Will the sun set on the greatest currency in the history ofthe world? For decades the dollar has been the undisputed champ. It’s not onlythe currency of America but much of the world as well, the fuel ofglobal prosperity. As the superengine of the world’s onlysuperpower, it’s accepted everywhere. When an Asian company tradeswith South America, those transactions are done in dollars, thecurrency of international business. But for how much longer? Economists fear America is digging a holewith an economy based on massive borrowing and huge deficits thatcloud the dollar’s future. Will the buck be eclipsed by the euro oreven China’s renminbi? Should Americans worry when the value of themighty U.S. dollar sinks to par with the Canadian “loonie”? Craig Karmin’s in-depth “biography” of the dollar explores theseissues. It also examines the green-back’s history, allure, andunique role as a catalyst for globalization, and how the Americanbuck became so almighty that $ became perhaps the most po

Perhaps the hottest field in macroeconomics, economic growth is fascinating to theorists and critically important to policy makers. Charles Jones, a rising star in the field, explains the inroads economists have made in understanding how economies grow. The story begins with empirical evidence: how rich are the rich countries, how poor are the poor, and how fast do the rich and poor countries grow? Jones then presents major theories of growth, from the Nobel Prize-winning work of Robert Solow to the new growth theory that has ignited the field in recent years.

The truth behind the causes and effects of America's economicdownturn. The Complete Idiot's Guide(r) to the Financial Crisis explainsthe root causes and connects the events and issues with theproblems that have confronted Americans over the course of morethan a year, giving readers an unvarnished, unbiased, and in-depthanalysis of the factors that lead up to the crisis, the majorevents that defined it, and the decisions and ramifications thatresulted from it. ?Interest in the financial crisis continues to build with severalhigh- profile books and an HBO movie due out in 2010, as well asthe success of Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story ?Much of the financial crisis writing to date has been of thebreaking news variety-this book will be one of the first bookspublished after the smoke has cleared to offer a comprehensiveanalysis of what happened and how

An essential guide to doing business in Central and SouthAmerica, complete with communication and etiquette tips. This is the essential guide to business etiquette and customs foranyone doing business in Latin America. It features everything thereader needs to know-from getting an appointment to securing acontract. Doing business in Latin America can pose unique,substantial challenges to a non-native, and this book demystifiesthe entire process. From the two-hour "business lunch," at which nobusiness is ever discussed, to handing out business cards the rightway, Diran covers every crucial nuance. He also addresses: ? How things move at a much slower pace than most Americanbusiness processes and deals ? How family truly comes before business, even if it meansskipping an important meeting to take care of a loved one ? The importance of connections and mutual Acquaintances ? How to work with translators and bilingual assistants to getthe job done ? Proper dress, body la

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is David S. Landes's acclaimed, best-selling exploration of one of the most contentious and hotly debated questions of our time: Why do some nations achieve economic success while others remain mired in poverty? The answer, as Landes definitively illustrates, is a complex interplay of cultural mores and historical circumstance. Rich with anecdotal evidence, piercing analysis, and a truly astonishing range of erudition, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is a "picture of enormous sweep and brilliant insight" (Kenneth Arrow) as well as one of the most audaciously ambitious works of history in decades.

Unrivaled in its unique combination of analytical rigor and accessibility, Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach has garnered one of the broadest adoption lists in the market. Now appearing in its Sixth Edition, Professor Varian's hallmark text is better than ever, featuring new treatments of game theory and competitive strategy, and a variety of new illustrative examples. Modern, authoritative, and above all crafted by an outstanding teacher and scholar, Intermediate Microeconomics, Sixth Edition will expand students' analytic powers and strengthen their understanding of microeconomics. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The New York Times bestseller-an investment book for thecoming age of high inflation. On the heels of the most recent economic crisis, America isheaded toward another: high inflation and dollar devaluation. Thesigns are clear: Federal debt is compounding while growth hasstalled, and America's foreign creditors are questioning thedollar's reserve currency status. Meanwhile, the "hidden" federaldebt, much larger than the official debt, makes things evenworse. But the good news, according to Charles Goyette, is that thosewho are prepared can protect themselves-and even profit-in this newera. Drawing on historical examples and a clear, down-to-earthanalysis, he explains the importance of gold, silver, and otheralternative investments when inflation takes off. He also givesreaders the investing tools to protect their savings and capitalizeon the opportunities ahead. Savvy readers don't have to be leftholding the bag after decades of government irresponsibility.

