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Audiobooks Narrated by Stephen R. Thorne
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The growing movement for universal basic income (UBI) has been gaining attention from politics and the media with the audacious idea of a regular, unconditional cash grant for everyone as a right of citizenship. This volume in the Essential Knowledge series presents the first short, solid UBI introduction that is neither academic nor polemic. It takes a position in favor of UBI, but its primary goal remains the provision of essential knowledge by answering the fundamental questions about it: What is UBI? How does it work? What are the arguments for and against it? What is the evidence?
Karl Widerquist discusses how UBI functions, showing how it differs from other redistributional approaches. He summarizes the common arguments for and against UBI and presents the reasons for believing it is a tremendously important reform. The book briefly discusses the likely cost of UBI; options for paying for it; the existing evidence on the probable effects of UBI; and the history of UBI from its inception more than two hundred years ago to today. Now more than ever, conditions in much of the world are ripe for such enthusiasm to keep growing, and there are good reasons to believe that this current wave of support will eventually lead to the adoption of UBI in several countries around the world-making this volume an especially timely and necessary listen.
American households are awash in expensive credit card debt. But where did all this debt come from? In this history of the rise of postwar American finance, Sean H. Vanatta shows how bankers created our credit card economy and, with it, the indebted nation we know today.
America's consumer debt machine was not inevitable. In the years after World War II, state and federal regulations ensured that many Americans enjoyed safe banks and inexpensive credit. Bankers, though, grew restless amid restrictive rules that made profits scarce. They experimented with new services and new technologies. They settled on credit cards, and in the 1960s mailed out reams of high-interest plastic to build a debt industry from scratch.
In the 1960s and 70s consumers fought back, using federal and state policy to make credit cards safer and more affordable. But bankers found ways to work around local rules. Beginning in 1980, Citibank and its peers relocated their card plans to South Dakota and Delaware, states with the weakest consumer regulations, creating 'on-shore' financial havens and drawing consumers into an exploitative credit economy over which they had little control. We live in the world these bankers made.
In Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Solution to the Housing Crisis, renowned urbanists Charles (Chuck) Marohn and Daniel Herriges introduce a first-of-its-kind discussion of the tension between housing as a financial product and housing as shelter. This is the key insight that's been missing from the Housing Crisis Conversation; and the insight that can help cities fight back against the crisis from the bottom-up.
This book offers a serious, yet accessible, history of housing policy in the United States and explains how it led us to this point in time: where we face a market that is rigged against people who, only a few decades ago, could have been homeowners or stable, long-term rentals.
Escaping the Housing Trap is the must-have resource for everyone with a stake in the future of housing in America-and that means everyone. Listeners will find discussions of housing as an investment and how the country's neighborhoods are being transformed by the introduction of large amounts of investment; explorations of housing as shelter, including discussions of zoning policy and NIMBYism; and a comprehensive overview of the Strong Towns approach to solving the American housing crisis.
In The Substance of Consciousness, two distinguished philosophers deliver a unique and powerful defense of contemporary substance dualism, which makes the claim that the human person is an embodied fundamental, immaterial, and unifying substance.
The authors present the most comprehensive, up-to-date work on substance dualism in the field, as well as a detailed history of how property and substance dualism have been presented and evaluated over the last 150 years. Listeners will also find:
- A thorough examination of the recent shift away from standard physicalism and the renaissance of substance dualism
- Comprehensive explorations of the likely future of substance dualism in the twenty-first century
- Practical discussion of new and rigorous critiques of significant physicality alternatives
- Extensive treatments of philosophy of mind debates about the roles played by staunch/faint-hearted naturalism and theism in establishing or presuming methodology, epistemic priorities, and prior metaphysical commitments
The Substance of Consciousness will earn a place in the libraries of consciousness researchers, philosophical theologians, and religious studies scholars.
The potential of HR analytics is a major discussion among scholars, practitioners, thought leaders, and technology vendors, with companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta digging deeply into HR research and analytics practices that extend beyond simple metrics, scorecards, and reporting.
Additionally, ethical questions have begun to arise about the potential abuses of HR analytics with respect to technological advancements and the 'datafication' of personal characteristics, preferences, and behaviors that have little relevance to job performance.
As a former chief human resources officer, head of Global HR Research and Analytics at a Fortune 100, and thought leader on this subject, Salvatore Falletta has witnessed first-hand the emergence of 'creepy analytics' as a hot-button issue.
In this one-of-a-kind guide, Falletta delivers a proven step-by-step process for establishing HR analytics capabilities that serve employees and organizations alike. You'll learn how to rethink and redefine HR analytics, determine stakeholder requirements, gather and transform data, communicate intelligence results, and establish an ethical ecosystem to ensure HR analytics remains a force for good.
Make community building your ultimate business growth strategy
In Customer Communities, Nick Mehta and Robin Van Lieshout deliver an actionable playbook on how to cultivate meaningful communities that fuel quantifiable business growth. In the book, you'll learn how to capitalize on this new growth strategy to scale your company and develop excitement around your products and your firm.
