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Money: A Story of Humanity
by David McWilliams*AS HEARD ON RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK* THE INTERNATIONAL #1 BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2024 NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR A WATERSTONES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 A FINANCIAL TIMES ECONOMICS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 A PROSPECT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 &‘A breathtaking, expansive and imaginative ride through the history and future of money from an author who truly understands it&’ PROFESSOR BRIAN COX &‘Exceptional&’ FINANCIAL TIMES &‘A cracking book that is as enjoyable as it is readable&’ PETER FRANKOPAN &‘Equally entertaining and insightful&’ YANIS VAROUFAKIS _______________________________________________________ MONEY.The object of our desires.The engine of our genius.Humanity&’s greatest invention. Money is everything. It brings freedom and it takes it away. It inspires and corrupts us. But what is money? Is it the main thing holding us back from utopia or is it the one constant that&’s driven us to success? In his illuminating, entertaining and often surprising book, economist David McWilliams charts the relationship between humans and money – from clay tablets in Mesopotamia to coins in Ancient Greece, from mathematics in the medieval Arab world to the French Revolution, and from the emergence of the US dollar right up to today&’s cryptocurrency. Along the way, we meet a host of characters who have innovated with money, disrupting society and transforming the way we live. Like humanity, money is ever changing, adapting to its time and circumstances. The question is, over the last 5000 years, have we changed money or has money changed us? Money tells an astonishing new story of our species. Taking the reader on an epic journey through the history of money, McWilliams reveals its fundamental role in our society. _______________________________________________________ &‘An impressive journey that fizzes with facts&’ ECONOMIST &‘An eye-opening history of what makes the world go round&’ EVENING STANDARD &‘David McWilliams is the best explainer of economics I know&’ SIMON KUPER &‘Compelling, funny and original&’ KATJA HOYER &‘If, as David McWilliams complains, economists take the fun out of money, then he is the exception that proves the rule: a man who could not write a boring sentence if he tried&’ TOM HOLLAND
Money: Everything You Never Knew About Your Favorite Thing to Find, Save, Spend & Covet
by Sandra Choron Harry ChoronA lively, illustrated, trivia-packed volume about the subject that makes the world go round.Ever made a fast buck? How about traded cowrie shells for a bride or paid for gum with a $10,000 bill? This entertaining and information-packed miscellany explains our fascination with money and how it has shaped our world.Vintage photographs and artwork illustrate surprising facts, lists, and trivia about forgotten financial catastrophes and famous bank robbers, the history of bankruptcy and ancient money gods, wacky cash-related slang and get-rich-quick schemes for the ages. Witty and comprehensive, this valuable volume explores dollars and cents, pounds and pence, and the countless other forms of money.
Money: From the Power of Finance to the Sovereignty of the Peoples (Global University for Sustainability Book Series)
by Rémy HerreraWhat is money, where does it come from, what is its purpose? Does it increase national and international inequalities? Rémy Herrera’s book analyzes how the changes in the capitalist world system have consolidated, over the last decades, the supremacy of the U.S. dollar, but also how this hegemony has recently been challenged, both by rising State resistance initiatives and by the emergence of crypto-currencies, which raises many questions. Reviewing the situation of each continent, this book invites us to debate the liberation from the dollar domination, as well as the future of the euro, that of the CFA and CFP francs, of the Cuban peso or of the Chinese yuan, among others, but also the means to take in hand our collective future by mastering money.
Money: Interdisciplinary Perspectives From Economics, Sociology And Political Science (What is Political Economy? #Vol. 8)
by Geoffrey InghamFew economic phenomena provoke as much confusion as money. From the first measures of value and the physical coins that circulated at the dawn human civilization to the era of ‘virtual’ money transmitted through cyberspace, it is ubiquitous and hugely important, yet economists cannot even agree on what it is. In this pithy, accessible book, Geoffrey Ingham cuts through this tangled web of debate to bring rare clarity. Ingham begins by examining the fundamental debate over the nature of money: is it fundamentally a natural, ‘neutral’ measure of pre-existing value produced by ‘real’ economic forces? Or is it a socially produced and politically manipulated force that creates new value? He proceeds to trace the import of these competing views for how we understand our contemporary monetary systems and their practical and policy-related implications, from their role in financial crises to proposals for reform. Students of political economy, economic sociology and monetary economics will find this book an invaluable primer, as will general readers wishing to understand how money shapes their lives, from the cash in their pocket to the numbers on their computer screen.
