Priceless

Priceless

Author: William Poundstone

Publisher: Hill and Wang

Published: 2010-01-05

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 1429943939

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Prada stores carry a few obscenely expensive items in order to boost sales for everything else (which look like bargains in comparison). People used to download music for free, then Steve Jobs convinced them to pay. How? By charging 99 cents. That price has a hypnotic effect: the profit margin of the 99 Cents Only store is twice that of Wal-Mart. Why do text messages cost money, while e-mails are free? Why do jars of peanut butter keep getting smaller in order to keep the price the "same"? The answer is simple: prices are a collective hallucination. In Priceless, the bestselling author William Poundstone reveals the hidden psychology of value. In psychological experiments, people are unable to estimate "fair" prices accurately and are strongly influenced by the unconscious, irrational, and politically incorrect. It hasn't taken long for marketers to apply these findings. "Price consultants" advise retailers on how to convince consumers to pay more for less, and negotiation coaches offer similar advice for businesspeople cutting deals. The new psychology of price dictates the design of price tags, menus, rebates, "sale" ads, cell phone plans, supermarket aisles, real estate offers, wage packages, tort demands, and corporate buyouts. Prices are the most pervasive hidden persuaders of all. Rooted in the emerging field of behavioral decision theory, Priceless should prove indispensable to anyone who negotiates.


The Deficit Myth

The Deficit Myth

Author: Stephanie Kelton

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2020-06-09

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1541736206

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A New York Times Bestseller The leading thinker and most visible public advocate of modern monetary theory -- the freshest and most important idea about economics in decades -- delivers a radically different, bold, new understanding for how to build a just and prosperous society. Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country. Kelton busts through the myths that prevent us from taking action: that the federal government should budget like a household, that deficits will harm the next generation, crowd out private investment, and undermine long-term growth, and that entitlements are propelling us toward a grave fiscal crisis. MMT, as Kelton shows, shifts the terrain from narrow budgetary questions to one of broader economic and social benefits. With its important new ways of understanding money, taxes, and the critical role of deficit spending, MMT redefines how to responsibly use our resources so that we can maximize our potential as a society. MMT gives us the power to imagine a new politics and a new economy and move from a narrative of scarcity to one of opportunity.


The Myth of Capitalism

The Myth of Capitalism

Author: Jonathan Tepper

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2023-04-25

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 1394184069

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The Myth of Capitalism tells the story of how America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives. Digital monopolies like Google, Facebook and Amazon act as gatekeepers to the digital world. Amazon is capturing almost all online shopping dollars. We have the illusion of choice, but for most critical decisions, we have only one or two companies, when it comes to high speed Internet, health insurance, medical care, mortgage title insurance, social networks, Internet searches, or even consumer goods like toothpaste. Every day, the average American transfers a little of their pay check to monopolists and oligopolists. The solution is vigorous anti-trust enforcement to return America to a period where competition created higher economic growth, more jobs, higher wages and a level playing field for all. The Myth of Capitalism is the story of industrial concentration, but it matters to everyone, because the stakes could not be higher. It tackles the big questions of: why is the US becoming a more unequal society, why is economic growth anemic despite trillions of dollars of federal debt and money printing, why the number of start-ups has declined, and why are workers losing out.


Pragmatic Capitalism

Pragmatic Capitalism

Author: Cullen Roche

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2014-07-08

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1137279311

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An insightful and original look at why understanding macroeconomics is essential for all investors


Just Price Theory

Just Price Theory

Author: Joaquín Reyes

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-08-10

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1509963510

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This book presents an original theory of the just price, and it is a welcome addition to scholarship on a radically underdeveloped field. This work reassesses the age-old idea that there is a just price of things, one that goes beyond the Scholastic tradition of the just price and its exclusive concern with commutative justice. There is more to just price theory than the concern for keeping equality of value between goods exchanged. Modern concerns over efficiency, autonomy, and distributive justice, can also find a place within a theory of the just price. The book: - Presents a new approach to just price theory through a broad analysis of different values and the incorporation of those conceptions into a wider normative framework - Argues that these different values ground varied conceptions of the just price, and - Promotes a virtue-based approach to price justification as an adequate framework for meeting the challenges that stem from each conception Perfect for scholars and students in the fields of jurisprudence, philosophy of private law, contract law, and political theory, this book makes a significant contribution to legal theory and the emerging field of the philosophy of economics.


