About this product: A shocking exposé of the $15 billion marketing maelstrom aimed at our children and how we can stop it.
With the intensity of the California gold rush, corporations are racing to stake their claim on the consumer group formerly known as children. What was once the purview of a handful of companies has escalated into a gargantuan enterprise estimated at over $15 billion annually. While parents busily try to set limits at home, marketing executives work day and night to undermine their efforts with irresistible messages.
In Consuming Kids, psychologist Susan Linn takes a comprehensive and unsparing look at the demographic advertisers call "the kid market," taking readers on a compelling and disconcerting journey through modern childhood as envisioned by commercial interests. Children are now the focus of a marketing maelstrom, targets for everything from minivans to M&M counting books. All aspects of children's lives—their health, education, creativity, and values—are at risk of being compromised by their status in the marketplace.
Interweaving real-life stories of marketing to children, child development theory, the latest research, and what marketing experts themselves say about their work, Consuming Kids reveals the magnitude of this problem and shows what can be done about it.
About this product: Do you ever wonder if there’s a connection between the corruption scandals in the news and the steady decline in the quality of life for millions of Americans?
Do you ever wonder what corporations get for the millions of dollars they pour into the American political system?
Do you ever think the government has been hijacked by forces hostile to average Americans?
Do you ever want to fight back?
Millions of Americans lack health care and millions more struggle to afford it. Politicians claim they care, then pass legislation that just sends more cash to the HMOs. Wages have been stagnant for thirty years, even as corporate profits skyrocket. Politicians say they want to fix the problem and then pass bills written by lobbyists that drive wages even lower and punish those crushed by debt. Jobs are being shipped overseas, pensions are being cut, and energy is becoming unaffordable. And our government, more concerned about maintaining its corporate sponsorship than protecting its citizens, does nothing about it.
In Hostile Takeover, David Sirota, a major new voice in American politics, seeks to open the eyes of ordinary Americans to the fact that corporate interests have undermined democracy, aided and abetted by their lackeys in our allegedly representative government. At a time when more and more of America’s major political leaders are being indicted or investigated for corruption, Sirota takes readers on a journey that shows how all of this nefarious behavior happened right under our noses—and how the high-profile scandals are merely one product of a political system and debate wholly owned by Big Money interests. Sirota considers major public issues that feel intractable—like spiraling health care costs, the outsourcing of jobs, the inequities of the tax code, and out-of-control energy prices—and shows how in each case workable solutions are buried under the lies of lobbyists, the influence of campaign cash, and the ubiquitous spin machine financed by Big Business.
With fiery passion, pinpoint wit, and lucid analysis, Hostile Takeover reveals the true enemies of reform and their increasingly sophisticated—and hostile—tactics. It’s an essential guidebook for those of us tired of the government selling us out—and determined to take our country back.
About this product: Fascinating as the corporate takeovers of recent years have been--with their "golden parachutes" and junk bonds, "greenmailers" and white knights--it is far from clear what underlying forces are at work, and what their long-term consequences will be. Debate over these questions has become polarized: some see takeover threats as disciplinary mechanisms that induce managers to behave efficiently and move assets to higher valued uses or into the hands of more efficient managers; others claim that corporate raiders have produced few observable increases in operating efficiency, but rather have disrupted business planning, enforced a preoccupation with the short-term, and tilted the balance sheets of corporate America towards dangerously high debt levels. Such sharp conflicts in theory and evidence have produced considerable governmental confusion concerning the appropriate policy response. Scores of bills have been introduced in Congress, but legislators are no more in agreement than scholars.
Knights, Raiders, and Targets represents one of the first sustained efforts to refine and clarify these issues. Based on papers presented at a symposium sponsored by the Columbia Law School's Center for Law and Economic Studies, it also includes discussion of the informal presentations made at the symposium by the CEOs of several major corporations. This important book airs new theories and offers vital and exciting discussion of the essential issues attached to an event that has become central to American corporate culture.
About this product: In the 24th century, humans have built a star-spanning Confederacy that encompasses 83 worlds-plus one. The 84th planet is Bakunin, where power belongs to whoever can seize it. With no taxes, no antitrust laws, and no governing body, it's the perfect home base for mega-corporations and criminals.
A longtime critic of hostile cash takeovers of large corporations, Edmund Kelly believed that if the organized insincerity of advisors and corporate control entrepreneurs in the tight knit takeover community was told, this alone would contribute to a decline in the acceptance of the hostile bid as an acquisition method. Copies of The Takeover Dialogues were purchased primarily in 1988 by investment and commercial banking and corporate law firms, executives and business libraries. Prominent uninvited cash takeover bids averaged 17 a year for the period 1985 - 1988. There were 6 in 1989 and 2 in 1990. For the years 1991 -1999 they averaged 1.2 a year. In these carefully reasoned dialogues, Edmund Kelly also examines the impact of corporate raids on the business community and society. Kelly believes the ideal corporation translates capital and human energy into a community service institution that is ultimately greater than the sum of its parts.
This book raises important questions of public policy about issues affecting the institutions upon which we all depend for our continued prosperity. It is important reading for anyone concerned about the future of corporate business in a capitalistic society.
About this product: From Special Forces to homicide detective, Jon Archer has seen his share of battles. He has survived both the jungle wilds and downtown city streets - but nothing could prepare him for the coming wrath of a homicidal woman he locked away years ago, as well as her violent band of felons. Swearing in open court to get even with Archer, she has every intention of following through on her promise of deadly vengeance, as well as her sinister goal of taking down one of the largest media corporations in the country. Soon Archer, his loyal partner Brody and his dog, a highly trained Boxer named Jimmy, find themselves both the hunted and hunters in this edge-of-your-seat-thriller
About this product: The enforcement branch of the Terran Confederacy, determined to take control of a government-free planet, targets Dominic, the head of a successful business empire, and the man in charge of the takeover plots his own personal revenge. Original.
About this product: Written by the first woman director of the Gillette Company, this is an exciting first-hand account of Gillette's successful fight against four hostile takeover efforts during the late 1980s. After a brief, insightful history of the company and the growth of its world-famous products--Gillette razors and blades; Braun coffee machines and electric razors; Oral-B toothbrushes; Paper Mate, Waterman, and Parker pens; and cosmetics--the author tells the inside story of Ronald Perelman's three attempts and the Coniston Partners' one attempt to take over Gillette. Ricardo-Campbell, who chaired Gillette's Finance Committee during this period, provides a fascinating look at the ensuing proxy battles and other intricate financial maneuvers. Combining academic theory and first-hand experience in its discussion of topics such as greenmail and poison pills, this work also features such world-renowned corporate figures as Warren Buffett, Joe Flom, and Eric Gleacher.
BOOK
