exchange

Arthritis affects millions of people every day, in the form of gout, osteoarthritis, and the most common form known as rheumatoid arthritis. JoAnna M. Lund has written a series of "Healthy Exchanges" of which one is The Arthritis healthy Exchange Cookbook published Perigee Book a division of Berkley Publishing Group. The book is not fancy in any way, it is printed on plain paper with a compact typestyle. This book is designed for people with arthritis after all, not vision problems. Though some recipes go onto two pages, not of them requirre the cook to turn the page to finish the recipe.

Each recipe not only offers the nutritional information, but also the healthy exchange of the food groups. There are several tips, suggestions and ideas on many of the recipes, and the ingredients are pretty readily availble in most regular grocery stores.

Recipes include: Creamy Vegetable Chowder; Skillet Green Beans; BBQ Corn & Tomato Saute; Smorgasbord Pea Salad; Seashell Tuna Salad; Honey Mustard Chicken Pasta Salad; Deliteful Mandarin Orange Salad; Three Cheese Strata; Tuscan White Bean Pizza; Cinque Terre Shrimp Pasta; Chicken & Dumplings; Mexican Chicken Scallop; Fancy Fiesta Skillet; Meat Squares with Creamed Potato Topping; Florentine Meatloaf; Lemon Mousse; Mocha Crunch Pudding; New Orleans Bread Pudding; Rhubarb-Banana Cream Pie;Tomato Carrot Muffins and Spiced Mocha Mix.

Overall rating: 3.5 pots of out 5.

This is an excellent healthy cookbook, especially for arthritis and diabetic people. I have also heard this lady speak, and she is a dynamic motivator.

The jacket of Richmond's book states that this work "demonstrates that the best policy to pursue with countries with whom we disagree is not isolation but engagement." Whether or not this is universally true, a very strong case is made for this argument in this study of cultural exchanges during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The exchanges between the two countries were initiated by President Eisenhower in a letter to Bulganin, the Soviet head of state, and were begun in 1958. Whatever concerns there might have been about potential Soviet espionage, the program found approval even from FBI Director J. Edger Hoover. Richmond demonstrates the wisdom of this program as thousands of Russians and Americans participated in these exchanges which continued up to the time when the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

The book's table of contents provides early clues to the range of the program. There were exchanges of scholars in science and in the political and social sciences, exchanges of scientists and technicians for conferences and participation in working groups, exchanges of journalists and diplomats, and the well publicized exchanges of performing artists in ballet, music and theater. Students in the exchange program often remained in the host country for several years; scientists and technicians only for the several weeks of a conference or working group.

The background to the exchange rogram is provided through citations from the reports of American administrators and scholars associated with it and through personal interviews in which they describe the difficulties of implementation in the face of bureaucratic obstacles from two mutually suspicious countries. It is the interviews with the exchange participants, however, which is at the very heart of this quiet but remarkable story. Of particular interest are the interviews with dozens of participants from the Soviet Union.

This reader was arrested by the positions held by the Soviet participants at the time of their arrival in the U.S. and by what became of them and their careers on their return to the home country. In contrast with the American exchange scholars who came largely out of academia, many from the Soviet appear to have held government positions when they arrived in the U.S. or at some earlier time. The nature of some of these positions is especially surprising to the lay reader. Among four students who came to study at Columbia University, for example, two were in the KGB, one in Soviet military intelligence, and the fourth in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. These backgrounds do not appear to have been exceptional among Soviet exchange scholars.

It is not certain from Richmond's reports if expsure to the U.S. through this program was, in general, an advantage or handicap to Soviet participants' careers on their return home. Nevertheless, it is evident from some of the case studies that some achieved positions of great influence. Alexander Yakolev, for example, became a senior advisor to Gorbechev and is known as the "godfather of glasnost." Rem Khoklov was awarded the Lenin Prize for his scientific research and became a member of the Soviet Parliament. What may have been of importance even greater than those who reached high positions, however, is that many scholars were inthe government and on the job when the Soviet Union collapsed and were prepared for the social and economic changes which were to come.

At a time of increasing barriers to those who would enter the U.S. as students or observers, CULTURAL EXCHANGES AND THE COLD WAR demonstrates the value of openness even during the most stressful periods of the Cold War. American leaders coming from a broad political spectrum took the risk of allowing access to this country by students and leaders from our most feared competitor. From this there appears to have been an unimagined payoff.

Scholarly and illuminating, Richmond's book colorfully documents official, government Soviet-American cultural exchanges that began after Stalin died in 1953, and helped to break down barriers of fear and ignorance, at a time that many of us felt the Cold War was freezing all contact.

