About this product: Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance.
Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it’s the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it’s the chains of labor. But in The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress. What’s more, he reveals financial history as the essential backstory behind all history.
Through Ferguson’s expert lens familiar historical landmarks appear in a new and sharper financial focus. Suddenly, the civilization of the Renaissance looks very different: a boom in the market for art and architecture made possible when Italian bankers adopted Arabic mathematics. The rise of the Dutch republic is reinterpreted as the triumph of the world’s first modern bond market over insolvent Habsburg absolutism. And the origins of the French Revolution are traced back to a stock market bubble caused by a convicted Scot murderer.
With the clarity and verve for which he is known, Ferguson elucidates key financial institutions and concepts by showing where they came from. What is money? What do banks do? What’s the difference between a stock and a bond? Why buy insurance or real estate? And what exactly does a hedge fund do?
This is history for the present. Ferguson travels to post-Katrina New Orleans to ask why the free market can’t provide adequate protection against catastrophe. He delves into the origins of the subprime mortgage crisis.
Perhaps most important, The Ascent of Money documents how a new financial revolution is propelling the world’s biggest countries, India and China, from poverty to wealth in the space of a single generation—an economic transformation unprecedented in human history.
Yet the central lesson of the financial history is that sooner or later every bubble bursts—sooner or later the bearish sellers outnumber the bullish buyers, sooner or later greed flips into fear. And that’s why, whether you’re scraping by or rolling in it, there’s never been a better time to understand the ascent of money.
The success stories speak for themselves in this book from money maestro Dave Ramsey. Instead of promising the normal dose of quick fixes, Ramsey offers a bold, no-nonsense approach to money matters, providing not only the how-to but also a grounded and uplifting hope for getting out of debt and achieving total financial health.
Ramsey debunks the many myths of money (exposing the dangers of cash advance, rent-to-own, debt consolidation) and attacks the illusions and downright deceptions of the American dream, which encourages nothing but overspending and massive amounts of debt. "Don't even consider keeping up with the Joneses," Ramsey declares in his typically candid style. "They're broke!"
The Total Money Makeover isn't theory. It works every single time. It works because it is simple. It works because it gets to the heart of the money problems: you.
About this product: The bestselling author reveals how the U.S. financial sector has hijacked our economy and put America’s global future at risk
In American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips warned us of the perilous interaction of debt, financial recklessness, and the increasing cost of scarce oil. The current housing and mortgage debacle is proof once more of Phillips’s prescience, and only the first harbinger of a national crisis. In Bad Money, Phillips describes the consequences of our misguided economic policies, our mounting debt, our collapsing housing market, our threatened oil, and the end of American domination of world markets. America’s current challenges (and failures) run striking parallels to the decline of previous leading world economic powers—especially the Dutch and British. Global overreach, worn-out politics, excessive debt, and exhausted energy regimes are all chilling signals that the United States is crumbling as the world superpower.
“Bad money” refers to a new phenomenon in wayward megafinance—the emergence of a U.S. economy that is globally dependent and dominated by hubris-driven financial services. Also “bad” are the risk miscalculations and strategic abuses of new multitrillion-dollar products such as asset-backed securities and the lure of buccaneering vehicles like hedge funds. Finally, the U.S. dollar has been turned into bad money as it has weakened and become vulnerable to the world’s other currencies. In all these ways, “bad” finance has failed the American people and pointed U.S. capitalism toward a global crisis. Bad Money is the perfect follow- up to Phillips’s last book, whose dire warnings are now proving frighteningly accurate.
This Leading Edge work by Esther and Jerry Hicks, who present the teachings of the Non-Physical consciousness Abraham, explains that the two subjects most chronically affected by the powerful Law of Attraction are financial and physical well-being. This book will shine a spotlight on each of the most significant aspects of your life experience and then guide you to the conscious creative control of every aspect of your life, and also goes right to the heart of what most of you are probably troubled by: money and physical health. Not having enough money or not having good health puts you in the perfect position for creating more of that which you do not have. This book has been written to deliberately align you with the most powerful law in the universe—the Law of Attraction—so that you can make it work specifically for you.
