Economics Audiobooks | Business & Economics

Wealth, Poverty, and Politics: An International Perspective

In Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, Thomas Sowell, one of the foremost conservative public intellectuals in the country, argues that political and ideological struggles have led to dangerous confusion about income inequality in America. Pundits and politically motivated economists trumpet ambiguous statistics and sensational theories while ignoring the true determinant of income inequality: the production of wealth. We cannot properly understand inequality if we focus exclusively on the distribution of wealth and ignore wealth production factors such as geography, demography, and culture. Sowell contends that liberals have a particular interest in misreading the data and chastises them for using income inequality as an argument for the welfare state. Refuting Thomas Piketty, Paul Krugman, and others, Sowell draws on empirical data to show that the inequality is not nearly as extreme or sensational as we have been led to believe. Transcending partisanship through a careful examination of data, Wealth, Poverty, and Politics reveals the truth about the most explosive political issue of our time. “Sowell is…the most original and interesting philosopher at work in America.”—Paul Johnson, New York Times bestselling author, praise for the author

Thomas Sowell (Author), David Cochran Heath (Narrator)

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The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis, read by Dennis Boutsikaris. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky met in war-torn 1960s Israel. Both were gifted young psychology professors: Kahneman a rootless son of holocaust survivors who saw the world as a problem to be solved; Tversky a voluble, instinctual blur of energy. In this breathtaking new book, Michael Lewis tells the extraordinary story of a relationship that became a shared mind: one which created the field of behavioural economics, revolutionising everything from Big Data to medicine, from how we are governed to how we spend, from high finance to football. Kahneman and Tversky, shows Michael Lewis, helped shape the world in which we now live - and may well have changed, for good, humankind's view of its own mind.

Michael Lewis (Author), Dennis Boutsikaris (Narrator)

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Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Doughnut Economics written and read by Kate Raworth. Economics is broken. It has failed to predict, let alone prevent, financial crises that have shaken the foundations of our societies. Its outdated theories have permitted a world in which extreme poverty persists while the wealth of the super-rich grows year on year. And its blind spots have led to policies that are degrading the living world on a scale that threatens all of our futures. Can it be fixed? In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth identifies seven critical ways in which mainstream economics has led us astray, and sets out a roadmap for bringing humanity into a sweet spot that meets the needs of all within the means of the planet. En route, she deconstructs the character of 'rational economic man' and explains what really makes us tick. She reveals how an obsession with equilibrium has left economists helpless when facing the boom and bust of the real-world economy. She highlights the dangers of ignoring the role of energy and nature's resources - and the far-reaching implications for economic growth when we take them into account. And in the process, she creates a new, cutting-edge economic model that is fit for the 21st century - one in which a doughnut-shaped compass points the way to human progress. Ambitious, radical and rigorously argued, Doughnut Economics promises to reframe and redraw the future of economics for a new generation. The Sunday Times bestseller Longlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2017 'The John Maynard Keynes of the 21st century.' George Monbiot, Guardian 'This is sharp, significant scholarship . . . Thrilling.' Times Higher Education 'A really important economic and political thinker.' Andrew Marr 'An innovative vision about how we could refocus away from growth to thriving.' Daily Mail 'An admirable attempt to broaden the horizons of economic thinking.' Martin Wolf, Financial Times

Kate Raworth (Author), Kate Raworth (Narrator)

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Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business