Aquinas Among the Protestants

Aquinas Among the Protestants

Author: Manfred Svensson

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-09-25

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1119265894

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AQUINAS AMONG THE PROTESTANTS This major new book provides an introduction to Thomas Aquinas’s influence on Protestantism. The editors, both noted commentators on Aquinas, bring together a group of influential scholars to demonstrate the ways that Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed thinkers have analyzed and used Thomas through the centuries. Later chapters also explore how today’s Protestants might appropriate the work of Aquinas to address a number of contemporary theological and philosophical issues. The authors set the record straight and disavow the widespread impression that Aquinas is an irrelevant figure for the history of Protestant thought. This assumption has dominated not only Protestant historiography but also Roman Catholic accounts of the Reformation and Protestant intellectual life. The book opens the possibility for contemporary reception, engagement, and critique and even intra-Protestant relations and includes: Information on the fruitful appropriation of Aquinas in Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed theologians over the centuries Important essays from leading scholars on the teachings of Aquinas New perspectives on Thomas Aquinas’s position as a towering figure in the history of Christian thought Aquinas Among the Protestants is a ground-breaking and interdenominational work for students and scholars of Thomas Aquinas and theology more generally.


The Myth of the Entrepreneurial State

The Myth of the Entrepreneurial State

Author: Deirdre Nansen McCloskey

Publisher: American Institute for Economic Research

Published: 2020-10-16

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1630692093

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A common narrative of the post-World War II economists was that the State is indispensable for guiding investment and fostering innovation. They claimed that the wealth of the modern world is the result of past State guidance and that what is needed for future economic growth is more State guidance. This position has recently been rejuvenated in reaction to the Great Recession of 2008. The truth is that the enriched modern economy was not a product of State coercion. It was a product of a change in political and social rhetoric in northwestern Europe from 1517 to 1789. The Great Enrichment, that is, came from human ingenuity emancipated from the bottom up, not human ingenuity directed from the top down. The true question is what on balance is the best way to organize innovation—by the “wise State” or by commercially tested betterment? The American Institute for Economic Research in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was founded in 1933 as the first independent voice for sound economics in the United States. Today it publishes ongoing research, hosts educational programs, publishes books, sponsors interns and scholars, and is home to the world-renowned Bastiat Society and the highly respected Sound Money Project. The American Institute for Economic Research is a 501c3 public charity. The Adam Smith Institute is one of the world's leading think tanks, recognised as the best domestic and international economic policy think-tank in the UK and ranked 2nd in the world among Independent Think Tanks by the University of Pennsylvania. Independent, non-profit and non-partisan, the Adam Smith Institute works to promote free market, neoliberal ideas through research, publishing, media outreach, and education. The Institute is today at the forefront of making the case for free markets and a free society in the United Kingdom. The Institute was founded in the 1970s, as post-war socialism reached its high-watermark. Then, as now, its purpose was to educate the public about free markets and economic policy, and to inject sound ideas into the public debate.


The Myth of the Rational Market

The Myth of the Rational Market

Author: Justin Fox

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2011-02-08

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 0060599030

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The financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent Great Recession demolished many cherished beliefs—most significantly, the theory that financial markets always get things right. Justin Fox's The Myth of the Rational Market explains where that idea came from, and where it went wrong. As much an intellectual whodunit as a cultural history of the perils and possibilities of risk, it also brings to life the people and ideas that forged modern finance and investing—from the formative days of Wall Street through the Great Depression and into the financial calamities of today. It's a tale featuring professors who made and lost fortunes, battled fiercely over ideas, beat the house at blackjack, wrote bestselling books, and played major roles on the world stage. It's also a story of free-market capitalism's war with itself.


The Price of Independence

The Price of Independence

Author: Sheldon Danziger

Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation

Published: 2008-01-07

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1610441486

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More and more young men and women today are taking longer and having more difficulty making a successful transition to adulthood. They are staying in school longer, having a harder time finding steady employment at jobs that provide health insurance, and are not marrying and having children until much later in life than their parents did. In The Price of Independence, a roster of distinguished experts diagnose the extent and causes of these trends. Observers of social trends have speculated on the economic changes that may be delaying the transition to adulthood—from worsening job opportunities to mounting student debt and higher housing costs—but few have offered empirical evidence to back up their claims. The Price of Independence represents the first significant analysis of these economic explanations, charting the evolving life circumstances of eighteen to thirty-five year-olds over the last few decades. Lisa Bell, Gary Burtless, Janet Gornick, and Timothy M. Smeeding show that the earnings of young workers in the United States and a number of industrialized countries have declined relative to the cost of supporting a family, which may explain their protracted dependence. In addition, Henry Farber finds that job stability for young male workers has dropped over the last generation. But while economic factors have some influence on young people's transitions to adulthood, The Price of Independence shows that changes in the economic climate can not account for the magnitude of the societal shift in the timing of independent living, marriage, and childbearing. Aaron Yelowitz debunks the myth that steep housing prices are forcing the young to live at home—housing costs actually fell between 1980 and 2000 once lower interest rates and tax subsidies are taken into account. And Ngina Chiteji reveals that average student loan debt is only $3,500 per household. The trend toward starting careers and families later appears to have more to do with changing social norms, as well as policies that have broadened access to higher education, than with changes in the economy. For better or worse, the current generation is redefining the nature and boundaries of what it means to be a young adult. The Price of Independence documents just how dramatically the modern lifecycle has changed and offers evidence as an antidote to much of the conventional wisdom about these social changes.