4,806 percent in the last 22 years, as confirmed by a leading independent newsletter rating service, The Hulbert Financial Digest. Emerging Growth is one of Navellier's four services, which also includes his Blue Chip Growth service for large-cap stock investors, his Quantum Growth service for active traders seeking shorter-term gains, and his Global Growth service for active traders focused on high growth global stocks.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.
"Billionaire Wilderness offers an unprecedented look inside the world of the ultra-wealthy and their relationship to the natural world, showing how the ultra-rich use nature to resolve key predicaments in their lives. Justin Farrell immerses himself in Teton County, Wyoming--both the richest county in the United States and the county with the nation's highest level of income inequality--to investigate interconnected questions about money, nature, and community in the twenty-first century. Farrell draws on three years of in-depth interviews with "ordinary" millionaires and the world's wealthiest billionaires, four years of in-person observation in the community, and original quantitative data to provide comprehensive and unique analytical insight on the ultra-wealthy. He also interviewed low-income workers who could speak to their experiences as employees for and members of the community with these wealthy people. He finds that the wealthy leverage nature to climb even higher on the socioeconomic ladder, and they use their engagement with nature and rural people as a way of creating more virtuous and deserving versions of themselves. Billionaire Wilderness demonstrates that our contemporary understanding of the relationship between the ultra-wealthy and the environment is empirically shallow, and our reliance on reports of national economic trends distances us from the real experiences of these people and their local communities"--
