Monetary-policy

A one-of-a-kind book! I've never seen any other book on the shelves that discusses this topic. Certainly not as thoroughly as Mr. Paradise covers it. It's obvious he's done his homework. The research and time spent talking to the experts is also apparent.
I'm a librarian and I read a couple of hundred books a year so I don't waste any time on books I don't find interesting. I couldn't put this book down! Despite the catchy title this is a fun book to read. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in keeping abreast of current events of anyone who just wants to read a darned good book.

the definitive guide to commercial counterfitting available on the market.

Paul really delivers the goods in this page turning expose'.

I have several economic books, yet this book (written by economic investment professionals) is the most understandable, readable, and usable book on economics I know of. You can understand this material without knowing economics! Since it gives web site addresses for the actual data, you can view the economic results online or sign up to have the results e-mailed to you. It includes tables, so you have a comparison guide to help you figure out whether the data fits in the recession, recovery or expansion phases. As someone who came to economics through the back door (from observation of the markets), economic data does MOVE the markets......This book should be considered essential for traders or investors!

The new edition of "Trading The Fundamentals" is a book no trader should be without.

This book explains what is important about each release, how they are compiled, and how the market interprets them.

If I could choose only one book - THIS WOULD BE IT.

Kevin Cotter, The Cents Financial Journal

I have worked and socialized with many doctors who I thought were well off when it came to retirement savings. When they approached 60 to 65 years old, they couldn't afford to retire and maintain the lifestyle they wanted. How sad! I don't want to end up that way.

This book had everything I need to plan my retirement. Easy to read and informative, I have already recommended it to many of my colleagues. Thanks to the authors for recognizing the need for such a book for lawyers like myself.

This book is so cute and little and just right for my gift baskets and gifts for showers and such. I loved the simplicity of it. It is affordable for us tightwads. Thanks, twins!

John Mills, author of the excellent 'Europe's economic dilemma', has written a fascinating book about America's economy, which has many lessons for us in Britain. Particularly important, he shows how vital manufacturing industry is to a flourishing economy.

He shows that productivity increases are much easier to achieve in manufacturing than in services: for example, output per head in US manufacturing has recently been growing by 4% a year, while in services it has fallen by 14%. But since manufacturing now accounts for only 17% of US GDP, it does not have enough weight to pull the whole economy forward. Consequently, most American workers' living standards have stagnated or declined over the last 30 years. The rundown of industry has caused a consistent fall in real US earnings per hour.

The domination of finance capital has imposed literally counterproductive policies both in the USA and in Britain. It has kept the currency overvalued, so exports wither, manufacturing, investment and living standards all fall.

The EU embraces the same policies. The European Central Bank puts price stability above all else. Mills shows that this is the wrong goal, because lower inflation does not cause greater growth. For instance, between 1953 and 1969, Britain's cumulative inflation rate was 3.4%; Japan's was 4%. Yet Japan's annual growth rate was 10% while Britain's was only 2.8%. Japan grew faster because the prices of its exports rose by only 33%; Britain's export prices rose by 380%! This was because the pound was grossly overvalued; the yen was not.

What should we do? We have to make the Government do the job it was elected to do. So when Gordon Brown talks about full employment, or Tony Blair calls for a technological revolution, we must say yes, and insist that they put our money where their mouth is, and invest in manufacturing industry.

Professor Bernhard has written a lucid yet dense explanation of phenomenon that, while much commented on, remains unexplained: Central Bank Independence. Considering the relationship between legislators, parties and central bank independence, Bernhard inserts politics back into a topic where it was previously neglected.

A valuable contribution to political economy and comparative politics.

It is interesting in today's world to see books that remond us all the present and future value of intellectual capital. It is unfortunate the book does not focus on the de-valuation of intellectual capital when downsizing occurs in an organisation. The cost of replacing the intellectual capital does never figure in anual reports, it is 'hidden' by other standard costs, such as employee related costs, equipments, etc. We need to establish a quantification method, so that intellectual capital replacement is thoroughly investigated.

This book first written in the early 1980's by the honorable Congressman from Texas and Lewis Lehrman discusses the feasibility of bringing back the gold standard. Moreover, Paul makes the case for the gold standard and the case for abolishing the Federal Reserve, which has to its credit: a Great Depression, bloated government growth, skyrocketing public and private debt, stagnating economic growth, and an inflationary boom in the 1970's.

Amidst, rampant inflation of the 1970's, a skyrocketing deficit... Things didn't look so good and a number of business and political leaders seriously enterained and supported the idea of reverting back to the gold standard. Sooner or later the financial institutions and fiat money cartel will abuse its power of the press and inflate us into another depression. Perhaps then instead of migrating to a world bank and currency structure, we will kill the fiat money machine once and for all.

Lastly consider these words: "Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy's tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset. But government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government's promise to pay out of future tax revenues... A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates. Thus, government spending under a gold standard is severely limited.... In the absence of a gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation.... This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process..." Moreover, the author also makes it known that the gold standard wouldn't have the prolonged economic distortions and vicious boom-and-bust cycles that fiat money systems have. Who was the author? None other than Alan Greenspan in an essay called Gold and Economic Freedom. When Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chief, is face-to-face with Ron Paul... in the back of his head, he knows Paul is right and that the central bank is wrong!

Squires and O'Conner argue that the lending gap is narrowing in Milwaukee, WI. However, this is a slow process. The authors highlight that the narrowing of the lending gap has come about in response to advocacy at the local and national levels. Despite progress, efforts to improve access to capital in inner-cities are complicated by persistent opposition in policy circles and consolidation in the banking industry. If current trends continue, the outlook for inner cities is bleak, at best it may take in excess of 140 years for blacks and whites to have equal access to capital. However, Squires and O'Conner map out a course for improving the odds. In their chapters they indicate that the solution to the lending problem lies in a combination of: new lending products, mortgage counceling, affirmitive action hiring in banks, the location of more branches in inner city communities, and stronger CRA legislation.

This is a ground-breaking and truly original book in monetary economics. Smithin shows that neo-classical economists fail to understand money, because all neo-classical models are essentially based on various forms of barter paradigm (e.g. Walras' general equilibrium theory). In such models, money serve as "lubricants" only, and have no real impacts on economy.

Smithin rigorously develop an heterodox macroeconomic model. In this model, interest rate (as determined by the Federal Reserve) play pivotal roles, and money have real impacts on economy.

I highly recommend this book to graduate students in economics, or intelligent readers who desire to understand what money really is. For a more accessible and less mathematical treatment on money and political economy, you may try "Macroeconomic Policy and the Future of Capitalism" by the same author.