Money: Know More, Make More, Give More: Learn how to make more money and transform your life
by Rob MooreContains over 5 hours of additional content exclusive to the audiobook.Money is a game you can win. First, understand the rules.True financial independence provides the opportunity to use money the way you'd like, look after your family and plan for your future. This book explains how money works, how to understand it better, and how to protect it once your bank balance starts growing.Providing a fascinating overview of the complex ways in which money impacts the world along with simple, implementable systems for earning more, investing wisely and saving better, this remarkable audiobook, by self-made millionaire and best-selling author Rob Moore, will show you how to make money and make your money work for you.If you're not where you want to be in your life, then it's time to close the gap between the money you earn and the lifestyle you want - and get on track to creating the success you deserve.Do you want to get to the stage - soon - where you are truly financially independent, able to use your money in the way you'd like, and be completely confident in your ability to take care of yourself and your family? That is a universal desire, but many of us regard wealth and financial independence as a goal which we'll likely never achieve - there are just too many bills that need paying and there is a widespread belief that the money game is rigged. Even people who win the lottery or inherit money often seem to wind up losing it. The evidence suggests you can't win a game that you don't understand - even if you start out winning - because you never understood the game in the first place.So how can you win with money? How can you create independent wealth and hold on to it? This inspiring audiobook by self-made multi-millionaire Rob Moore explains the rules of the game, shares simple tricks for managing money better, details how to create a plan for an ambitious future, and shows you the very best way to become a millionaire - to think and behave like one!(P) 2017 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Money: Know More, Make More, Give More: Learn how to make more money and transform your life
by Rob MooreDo you want to get to the stage - soon - where you are truly financially independent, able to use your money in the way you'd like, and be completely confident in your ability to take care of yourself and your family? That is a universal desire, but many of us regard wealth and financial independence as a goal which we'll likely never achieve - there are just too many bills that need paying and there is a widespread belief that the money game is rigged. Even people who win the lottery or inherit money often seem to wind up losing it. The evidence suggests you can't win a game that you don't understand - even if you start out winning - because you never understood the game in the first place.So how can you win with money? How can you create independent wealth and hold on to it? This inspiring book by self-made multi-millionaire Rob Moore explains the rules of the game, shares simple tricks for managing money better, details how to create a plan for an ambitious future, and shows you the very best way to become a millionaire - to think and behave like one!
Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing
by Jacob GoldsteinThe co-host of the popular NPR podcast Planet Money provides a well-researched, entertaining, somewhat irreverent look at how money is a made-up thing that has evolved over time to suit humanity's changing needs.Money only works because we all agree to believe in it. In Money, Jacob Goldstein shows how money is a useful fiction that has shaped societies for thousands of years, from the rise of coins in ancient Greece to the first stock market in Amsterdam to the emergence of shadow banking in the 21st century.At the heart of the story are the fringe thinkers and world leaders who reimagined money. Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, created paper money backed by nothing, centuries before it appeared in the west. John Law, a professional gambler and convicted murderer, brought modern money to France (and destroyed the country's economy). The cypherpunks, a group of radical libertarian computer programmers, paved the way for bitcoin.One thing they all realized: what counts as money (and what doesn't) is the result of choices we make, and those choices have a profound effect on who gets more stuff and who gets less, who gets to take risks when times are good, and who gets screwed when things go bad.Lively, accessible, and full of interesting details (like the 43-pound copper coins that 17th-century Swedes carried strapped to their backs), Money is the story of the choices that gave us money as we know it today.
