American Money

During the most dizzying days of the financial crisis, Washington Mutual, a bank with hundreds of billions of dollars in its coffers, suffered a crippling bank run. The story of its final, brutal collapse in the autumn of 2008, and its controversial sale to JPMorgan Chase, is an astonishing account of how one bank lost itself to greed and mismanagement, and how the entire financial industry - and even the entire country - lost its way as well. Kirsten Grind’s The Lost Bank is a magisterial and gripping account of these events.

Filled with keen economic insight and advice for citizens, executives, policymakers, and educators, When More Is Not Better is the must-listen guide for saving democratic capitalism.

Three friends. One slim chance to beat the streets. But even when you fight your way out by any means necessary, cold hard cash is still no guarantee you'll escape....

In Made in the USA, Vaclav Smil powerfully rebuts the notion that manufacturing is a relic of predigital history and that the loss of American manufacturing is a desirable evolutionary step toward a pure service economy. Smil argues that no advanced economy can prosper without a strong, innovative manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates. Smil assesses various suggestions for solving America's manufacturing crisis, including lowering corporate tax rates, promoting research and development, and improving public education. Will America act to reinvigorate manufacturing?

Beginning in the 1950s, America entered a period of unprecedented social reform. This remarkable book demonstrates how the social programs of the 1960s and ’70s had the unintended and perverse effect of slowing and even reversing earlier progress in reducing poverty, crime, ignorance, and discrimination. Using widely understood and accepted data, it conclusively demonstrates that the amalgam of reforms from 1965 to 1970 actually made matters worse.

In part 1 of this urban-chick-lit trilogy, Chicago native and full-time finesse artist Yazmeen Shabazz is willing to do any and everything to stack her dough and spend her man's money. Caught between lies and deception, embezzlement and bank fraud, Yaz figures out the art of the hustle by laying down the pink print of power-play moves to build an empire. Tiffani is that pretty, smart city girl that has extra curves that accentuates her figure. Tiffani battles loss and loneliness due to the lack of family by focusing on securing the bag. A real estate mogul in the making, she's participated ...

In part 2 of Labels & Legecy: Aminah's family secret is exposed. She is faced with either moving forward or acting as if it never happened. Amir is finally on the come up until a tragedy strikes. He sets his eyes on the prize but not without being tested. Amirah distances herself from her family of hustlers. She wants to gain access into the Black Elite and leave the Southside of Chicago for good. Legecy convinces reveals a secret to Amir. He feels he has no other choice but to divulge one hidden truth. Betrayal, envy, and deceit is a blended cold cocktail that leads to an explosive ending....

If you asked most people what forces led to today’s unprecedented income inequality and financial crashes, no one would say the Federal Reserve. For most of its history, the Fed has enjoyed the fawning adoration of the press. When the economy grew, it was credited to the Fed. When the economy imploded in 2008, the Fed got credit for rescuing us.

In this audiobook, you'll discover everything you need to know about how, exactly, many of America's most famous (and infamous) millionaires and billionaires acquired their fortunes. The big surprise is that all of the super-wealthy it profiles got where they are today by taking one of just 10 possible roads - including starting a business, buying real estate, investing wisely, and marrying extremely well. Whether you aspire to shameful wealth or just a demure fortune, best-selling author and self-made billionaire Ken Fisher will show you how to walk in the footsteps of tycoons.

John Harvey Kellogg was one of America's most beloved physicians; a best-selling author, lecturer, and health-magazine publisher; founder of the Battle Creek Sanitarium; and patron saint of the pursuit of wellness. His youngest brother, Will, was the founder of the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company. In The Kelloggs, Howard Markel tells the sweeping saga of these two extraordinary men, whose lifelong competition and enmity toward one another changed America's notion of health and wellness and who helped change the course of American medicine, nutrition, wellness, and diet.

In the finale, Milcah keeps a promise she made to Tony. When she takes actions into her own hands, it leaves her vulnerable and unprotected. Will she finally score a victory or will her life continue to spiral out of control? This is a 3 book series.

Throughout the 20th century, "free enterprise" has been a contested keyword in American politics, and the cornerstone of a conservative philosophy that seeks to limit government involvement into economic matters. Lawrence B. Glickman shows how the idea first gained traction in American discourse and was championed by opponents of the New Deal. Those politicians, believing free enterprise to be a fundamental American value, held it up as an antidote to a liberalism that they maintained would lead toward totalitarian statism.

Nomi Prins ushers us into the intimate world of exclusive clubs, vacation spots, and Ivy League universities that binds presidents and financiers. She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. This unprecedented history of American power illuminates how financiers have retained their authoritative position through history, swaying presidents regardless of party affiliation.

Long overshadowed by Japan and China, South Korea is a small country that happens to be one of the great national success stories of the postwar period. From a failed state with no democratic tradition, ruined and partitioned by war, and sapped by a half-century of colonial rule, South Korea transformed itself in just 50 years into an economic powerhouse and a democracy that serves as a model for other countries. With no natural resources and a tradition of authoritarian rule, Korea managed to accomplish a second Asian miracle.

How do you rig an economy? You start with the tax code. In Tax the Rich!, former BlackRock executive Morris Pearl, the millionaire chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, and Erica Payne, the organization's founder, take listeners on an engaging and enlightening insider's tour of the nation's tax code, explaining exactly how "the rich" - and the politicians they control - manipulate the US tax code to ensure the rich get richer, and everyone else is left holding the bag.

Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically. Perhaps no moment was more opportune than the early days of Reconstruction, when the US government temporarily implemented a major redistribution of land from former slaveholders to the newly emancipated enslaved.

Often blamed for the rising rates of obesity and diabetes among black Americans, fast food restaurants like McDonald's have long symbolized capitalism's villainous effects on our nation's most vulnerable communities. But how did fast food restaurants so thoroughly saturate black neighborhoods in the first place? In Franchise, acclaimed historian Marcia Chatelain uncovers a surprising history of cooperation among fast food companies, black capitalists, and civil rights leaders, who believed they found an economic answer to the problem of racial inequality.

The family that hustles together stays together. In the finale of Labels & Legecy, the family pulls together to heal after the murders. Aminah pressures Legecy to tell her the truth. Amir doesn't know his friends from his enemies. Amirah is struggling with family pride and self-acceptance. As danger looms around them will they survive or be taken out? This is a 3 book series. All 3 books are NOW available.

The conglomerate hires a younger all-girl crew to do their dirty work. As the conglomerate gain power in the luxury underworld, they handle their business by stepping on the toes, necks, and territory by any means necessary to control the black market. But when loose ties start the unravel the conglomerate find themselves in an unlucky place.

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.