Money, and the Law of Attraction is formatted in five, vibrant essays:
Part I – Processing of Pivoting and Positive Aspects
Part II – Attracting Money and Manifesting Abundance
Part III – Maintaining Your Physical Well-Being
Part IV – Perspectives of Health, Weight, and Mind
Part V – Careers, as Profitable Sources of Pleasure
Also included is a free CD (excerpted from a live Abraham-Hicks workshop) that features the Art of Allowing your physical and financial well-being to come through.
About this product: Money maven Suze Orman's latest book, Women & Money addresses the complicated (and often dysfunctional) relationship women have with personal finance. Orman's direct, non-condescending style is perfect for this subject matter--she begins with the premise that "Women can invest, save, and handle debt as well and skillfully as any man" and then tackles the important question--"So why don't they?" Designed to educate and inspire, Women & Money also offers a "Save Yourself Plan," a five-month program that "delivers genuine long-term financial security." Want to know more? Watch a video message from Suze below, and take a gander at the first chapter of Women & Money--you'll be "controlling your destiny" in no time. --Daphne Durham
An Exclusive Video Message from Suze Orman
Watch the video
Read the First Chapter of Women & Money
For Women Only
I never thought I'd write a book about money just for women. I never thought it was necessary. So then why am I doing just that in my eighth book? And why now? Let me explain. All my previous books were written with the belief that gender is not a factor on any level in mastering the nuts and bolts of smart financial management. Women can invest, save, and handle debt just as well and skillfully as any man. I still believe that--why would anyone think differently? So imagine my surprise when I learned that some of the people closest to me in my life were in the dark about their own finances. Clueless. Or, in some cases, willfully resisting doing what they knew needed to be done. I'm talking about smart, competent, accomplished women who present a face to the world that is pure confidence and capability. Do you mean to tell me that I, Suze Orman, who make my living solving the financial problems of total strangers, couldn't spot the trouble brewing so close to home? I don't think I'm blind; I just think that these women became very, very good at hiding their troubles from me.Why not? They had years of practice hiding them from themselves.
About this product: How do we find hot stocks without getting burned? How do we fatten our portfolios and stay financially healthy? Former hedge-fund manager and longtime Wall Street commentator Jim Cramer explains how to invest wisely in chaotic times, and he does so in plain English in a style that is as much fun as investing is -- or should be, when it's done right.
For starters, Cramer recommends devoting a portion of your assets to speculation. Everyone wants to find the big winners that can bring outsized gains, and Cramer explains how to allocate your portfolio so that you can afford to take this kind of risk wisely. He explains why "buy and hold" is a losing philosophy: For Cramer, it's "buy and homework." If you can't spend an hour a week researching each of your stocks, then you should hand off your portfolio to a mutual fund -- and Cramer identifies the very few mutual funds that he'd recommend.
Cramer reveals his Ten Commandments of Trading (Commandment #5: Tips are for waiters). He explains why he's not afraid to compare investing to gambling (and tells you which book on gambling you should read to become a better investor). He discloses his Twenty-Five Rules of Investing (Rule #4: Look for broken stocks, not broken companies).
Cramer shows how to compare stock prices in a way that you can understand, how to spot market tops and bottoms, how to know when to sell, how to rotate among cyclical stocks to catch the big moves, and much more. Jim Cramer's Real Money is filled with insider advice that really works, information that Cramer himself used to make millions during his fourteen-year career on Wall Street.
Written in Cramer's distinctive turbocharged style, this is every investor's guide to what you really must know to make big money in the stock market.
About this product: There's a big difference between "making a living" and making a life. Do you spend more than you earn? Does making a living feel more like making a dying? Do you dislike your job but can't afford to leave it? Is money fragmenting your time, your relationships with family and friends? If so, Your Money or Your Life is for you.
From this inspiring book, learn how to
get out of debt and develop savings
reorder material priorities and live well for less
resolve inner conflicts between values and lifestyles
convert problems into opportunities to learn new skills
In this fresh, interactive guide, respected financial expert Dave Ramsey offers a proven, comprehensive plan for getting in shape financially. The Total Money Makeover Workbook takes you one step closer to getting out of debt and achieving financial health. Against a playful backdrop of fitness terminology, Dave gives solid, hard-hitting advice and the "hope" and the "how-to" needed to turn goals into reality. The Total Money Makeover Workbook includes:
Useful worksheets and forms
Readable and informative charts and graphs
The four factors that keep people from getting in shape financially
The Total Money Makeover Workbook is an essential resource for anyone desiring total financial fitness. Dave's no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is approach translates into results for those who diligently follow this complete action plan. Tens of thousands of people have already transformed their financial situation with Dave's advice, rooted in "God's and Grandma's common sense." With The Total Money Makeover Workbook, countless others will be on their way to financial fitness.