Money: Theory and Practice (Springer Texts in Business and Economics)
by Gerhard Illing Jin CaoThis textbook provides an introduction to modern monetary economics for advanced undergraduates, highlighting the lessons learned from the recent financial crisis. The book presents both the core New Keynesian model and recent advances, taking into account financial frictions, and discusses recent research on an intuitive level based on simple static and two-period models, but also prepares readers for an extension to a truly dynamic analysis. Further, it offers a systematic perspective on monetary policy, covering a wide range of models to help readers gain a better understanding of controversial issues. Part I examines the long-run perspective, addressing classical monetary policy issues such as determination of the price level and interaction between monetary and fiscal policy. Part II introduces the core New Keynesian model, characterizing optimal monetary policy to stabilize short-term shocks. It discusses rules vs. discretion and the challenges arising from control errors, imperfect information and robustness issues. It also analyzes optimal control in the presence of an effective lower bound. Part III focuses on modelling financial frictions. It identifies the transmission mechanisms of monetary policy via banking and introduces models with incomplete markets, principal-agent problems, maturity mismatch and leverage cycles, to show why investors’ and intermediaries’ own stakes play a key role in lending with pro-cyclical features. In addition, it presents a tractable model for handling liquidity management and demonstrates that the need to sell assets in crisis amplifies the volatility of the real economy. Lastly, the book discusses the relation between monetary policy and financial stability, addressing systemic risk and the role of macro-prudential regulation.
Money: Understandings and Misunderstandings
by Mohammad AshrafThis book clarifies some misunderstandings about money by tying the concept of money to the goods and services sector of the economy. In addition, it demystifies the process of money creation on the part of central banks. The phenomenon of money is ubiquitous; it has been around for tens of thousands of years, if not longer. Indeed, no modern economy could function without money. For many, however, the concept of money remains elusive. Worse still, misinformation abounds, which leaves the uninitiated vulnerable to fraud. This lack of understanding has serious policy implications as well. When policymakers lack a firm grasp of the concept, policy is likely to be flawed and its effects are likely to be detrimental to the body politic. After providing a brief history of money, the author details the role of money in the division of labor and specialization, in economic growth, and in an interconnected world. Throughout the book, he points out the pitfalls of fallacious thinking. In recent policy debates, such thinking has led to proposals ranging from the re-institution of the gold standard to supplying limitless money as suggested by Modern Monetary Theory.
Money: What It Is, How It’s Created, Who Gets It, and Why It Matters (Economics in the Real World)
by Sergio M. FocardiBy enabling the storage and transfer of purchasing power, money facilitates economic transactions and coordinates economic activity. But what is money? How is it generated? Distributed? How does money acquire value and that value change? How does money impact the economy, society? This book explores money as a system of "tokens" that represent the purchasing power of individual agents. It looks at how money developed from debt/credit relationships, barter and coins into a system of gold-backed currencies and bank credit and on to the present system of fiat money, bank credit, near-money and, more recently, digital currencies. The author successively examines how the money circuit has changed over the last 50 years, a period of stagnant wages, increased household borrowing and growing economic complexity, and argues for a new theory of economies as complex systems, coordinated by a banking and financial system. Money: What It Is, How It’s Created, Who Gets It and Why It Matters will be of interest to students of economics and finance theory and anyone wanting a more complete understanding of monetary theory, economics, money and banking.
Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went
by John Kenneth Galbraith James K. GalbraithMoney is nothing more than what is commonly exchanged for goods or services, so why has understanding it become so complicated? In Money, renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith cuts through the confusions surrounding the subject to present a compelling and accessible account of a topic that affects us all. He tells the fascinating story of money, the key factors that shaped its development, and the lessons that can be learned from its history. He describes the creation and evolution of monetary systems and explains how finance, credit, and banks work in the global economy. Galbraith also shows that, when it comes to money, nothing is truly new—least of all inflation and fraud.