It is in Books IV and V of The Wealth of Nations that AdamSmith offers his considered response to the French Physiocrats,perhaps the first great school of economic theorists, and assessesthe nature of the mercantile system, particularly the colonialrelationship with America, whose achievements could have been evenmore spectacular if conditions of free trade and economic union hadexisted. Even on the eve of the Declaration of Independence, Smithfamously predicted that America "will be one of the foremostnations of the world." It is also here that he develops the casefor a limited state role in economic planning, notably to combatmarket failure and induce efficiency in areas such as education,public works, justice, and defense. His pioneering analysis stillprovides many subtle and penetrating insights into one of today'smost vital and controversial policy debates. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Andrew Skinner

Use eye-popping visual tools to energize your people! Just as social networking has reclaimed the Internet for humaninteractivity and co-creation, the visual meetings movement isreclaiming creativity, productivity, and playful exchange forserious work in groups. Visual Meetings explains how anyone can implementpowerful visual tools, and how these tools are being used inSilicon Valley and elsewhere to facilitate both face-to-face andvirtual group work. This dynamic and richly illustrated resourcegives meeting leaders, presenters, and consultants a slew ofexciting tricks and tools, including Graphic recording, visual planning, story boarding, graphictemplates, idea mapping, etc. Creative ways to energize team building, sales presentations,staff meetings, strategy sessions, brainstorming, and more Getting beyond paper and whiteboards to engage new mediaplatforms Understanding emerging visual language for leading groups Unlocking formerly untapped creative resources for businesssuccess, Visual Mee

A storm is coming, a turbulent new era in which the planet's supply of oil will be overtaken by demand. Fuel prices will soar and inflation will skyrocket-but with this guide, two leading financial strategists show you how to weather the worst of it, and even capture impressive returns. With the help of the author's 'all season' Oil Indicator, you'll learn how to choose the right investments for any market environment, as you discover; why oil and natural gas stocks should be core holdings in every investor's portfolio, why a cautious buy-and-hold strategy is a sure monet loser, why conventional 'safe' stocks are really the riskiest, why gold may be on the verge of a historic bull run, how the global oil wars make defense stocks a premium buy, where to find the best bets in the field of alternative energy, how to profit from real estate without actually owning any.

赵景波编著的《荒漠化与防治教程(普通高等教育规划教材)》主要包括荒漠化地区的自然环境、风蚀荒漠化、水蚀荒漠化、蒸发盐渍荒漠化、石漠化和亚热带的红土退化、冻融荒漠化、生物动力荒漠化和荒漠化监测与评价，共十章内容。在各类荒漠化动力类型中，主要包括了荒漠化的分布、发生动力、条件、影响因素、形成的地表景观和物质组成类型、等级划分、治理技术与措施等。《荒漠化与防治教程(普通高等教育规划教材)》吸收了国内外新的研究成果，增加了生物动力荒漠化新类型，区分了荒漠化的动力和第二动力，内容全面系统。 本书为大专院校本科生教材，也可作为研究生教材，并可供地理、生态、水土保持、农牧业与环境科学研究人员和大专院校教师参考。

An updated look at what Fischer Black's ideas on business cyclesand equilibrium mean todayThroughout his career, Fischer Blackdescribed a view of business fluctuations based on the idea that awell-developed economy will be continually in equilibrium. In theessays that constitute this book, which is one of only two booksBlack ever wrote, he explores this idea thoroughly and reaches somesurprising conclusions.With the newfound popularity of quantitativefinance and risk management, the work of Fischer Black has garneredmuch attention. "Business Cycles and Equilibrium"-with its theorythat economic and financial markets are in a continualequilibrium-is one of his books that still rings true today, giventhe current economic crisis. This "Updated Edition" clearlypresents Black's classic theory on business cycles and the conceptof equilibrium, and contains a new introduction by the person whoknows Black best: Perry Mehrling, author of "Fischer Black and theRevolutionary Idea of Finance" (Wiley). Mehrling goes inside

Out of the red... Do this month's bills pile up before you'repaid last month's? Do you regularly receive past-due notices? Doyou get letters threatening legal action if immediate payment isnot made? Do the total amounts on your revolving charge accountskeep steadily rising? Into the black... Whether you are currentlyin debt or fear you're falling into debt, you are not alone. Fortymillion Americans--from doctors to secretaries, from executives tothe unemployed--face the same problem and live under the same dailystress. Based on the proven techniques of the national DebtorsAnonymous program, here is the first complete, step-by-step guideto getting out of debt once and for all. You'll learn: How torecognize the warning signs of serious debt. How to negotiate withangry creditors, collection agencies, and the IRS. How to design arealistic and painless pay-back schedule. How to identify yourspending " blind spots." How to cope with the anxiety and dailypressures of owing money. Plus the three cardinal rules for s