“I had been in derivatives for over 25 years. Many traders hadn't been born when I stumbled accidentally into the arcane world of derivatives trading. The Indonesians were at the fag end of that career. How did I get there? I had followed the money. I had ridden the tide and currents of financial markets. I had not known very much then. Even now I only knew the many unknowns. How did I get here? It was a very long story. Send Traders, Guns and Money is that story…..”
Warren Buffet once labelled derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction”. Unlike the military kind, financial WMD are not hard to find. Many great companies use them. These businesses use derivatives to make money or protect them from risk. It’s a simple case of greed or fear. Or is it?
In derivatives, whoever you are, there are things that you don’t know that you don’t know. These are the real risks of derivatives. They’re generally left to the client to discover. So, if you’re entering the dazzling world of derivatives, ask yourself this: What do I know? What do I need to know? What don’t I know? What am I doing?
You can find the answers in Traders, Guns & Money, a sensational and controversial first-person account of the business of derivatives trading and the financial products industry in the spirit of Liar’s Poker. It is a true insider’s view of the business of trading and marketing derivatives for a living. It details the nature of the business, the players, how money is made and lost, and the deceptions that underlie the entire process.
Funny and poignant, and written in a wry and wickedly comic style, the book provides the ordinary reader with an insight into the seeming madness that underlies financial markets and the out-of-control process that is trading in complex financial products that few understand.
Traders, Guns & Money throws light on the culture, games, and pure deceptions played out every day in trading rooms around the world, and played out with other people’s money. It describes the processes by which a small group of gifted, if avaricious, individuals parlay their knowledge of the arcane world of financial products into wealth, leaving shareholders, clients, regulators, and the tax paying ordinary public to bear most of the risk.
This is the story of how one set of clients discovered the perils of unknowns in a derivatives deal. This tale will leave you amazed, and this book will make it all clear.In the sometimes dazzling world of derivatives, Traders Guns & Money shows you how we got here and tells it how it is. Go on, follow the money.
An accessible companion and a wise counsel, Traders, Guns & Money weaves together three core themes:
Known unkowns: if you’re entering the dazzling world of derivatives, ask yourself this: What do I know? What do I need to know? What don’t I know? What am I doing? This book will make it all clear.
Follow the money: an insider’s, expert witness account of the rise and rules of the world of derivatives. This book will show you how we got here and tell it how it is
Send traders guns & money: the story of how one set of clients discovered the perils of unknowns in a derivatives deal . This tale will leave you amazed, but wiser.
"Ever since Warren Buffett memorably described derivatives as "financial weapons of mass destruction" there has been a thriller waiting to be written about them. Derivatives have frightened otherwise right-thinking people for some time. In part this reflects a natural tendency to fear what we do not understand." Financial Times
About this product: From the school of unemotional investing comes the classic How to Make Money in Stocks, by Wall Street analyst and publisher William O'Neil. Readers new to securities will find it an excellent primer, one that relies on time-honored indicators such as quarterly earnings, market capitalization, and daily indexes. O'Neil's study of winning stocks stretches back to the 1960s, and he shares his insights here, describing what characterizes a growth stock, when to cut your losses (at 7 or 8 percent, no more), and how to spot a market top.
The techniques in How to Make Money in Stocks are hardly revolutionary, but therein lies their strength, as O'Neil claims his is "a winning system in good times or bad." Investors interested in Net stocks might be disappointed--the author's first rule is that a company must show a pattern of growing profits, which disqualifies many dot coms. (Try Rule Breakers, Rule Makers for a different take.) O'Neil's approach to stocks is, above all, rational, and he pays little heed to market hype.
Those new to investing would do well to read this book before embarking, and even more seasoned traders may find How to Make Money in Stocks a refreshing return to basics. Markets may swing bull and bear, but O'Neil promises to stand firm. --Demian McLean