Money: Who Has How Much and Why
by Andrew HackerThe purpose of "Money" is to provide objective information on how much money Americans make and what they are actually worth. In doing so, it examines their sources of income, and how individuals and groups compare with one another. Its second aim is to explain why income, earnings and wealth end up as apportioned as they do. Combining keen insight with a flair for bringing a human dimension to facts and figures, bestselling author Andrew Hacker shows how the changing economy affects our lives. Here, Hacker's clear-eyed analysis illuminates the real results of women's fight for salary parity, the impact of affirmative action on the income of minorities; the effect immigration has on the job market, and much more.
MoneyBall Medicine: Thriving in the New Data-Driven Healthcare Market
by Harry Glorikian Malorye Allison BrancaHow can a smartwatch help patients with diabetes manage their disease? Why can’t patients find out prices for surgeries and other procedures before they happen? How can researchers speed up the decade-long process of drug development? How will "Precision Medicine" impact patient care outside of cancer? What can doctors, hospitals, and health systems do to ensure they are maximizing high-value care? How can healthcare entrepreneurs find success in this data-driven market? A revolution is transforming the $10 trillion healthcare landscape, promising greater transparency, improved efficiency, and new ways of delivering care. This new landscape presents tremendous opportunity for those who are ready to embrace the data-driven reality. Having the right data and knowing how to use it will be the key to success in the healthcare market in the future. We are already starting to see the impacts in drug development, precision medicine, and how patients with rare diseases are diagnosed and treated. Startups are launched every week to fill an unmet need and address the current problems in the healthcare system. Digital devices and artificial intelligence are helping doctors do their jobs faster and with more accuracy. MoneyBall Medicine: Thriving in the New Data-Driven Healthcare Market, which includes interviews with dozens of healthcare leaders, describes the business challenges and opportunities arising for those working in one of the most vibrant sectors of the world’s economy. Doctors, hospital administrators, health information technology directors, and entrepreneurs need to adapt to the changes effecting healthcare today in order to succeed in the new, cost-conscious and value-based environment of the future. The authors map out many of the changes taking place, describe how they are impacting everyone from patients to researchers to insurers, and outline some predictions for the healthcare industry in the years to come.
MoneyGPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy
by James RickardsFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The New Great Depression and Currency Wars, a telling prediction for how AI will endanger global economic markets and securityIn November 2022, OpenAI released GPT-4 in a chatbot form to the public. In just two months, it claimed 100 million users—the fastest app to ever reach this benchmark. Since then, AI has become an all-consuming topic, popping up on the news, in ads, on your messenger apps, and in conversations with friends and family. But as AI becomes ubiquitous and grows at an ever-increasing pace, what does it mean for the financial markets?In MoneyGPT, Wall Street veteran and former advisor to the Department of Defense James Rickards paints a comprehensive picture of the danger AI poses to the global financial order, and the insidious ways in which AI will threaten national security. Rickards shows how, while AI is touted to increase efficiency and lower costs, its global implementation in the financial world will actually cause chaos, as selling begets selling and bank runs happen at lightning speed. AI further benefits malicious actors, Rickards argues, because without human empathy or instinct to intervene, threats like total nuclear war that once felt extreme are now more likely. And throughout all this, we must remain vigilant on the question of whose values will be promoted in the age of AI. As Rickards predicts, these systems will fail when we rely on them the most.MoneyGPT shows that the danger is not that AI will malfunction, but that it will function exactly as intended. The peril is not in the algorithms, but in ourselves. And it&’s up to us to intervene with old-fashioned human logic and common sense before it&’s too late.