The 2007–08 subprime financial crisis is the jumping-off point for Smick's (Johnson Smick International) examination of current threats to global prosperity. He explains that although the subprime losses are small in the context of world financial markets, a lack of transparency has diminished investor confidence, dried up financial liquidity, and threatened the very foundations of our world financial system. He says that the growth of global financial markets has made it more difficult for central banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve to intercede effectively in times of crisis. Smick compares the subprime crisis to past events like the UK's forced devaluation of the pound in 1992 and Japan's economic stagnation in the 1990s. He warns of pending dangers like an overheating of the Chinese development juggernaut and the present calls for protectionism by U.S. politicians. He favors a global financial system built on transparency and trust. Smick's role for some 30 years as an economic adviser to central banker

Two years in the cauldron of capitalism-"horrifying and veryfunny" (The Wall Street Journal) In this candid and entertaining insider's look at the mostinfluential school in global business, Philip Delves Broughtondraws on his crack reporting skills to describe his madcap years atHarvard Business School. Ahead of the Curve recounts the mostedifying and surprising lessons learned in the quest for an MBA,from the ingenious chicanery of leveraging and the unlikelypleasures of accounting, to the antics of the "booze luge" andother, less savory trappings of student culture. Published duringthe one hundredth anniversary of Harvard Business School, this isthe unflinching truth about life in the trenches of an iconicAmerican institution.

This is a book about a handful of men with a curious claim to fame. By all the rules of schoolboy history books, they were nonentities: they commanded no armies, sent no men to their deaths, ruled no empires, took little part in history-making decisions. A few of them achieved renown, but none was ever a national hero; a few were roundly abused, but none was ever quite a national villain. Yet what they did was more decisive for history than many acts of statesmen who basked in brighter glory, often more profoundly disturbing than the shuttling of armies back and forth across frontiers, more powerful for good and bad than the edicts of kings and legislatures. It was this: they shaped and swayed men's minds. And because he who enlists a man's mind wields a power even greater than the sword or the scepter, these men shaped and swayed the world. Few of them ever lifted a finger in action; they worked, in the main, as scholars -- quietly, inconspicuously, and without much regard for what the world had to say abou

An expos? on the delusion, greed, and arrogance that led toAmerica's credit crisis The collapse of America's credit markets in 2008 is quitepossibly the biggest financial disaster in U.S. history. ConfidenceGame: How a Hedge Fund Manager Called Wall Street's Bluff is thestory of Bill Ackman's six-year campaign to warn that the $2.5trillion bond insurance business was a catastrophe waiting tohappen. Branded a fraud by the Wall Street Journal and New YorkTimes, and investigated by Eliot Spitzer and the Securities andExchange Commission, Ackman later made his investors more than $1billion when bond insurers kicked off the collapse of the creditmarkets. Unravels the story of the credit crisis through an engaging andhuman drama Draws on unprecedented access to one of Wall Street's best-knowninvestors Shows how excessive leverage, dangerous financial models, and ablind reliance on triple-A credit ratings sent Wall Streetcareening toward disaster Confidence Game is a real world "Empero

The case for the inevitable failure of a paper money economyand what that means for the future All paper money systems in history have ended in failure. Eitherthey collapsed in chaos, or society returned to commodity moneybefore that could happen. Drawing upon novel new research, PaperMoney Collapse conclusively illustrates why paper moneysystems—those based on an elastic and constantly expanding supplyof money as opposed to a system of commodity money of essentiallyfixed supply—are inherently unstable and why they must lead toeconomic disintegration. These highly controversial conclusions clash with the presentconsensus, which holds that elastic state money is superior toinflexible commodity money (such as a gold standard), and thatexpanding money is harmless or even beneficial for as long asinflation stays low. Contradicting this, Paper Money Collapse showsthat: The present crisis is the unavoidable result of continuouslyexpanding fiat money The current policy of accelerat

Profiting from China without getting burned is currently an obsession with the international investment community. The estimated size of the Chinese economy has just been revised upwards, making it the 4th largest in the world behind the US, Japan and Germany, and ahead of the UK but the idea that investing in China is a sure-fire, get-rich-quick investment story is dangerously misleading. The author of the bestselling "Investment Biker, Adventure Capitalist, and Hot Commodities", is providing a book that provides a window into what will soon be the most vital, most lucrative market of our time: China.While the Chinese economy has had an annual average growth of 9.4 percent since 1978, and despite the ongoing speculation about China's future, its stock market is now emerging from a six-year low. As the Chinese economy continues to lumber toward a free market system - and as the Chinese government inevitably unpegs its currency and opens its stock market to more foreign investment, Rogers foresees an abundance