Eight years on from the biggest market meltdown since the Great Depression, the key lessons of the crisis of 2008 still remain unlearned-and our financial system is just as vulnerable as ever. Many of us know that our government failed to fix the banking system after the subprime mortgage crisis. But what few of us realize is how the misguided financial practices and philosophies that nearly toppled the global financial system have come to infiltrate ALL American businesses, putting us on a collision course for another cataclysmic meltdown. Drawing on in-depth reporting and exclusive interviews at the highest rungs of Wall Street and Washington, Time assistant managing editor and economic columnist Rana Foroohar shows how the "financialization of America" - the trend by which finance and its way of thinking have come to reign supreme - is perpetuating Wall Street's reign over Main Street, widening the gap between rich and poor, and threatening the future of the American Dream. Policy makers get caught up in the details of regulating "Too Big To Fail" banks, but the problems in our market system go much broader and deeper than that. Consider that: · Thanks to 40 years of policy changes and bad decisions, only about 15 % of all the money in our market system actually ends up in the real economy - the rest stays within the closed loop of finance itself. · The financial sector takes a quarter of all corporate profits in this country while creating only 4 % of American jobs. · The tax code continues to favor debt over equity, making it easier for companies to hoard cash overseas rather than reinvest it on our shores. · Our biggest and most profitable corporations are investing more money in stock buybacks than in research and innovation. · And, still, the majority of the financial regulations promised after the 2008 meltdown have yet come to pass, thanks to cozy relationship between our lawmakers and the country's wealthiest financiers. Exploring these forces, which have have led American businesses to favor balancing-sheet engineering over the actual kind and the pursuit of short-term corporate profits over job creation, Foroohar shows how financialization has so gravely harmed our society, and why reversing this trend is of grave importance to us all. Through colorful stories of both "Takers" and "Makers," she'll reveal how we change the system for a better and more sustainable shared economic future.

Rana Foroohar (Author), Rachel Fulginiti (Narrator)

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The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes

An "outstanding new intellectual biography of John Maynard Keynes [that moves] swiftly along currents of lucidity and wit" (The New York Times), illuminating the world of the influential economist and his transformative ideas "A timely, lucid and compelling portrait of a man whose enduring relevance is always heightened when crisis strikes."-The Wall Street Journal At the dawn of World War I, a young academic named John Maynard Keynes hastily folded his long legs into the sidecar of his brother-in-law's motorcycle for an odd, frantic journey that would change the course of history. Swept away from his placid home at Cambridge University by the currents of the conflict, Keynes found himself thrust into the halls of European treasuries to arrange emergency loans and packed off to America to negotiate the terms of economic combat. The terror and anxiety unleashed by the war would transform him from a comfortable obscurity into the most influential and controversial intellectual of his day-a man whose ideas still retain the power to shock in our own time. Keynes was not only an economist but the preeminent anti-authoritarian thinker of the twentieth century, one who devoted his life to the belief that art and ideas could conquer war and deprivation. As a moral philosopher, political theorist, and statesman, Keynes led an extraordinary life that took him from intimate turn-of-the-century parties in London's riotous Bloomsbury art scene to the fevered negotiations in Paris that shaped the Treaty of Versailles, from stock market crashes on two continents to diplomatic breakthroughs in the mountains of New Hampshire to wartime ballet openings at London's extravagant Covent Garden. Along the way, Keynes reinvented Enlightenment liberalism to meet the harrowing crises of the twentieth century. In the United States, his ideas became the foundation of a burgeoning economics profession, but they also became a flash point in the broader political struggle of the Cold War, as Keynesian acolytes faced off against conservatives in an intellectual battle for the future of the country-and the world. Though many Keynesian ideas survived the struggle, much of the project to which he devoted his life was lost. In this riveting biography, veteran journalist Zachary D. Carter unearths the lost legacy of one of history's most fascinating minds. The Price of Peace revives a forgotten set of ideas about democracy, money, and the good life with transformative implications for today's debates over inequality and the power politics that shape the global order.

Zachary D. Carter (Author), Robert Petkoff (Narrator)

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The Emigrant Edge: How to Make It Big in America

Brian Buffini, an Irish immigrant who went from rags to riches, shares his strategies for anyone who wants to achieve the American dream. Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, Brian Buffini immigrated to San Diego, California at the age of nineteen with only ninety-two dollars in his pocket. Since then, he has become a classic American rags-to-riches story. After discovering real estate, he quickly became one of the nation's top real estate moguls and founder of the largest business training company, Buffini & Co., in North America. But Brian isn't alone in his success: immigrants compose thirteen percent of the American population and are responsible for a quarter of all new businesses. In fact, Forbes magazine boasts that immigrants dominate most of the Forbes 400 list. So what are the secrets? In The Emigrant Edge, Brian shares seven characteristics that he and other successful immigrants have in common that can help anyone reach a higher level of achievement, no matter their vocation. He then challenges readers to leave the comfort of their current work conditions to apply these secrets and achieve the success of their dreams.