MoneyShift: How to Prosper from What You Can't Control
by Jerry WebmanThe financial world is changing; this book shows you how to update your ideas about investing and keep pace Investing successfully means figuring out where economic value is being created, and then identifying the investment opportunities that result. MoneyShift: How to Prosper From What You Can't Control helps readers do just that. In addition to explaining the epic shifts in global economic momentum that have created a new financial reality for investors in recent years, the book offers readers a guide through new investment opportunities available in both emerging and developed markets. This book also points out the potential risks and then puts opportunities and risks together in outlining a sensible approach all readers can follow to develop their own investment strategy. Describing the transformation in global economic momentum and explaining why and where the centers of growth have moved, the book explores the new opportunity this change represents and sets realistic expectations for creating wealth through investment. Presents a new kind of investment strategy, including investing in your own human capital, while not neglecting advice on how to identify, assess, and manage risk Provides navigational tools for financial planning and for making money in a new environment we cannot simply wish or vote away Explains how domestic economic problems, the damage done to the financial system, government debt crises around the world, and even changing birth rates and aging populations have wrought a fundamental transformation in how wealth is and is not now created, and that these changes, while challenging, present great investment opportunities for those prepared to seize them By demonstrating the seismic changes in the economic topography, MoneyShift teaches you how these changes can be turned into an exceptional opportunity for increasing wealth through investing. To put it simply, there is money to be made in what you can't change about the world's economy. This book shows you how.
MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your "Enough"
by Manisha Thakor Lisa SweetinghamAn NPR "Best Books of 2023" PickA leading financial expert breaks down the personal, cultural, and societal forces that have led us to falsely believe we can never have, do, or be enough, and shows us a fresh new path toward “MoneyZen”—her joy-based approach to living a life rich in financial health and emotional wealth. For anyone who has ever felt that they can never measure up, MoneyZen is your cure.No matter your age, income, or profession, it’s all too easy to fall prey to the false belief that the amount of money you earn, or accomplishments you achieve, or praise you receive is just Never Enough. In MoneyZen, financial industry veteran Manisha Thakor candidly shares how she overcame toxic behaviors around work, money, and prestige that had threatened her relationships, her health, and her career, told alongside the inspiring stories of individuals from all walks of life who reveal their own struggles with “Never Enough.”Through Thakor’s interviews with a wide range of interdisciplinary experts, you’ll learn how personal traumas, cultural influences, societal pressures, and even our own biology have conspired to make us believe that “more” is the answer to all our problems. And you’ll discover a unique way to reclaim your life using a formula that’s ultimately rooted in less: Financial Health + Emotional Wealth = MoneyZen.The result is a powerful, research-based framework for getting off the hamster wheel of 24/7 striving so you can start to live a life fueled by authentic joy, connection, and meaning.
Moneyball (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Movie Tie-in Editions)
by Michael Lewis"You need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the wit, snap, economy . . . and incisiveness of [Moneyball]. Lewis has hit another one out of the park." --Janet Maslin, New York Times Billy Beane, the Oakland A's general manager, is leading a revolution. Reinventing his team on a budget, he needs to outsmart the richer teams. He signs undervalued players whom the scouts consider flawed but who have a knack for getting on base, scoring runs, and winning games. Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball and a tale of the search for new baseball knowledge--insights that will give the little guy who is willing to discard old wisdom the edge over big money.
Moneyball for Government: Foreign Assistance And The Revolution Of Rigor
by Jim NussleData and evidence don't lie – but for too long, our policy makers haven't paid them nearly enough attention.In 2014, an all-star team of leaders and thinkers from across the political spectrum came together to propose an exciting new vision for the country – one where policy makers base decisions not on politics or expedience, but on the hard evidence of what really works. The first edition of Moneyball for Government did more than just spark conversations; it spurred meaningful action. Now, Michael Gerson and Rajiv Shah join the second edition of the book, as they explain a variety of ways to apply this revolution of rigor to foreign assistance. For anyone who believes that government must do better for America's children and their families, Moneyball for Government is a home run.Contributing authors: Senator Kelly Ayotte, Senator Mark Warner, Glenn Hubbard, Gene Sperling, Melody Barnes, John Bridgeland, Kevin Madden, Howard Wolfson, Michael Gerson, Raj Shah
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
by Michael LewisMichael Lewis’s instant classic may be “the most influential book on sports ever written” (People), but “you need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the wit, snap, economy and incisiveness of [Lewis’s] thoughts about it” (Janet Maslin, New York Times). One of GQ's 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century Just before the 2002 season opens, the Oakland Athletics must relinquish its three most prominent (and expensive) players and is written off by just about everyone—but then comes roaring back to challenge the American League record for consecutive wins. How did one of the poorest teams in baseball win so many games? In a quest to discover the answer, Michael Lewis delivers not only “the single most influential baseball book ever” (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what “may be the best book ever written on business” (Weekly Standard). Lewis first looks to all the logical places—the front offices of major league teams, the coaches, the minds of brilliant players—but discovers the real jackpot is a cache of numbers?numbers!?collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors. What these numbers prove is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Even the box score misleads us by ignoring the crucial importance of the humble base-on-balls. This information had been around for years, and nobody inside Major League Baseball paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He paid attention to those numbers?with the second-lowest payroll in baseball at his disposal he had to?to conduct an astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win . . . how can we not cheer for David?