The authors outline the ten foundational Laws of Community, explaining why community development does not need to be expensive and how to integrate community in the heart of your customer journey. You'll also find:
- Strategies for creating a cross functional customer engagement team
- Techniques for building community in places that aren't the web or on social media
- Ways to bring your organization's culture and values into your community with a human-first alignment
An essential roadmap to community development for customer success, marketing, support and product teams, and other entrepreneurs, founders, and executive business leaders. Customer Communities will earn a place on the bookshelves of anyone with a stake in organizational growth and resilience.
Theodore Roosevelt largely is known today by stereotypes and his many accomplishments-but the full and fascinating essence of the man is fading. In this book, TR charges back!
Historian Rick Marschall has collected almost five hundred quotations, descriptions, impressions, and memories of the 'Most Interesting American' derived from vintage newspapers, magazines, scrapbooks, diaries, letters, and so much more. In chapters devoted to his personality as a family man, a conservationist, an intellectual, patriot, activist, and as an American TR comes alive as never before seen.
In more than a century since his death, the personal attributes that endeared Theodore to his America have become obscured. In this book of firsthand, eyewitness accounts TR comes roaring back to us in all of his astonishing ways!
In Strong Supply Chains Through Resilient Operations: Five Principles for Leaders to Win in a Volatile World, a team of dedicated, veteran operations strategists delivers a practical and hands-on discussion of how to future-proof your company's supply chains through a relentless focus on resilience. In the book, you'll discover how to shift your firm's emphasis from 'low-cost' to 'low volatility' as you protect your company against the supply and demand shocks associated pandemics, wars, labor disputes, and trade conflicts.
You'll also learn about: real-world examples of companies realizing long-term competitive advantage by implementing the shifts advocated by the authors; why seeking to build mutually beneficial, long-term relationships with dependable suppliers is preferable to always choosing the cheapest option; and how a renewed focus on diversity and new ways of working can create resilient operations teams that pass on value to your customers.
An effective and essential discussion of one of the most prominent challenges facing contemporary companies around the world, Strong Supply Chains Through Resilient Operations is an essential book for managers, executives, business leaders, entrepreneurs, operations and supply chain professionals, and anyone else with a stake in the smooth operation of their firm.
We're addicted to our devices. Our kids are too. None of us seem to be better for it. We all know this, but what can we do practically to become less isolated, polarized, and disconnected?
This book answers that question with a bold idea: In an age of personal brands and artificial intelligence, perhaps it's time to relearn the forgotten art of being ordinary.
In his follow-up to Get Weird, writer and media producer, CJ Casciotta, outlines nine practical solutions and illuminates a better way to live in a culture addicted to media technology, a lifeboat for anyone who feels like they're drowning in a sea of digital noise.
This is a book for those who are tired of feeling like technology owns them, their children, their politics, and their livelihood, a hopeful and realistic game plan for navigating the twenty-first century mindfully without losing their souls.
The future of our society will depend on the choices we make right now when it comes to our communication methods. It's a crisis as urgent as climate change, yet far fewer people are talking about it. The Forgotten Art of Being Ordinary will give you the language you've been looking for to start changing the conversation.
Which state has the most national monuments? Where in America can you find one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World? Where is the largest contiguous forest of ponderosa pine? In Awesome Arizona, Roger Naylor, 'the Dean of Arizona Travel Writers,' has amassed 200 amazing facts and fascinating commentary about his beloved state. This is the fast-paced, funny encyclopedia that lovers of Arizona have been craving.
Awesome Arizona captures the essence of the sixth-largest state, from its rowdy past to its epic landscape bulging with mountains, slashed by canyons, and blown apart by volcanoes. Learn about trees that once shaded dinosaurs, the West's most legendary gunfight, the world's largest antique, the best-preserved meteor crater on earth, where the post office still delivers mail by mule, the longest poker game in history, how Arizona saved the unicorn, and so much more.
Keep Your Marriage Strong
Get partnership and marriage help tested by real couples. The relationship experts behind the bestselling The Five Core Conversations for Couples put together another essential couples book for relationships. Secrets of Better Relationships shows you how real couples have made it through to the other side of real crises-together.
Learn how to overcome couples communication hardships, marriage fights, and more. Walk alongside committed partners as you learn how to fix your marriage or relationship, no matter what life throws at you. Whether you're dealing with infertility, job loss, infidelity, grief, or other relationship strife, these personal stories provide all the relationship and marriage advice you need to thrive!
With this essential couples gift, you'll find:
- Practical advice from authors experienced in couples, marriage counseling, and divorce law
- Examples of how to persevere through life's most difficult trials without losing each other
- Real couples communication help from partners who are not afraid to share their difficult stories.
An engaging account of innovation in healthcare and why the results fall short for patients and society.
The evolution of the cell phones we carry in our pockets demonstrates that quality can increase while prices fall. Why doesn't healthcare also get better and cheaper?
In Why Not Better and Cheaper?, James B. Rebitzer and Robert S. Rebitzer offer an answer to this question. Bringing together research on incentives, social norms, and market competition, they argue that the healthcare system generates the wrong kinds of innovation. It is too easy to profit from low-value innovations and too hard to profit from innovations that reduce the costs of care. The result is a healthcare system that is profusely innovative yet remarkably ineffective in discovering ways to deliver increased value at lower cost.
Why Not Better and Cheaper? sheds new light on the trajectory of innovation in healthcare, and how to point innovation in a better direction.