Brian Buffini (Author), Brian Buffini, Fred Sanders (Narrator)

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The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

Clayton M. Christensen, the author of such business classics as The Innovator’s Dilemma and the New York Times bestseller How Will You Measure Your Life, and co-authors Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon reveal why so many investments in economic development fail to generate sustainable prosperity, and offers a groundbreaking solution for true and lasting change. Global poverty is one of the world’s most vexing problems. For decades, we’ve assumed smart, well-intentioned people will eventually be able to change the economic trajectory of poor countries. From education to healthcare, infrastructure to eradicating corruption, too many solutions rely on trial and error. Essentially, the plan is often to identify areas that need help, flood them with resources, and hope to see change over time. But hope is not an effective strategy. Clayton M. Christensen and his co-authors reveal a paradox at the heart of our approach to solving poverty. While noble, our current solutions are not producing consistent results, and in some cases, have exacerbated the problem. At least twenty countries that have received billions of dollars’ worth of aid are poorer now. Applying the rigorous and theory-driven analysis he is known for, Christensen suggests a better way. The right kind of innovation not only builds companies—but also builds countries. The Prosperity Paradox identifies the limits of common economic development models, which tend to be top-down efforts, and offers a new framework for economic growth based on entrepreneurship and market-creating innovation. Christensen, Ojomo, and Dillon use successful examples from America’s own economic development, including Ford, Eastman Kodak, and Singer Sewing Machines, and shows how similar models have worked in other regions such as Japan, South Korea, Nigeria, Rwanda, India, Argentina, and Mexico. The ideas in this book will help companies desperate for real, long-term growth see actual, sustainable progress where they’ve failed before. But The Prosperity Paradox is more than a business book; it is a call to action for anyone who wants a fresh take for making the world a better and more prosperous place. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Clayton M. Christensen, Efosa Ojomo, Karen Dillon (Author), Mike Chamberlain (Narrator)

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Charter Schools and Their Enemies

A leading conservative intellectual defends charter schools against the teachers' unions, politicians, and liberal educators who threaten to dismantle their success. The black-white educational achievement gap -- so much discussed for so many years -- has already been closed by black students attending New York City's charter schools. This might be expected to be welcome news. But it has been very unwelcome news in traditional public schools whose students are transferring to charter schools. A backlash against charter schools has been led by teachers unions, politicians and others -- not only in New York but across the country. If those attacks succeed, the biggest losers will be minority youngsters for whom a quality education is their biggest chance for a better life.

Thomas Sowell (Author), Brad Sanders (Narrator)

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Por qué los ricos se vuelven más ricos

Hace mucho tiempo los ahorradores eran ganadores. Hace mucho tiempo el ahorrador podía ahorrar y enriquecerse. Hoy los ahorradores son perdedores. Por qué los ricos se vuelven más ricos trata de la educación financiera real , no del cuento de hadas que afirma: "Ir a la escuela, conseguir un trabajo, trabajar duro, ahorrar, comprar una casa, salir de deudas e invertir a largo plazo en el mercado de valores". Este libro es la escuela de graduados de Padre Rico, Padre Pobre. Si estás buscando nuevas ideas sobre cómo sobrevivir y prosperar en el futuro, este libro es para ti. En este valioso libro, Robert T. Kiyosaki comparte los aprendizajes y lecciones que aprendió a lo largo de la vida, después de repetidamente hacerse la pregunta: "¿Cuándo aprenderemos sobre el dinero?" Al leer Por qué los ricos se vuelven más ricos , aprenderás: - Por qué la brecha entre los ricos y todos los demás se amplía. - Por qué los ahorradores son perdedores. - Por qué la deuda y los impuestos hacen a los ricos más ricos. - Por qué la educación tradicional realmente hace que muchas personas altamente educadas, como el Padre Pobre de Robert, vivan mal. - Por qué ir a la escuela, trabajar duro, ahorrar dinero, comprar una casa, salir de la deuda e invertir a largo plazo en el mercado de valores es el peor asesoramiento financiero para la mayoría de la gente. - Por qué la educación financiera real nunca se puede enseñar en las escuelas.