Moneyfulness: Learning to Live with Money
by Michael KeetMoneyfulness® is a unique combination of financial and mindfulness insight to address the heart of money stress: how people think about money.Money causes the most stress for people around the world. Seventy-two percent of all Americans experience stress about their finances and that money stress is not only caused by not having money but is caused by the way people think about money—their convictions and behavior. In the concept of mindfulness, there is no mention of stress reduction about money problems. People can find all kinds of stress relievers regarding depression, burn-out, anxiety, etc. For the first time, Michael Keet presents Moneyfulness® a unique concept that fills this gap in the overall concept of mindfulness. Michael presents the idea that people&’s mindset about money and the practical &“how to&” belong together, walking readers through the seven aiding factors of mindfulness as they apply to money along with the practical steps for how to actually manage money. For those who are ready to end their money stress, Moneyfulness® shows them how to never look at money the same again!10 percent of all revenue will be donated to the Moneyfulness® foundation that fights poverty.
Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World
by Oliver BulloughInc.com 5 Business Thrillers to Read on the Beach This Summer * Amazon Best Book of the Month - Nonfiction * An Economist Book of the Year * The Sunday Times Business Book of the Year"If you want to know why international crooks and their eminently respectable financial advisors walk tall and only the little people pay taxes, this is the ideal book for you. Every politician and moneyman on the planet should read it, but they won't because it's actually about them." —John le Carré, author of A Legacy of Spies An investigative journalist's deep dive into the corrupt workings of the world's kleptocrats.From ruined towns on the edge of Siberia, to Bond-villain lairs in London and Manhattan, something has gone wrong. Kleptocracies, governments run by corrupt leaders that prosper at the expense of their people, are on the rise. Once upon a time, if an official stole money, there wasn't much he could do with it. He could buy himself a new car or build himself a nice house or give it to his friends and family, but that was about it. If he kept stealing, the money would just pile up in his house until he had no rooms left to put it in, or it was eaten by mice. And then some bankers had a bright idea. Join the investigative journalist Oliver Bullough on a journey into Moneyland—the secret country of the lawless, stateless superrich. Learn how the institutions of Europe and the United States have become money-laundering operations, attacking the foundations of many of the world's most stable countries. Meet the kleptocrats. Meet their awful children. And find out how heroic activists around the world are fighting back. This is the story of wealth and power in the 21st century. It isn't too late to change it.
Moneyless Society: The Next Economic Evolution
by Matthew HoltenThe evidence is all around us: Humans are squandering natural resources and destroying the environment. There is no real debate about climate change. And with an ever-widening wealth gap, inequality is destabilizing many regions and worsening famine, disease, and civil unrest. <p><p>We must change, fast—and yet we hesitate. <p><p>Moneyless Society: The Next Economic Evolution explores how capitalism throttles Earth’s capacity to sustain life and undermines our deep longing to live in peace and prosperity. Fortunately, it also provides a blueprint for innovative thinking and new structures to replace our outmoded monetary system. In short, Moneyless Society illuminates just how much our lives and those of future generations could improve with a new kind of freedom: freedom from money. <p><p>We are at a crossroads: we can choose abundance, community, and prosperity, or we can continue down the path toward collapse. The choice is ours.
Moneywood: Hollywood in Its Last Age of Excess
by William StadiemAs wild and sexy and over the top as the decade it brings to life, author, William Stadiem, tells the inside story of Hollywood producers in the 80s.From hits like Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun and Batman to flops like Heaven's Gate, Howard the Duck and Leonard Part 6, Hollywood was never more excessive than it was in the 1980s. In this, the Moneywood era, the purse strings were not controlled by reasonably consenting adults but by pop culture cowboys who couldn't balance their own checkbooks. What they could do was sweet talk the talent, seduce the starlets, snowball the Japanese and slither out of Dodge when the low grosses trickled in. Their out of control lifestyles and know-nothing, raging narcissistic personalities make the original brutal studio heads like Sam Goldwyn and Jack Warner seem like Oxford dons. Yet, for all their flops, these Scoundrels of Spago turned Hollywood into a Big Business that was catnip to Wall Street. They were The Producers, and they were way beyond anything Mel Brooks could dream up.The Moneywood cast of characters includes: -Simpson and Bruckheimer; Guber and Peters; Eisner/Katzenberg/Ovitz: An unusual fresh take on the usual subjects. -Ray Stark, the wizard of Holmby Hills, the most powerful producer of the 80s. -Mario Kassar and Andy Vajna, the Rambo boys, who went from making wigs to making blockbusters.-Menahem Golan-Yoram Globus, the Israeli schlockmeisters who proved that every star had a price.-David Begelman, the embezzler, gambler and sex addict who was rewarded for his sins by getting to run both Columbia and MGM.-Roland Betts, the aristocratic Silver Screen Partners founder and former Yale frat-mate of George W. Bush who was a master at playing the Reagan White House card.-Giancarlo Parretti, the Italian cannery worker who bought MGM, with a little help from his (Sicilian) friends.-David Puttnam The high-toned English advertising whiz who was supposed to raise the Hollywood bar, but ended up barred from Hollywood.Moneywood is the ultimate expose of the real hit men of Hollywood's go-go decade.
Mongolia Economic Retrospective 2008-2010
by World BankMongolia was one of the East Asian economies hardest hit by the global downturn, as copper prices collapsed and external demand fell. This Economic Retrospective highlights the key economic, financial and policy developments in the country during the crisis and recovery over 2008 to 2010. In particular, it offers a closer look at the weaknesses in the economic structure and policy environment that lay at the heart of downturn, and which amplified the external shock due to the collapse in global commodity prices from mid-2008. The Retrospective offers valuable insights into how an inappropriate policy mix can culminate in macroeconomic instability. In Mongolia's case, a combination of expansive fiscal and monetary policy during the boom years, a de facto peg to the US dollar, and an overheating financial sector triggered a loss of confidence in the banking sector, large reserve losses and deposit flight, and caused a large fiscal and balance of payments shock that necessitated assistance by the IMF and other donors. Although the economy has rebounded since the end of 2009 and the successful negotiation of the Oyu Tolgoi (OT) mining project has helped transform the medium to long-term outlook, there remain sizeable policy challenges. In particular, the looming mining boom brings the risks of "Dutch disease" effects and a return to the profligate populism of the past. In the near term significant fiscal financing risks remain until revenues from OT are realized. In particular, this Retrospective discusses the need for continued fiscal consolidation and how the adoption of the planned fiscal stability law should help manage the upcoming mining boom. Meanwhile, ongoing solvency problems in the banking sector need to be resolved quickly and transparently to prepare the sector for the upturn in economic activity.
Mongolia and the UK in the 20th Century
by Zolboo DashnyamThis book explores the history of Mongolia's relations with external powers via the prism of the relationship with the UK, drawing on archival documents and other historical resources in different languages such as Russian, Chinese and Mongolian. From the early history of the Mongolian state as part of the socialist alliance, Mongolia has had relations with the UK, which was the first western nation to recognize Mongolian independence in 1963. The evolving political situation in Mongolia and the world is here refracted through the relationship with the UK. Further, it introduces readers to the cultural and ideological differences between Mongolian foreign relations belong to different historical periods. This book will be of interest to scholars of Asia, of the post-socialist world, and of the role of the UK in the world.