Robert T. Kiyosaki (Author), Jesús Flores Jaimes, Rubén Hernández (Narrator)

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Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy

The first comprehensive account of the growing dominance of the intangible economy Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, R&D, or software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers. For all sorts of businesses, from tech firms and pharma companies to coffee shops and gyms, the ability to deploy assets that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success. But this is not just a familiar story of the so-called new economy. Capitalism without Capital shows that the growing importance of intangible assets has also played a role in some of the big economic changes of the last decade. The rise of intangible investment is, Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake argue, an underappreciated cause of phenomena from economic inequality to stagnating productivity. Haskel and Westlake bring together a decade of research on how to measure intangible investment and its impact on national accounts, showing the amount different countries invest in intangibles, how this has changed over time, and the latest thinking on how to assess this. They explore the unusual economic characteristics of intangible investment, and discuss how these features make an intangible-rich economy fundamentally different from one based on tangibles. Capitalism without Capital concludes by presenting three possible scenarios for what the future of an intangible world might be like, and by outlining how managers, investors, and policymakers can exploit the characteristics of an intangible age to grow their businesses, portfolios, and economies. Author bio: Jonathan Haskel is professor of economics at Imperial College London. Stian Westlake is a senior fellow at Nesta, the UK's national foundation for innovation.

Jonathan Haskel, Stian Westlake (Author), Derek Perkins (Narrator)

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The Great Crash 1929

With grace and wit, America's foremost economist examines the boom-and-bust that led to the stock market crash of 1929. Economic writings are rarely notable for their entertainment value, but this widely admired best-seller is the exception. Galbraith's light touch makes his expert analysis of America's greatest financial disaster a surprisingly engaging listen for anyone.

John Kenneth Galbraith (Author), Nelson Runger (Narrator)

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Flash Boys

Michael Lewis, the Master of the Big Story, is back with Flash Boys If you thought Wall Street was about alpha males standing in trading pits hollering at each other, think again. That world is dead. Now, the world's money is traded by computer code, inside black boxes in heavily guarded buildings. Even the experts entrusted with your cash don't know what's happening to it. And the very few who do aren't about to tell - because they're making a killing. This is a market that's rigged, out of control and out of sight; a market in which the chief need is for speed; and in which traders would sell their grandmothers for a microsecond. Blink, and you'll miss it. In Flash Boys, Michael Lewis tells the explosive story of how one group of ingenious oddballs and misfits set out to expose what was going on. It's the story of what it's like to declare war on some of the richest and most powerful people in the world. It's about taking on an entire system. And it's about the madness that has taken hold of the financial markets today. You won't believe it until you've read it. 'I read Michael Lewis for the same reasons I watch Tiger Woods. I'll never play like that. But it's good to be reminded every now and again what genius looks like' - Malcolm Gladwell 'Probably the best current writer in America' - Tom Wolfe Michael Lewis was born in New Orleans and educated at Princeton University and the London School of Economics. He has written several books including the New York Times bestsellers Liar's Poker, widely considered the book that defined Wall Street during the 1980s, Boomerang and The Big Short, 'probably the single best piece of financial journalism ever written' (Reuters). Lewis is contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and also writes for Vanity Fair and Portfolio magazine.

Michael Lewis (Author), Dylan Baker (Narrator)

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Economics Audiobooks in Business & Economics