These cultural exchanges involved books, movies, writers, performing artists, scientists, technologists, think tanks, politicans, and scholars.

Richmond writes eloquently, liberally using quotes of people who took part in the exchanges. One was organized by Gerald Mikkelson, professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of Kansas, and it flourished in the 1970s and 80s. From several days to several weeks, Soviet writers came to the university, experienced the Midwest, and went away forever changed.

"Those visits to Kansas," says Mikkelson, "not only broadened their horizons culturally and ideologically, and gave them plenty of food for thought that sometimes got translated into specific literary works or images, but it added to their prestige and emboldened them at home in their efforts to make the Soviet Union a more livable place for writers and people in the other creative and performing arts."

Imagine a Soviet writer being plunked down in Kansas!
And other new places!
The same for Americans in the Soviet Union!

Some Soviet scholars were not allowed to take part, because the Soviet Foreign Travel Commission didn't think they were "reliable" to travel abroad, for whatever reasons. One of them was Soviet professor George Mirsky, a Middle East expert, who whole-heartedly encouraged his students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations to go on such exchanges.

Mirsky writes, "Before the exchange, people believed that Western society, no matter how wealthy and affluent, was narrowly materialistic, devoid of any humanism and spirituality, selfish and arrogant, indifferent to moral, cultural, and artistic values, full of hostility for Russians and of anti-Communist crusading spirit.

"What amazed them was American hospitality, warmth, willingness to oblige, civility and politeness, lack of ethnic prejudices, care for disabled, richness of artistic life, pluralism of opinions, abundance of associations. The Soviets were able for the first time in their lives to see a functioning civil society. This was a great surprise...The exchange visitors would never be the same again."

As a musician and lover of the arts, I especially enjoyed the chapter on performing arts, with highlights of American impresario Sol Hurok's success in bringing Soviet musicians, dance troupes, ice shows, and circuses to the U.S. As a child, I had seen some of these performances, but not been aware of their long-range effect! Reciprocal trips took such Amerian writers as Norman Cousins, Robert Lowell, and Edward Albee, and such groups as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the American Ballet Theatre, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to the Soviet Union.

These cultural exchanges paved the way for the the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev to the presidency of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev and his wife had done a great deal of foreign travel in the 1970s and 80s, and loved it. They saw that another world existed beyond their country. As president, Gorbachev opened the door even farther and moved the Soviet Union forward to help end the Cold War.

I love this book because it is informative, inspiring, and written with obvious relish and passion. Richmond was there, working on these exchanges, helping to get people talking, and opening up their minds. He records this first-hand. Who else can tell such a great story so well? I recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn, to understand more about history, and to appreciate the people who changed it. Bravi!

I consider the book a perfect guide written by a professional for professionals. If you are looking for scientific completeness and complication, go somewhere else. If you are looking for a competent down-to-earth reference, this is your book. I wonder when the third edition of this valuable tool will be published.

I work in the securities industry, and this book accurately described the markets and products without the detailed mathematics. I would recommend this book as a first reading before the Hull and White book which is much more mathematical.

Too bad it's out of print. I'd like everyone in my group to have a copy.

Professor Peter Kenen is a leading US expert on international economic relations. In this excellent little book, he analyses the prospects for Economic and Monetary Union.

Firstly, he shows the difficulties that countries are having when their governments try to meet the criteria for Economic and Monetary Union. He points out that in 1994 none of the twelve European Community countries met all four criteria; Italy and Portugal met none of them. Six countries failed the inflation test; two had interest rates too high; ten had fiscal deficits too high, and eight had excessive public debts.

Since then, European Union economies have stagnated or shrunk, so they are even further from meeting the criteria. Four of the six countries with debt ratios above 75 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1993 ran bigger budget deficits in 1994 than in 1992, so they would have to make even bigger cuts in their deficits before they can start to cut their debt ratios.

The Governments are in a dilemma: they cannot cut their budget deficits quickly to the stipulated three per cent without depressing real economic activity. And the more they deflate their economies, the less popular support there is for Economic and Monetary Union. Professor Kenen sums up, "It is thus unlikely that a majority of EC countries will be ready for Stage Three in 1997, when a majority is required to set a starting date, and it may be hard to muster a majority in 1999 - although a majority is not needed then." Stage Three is supposed to start automatically in 1999!

Secondly, Kenen studies the likely results if Governments seriously try to meet the criteria. He cites Buiter et al, writing in Economic Policy: "Greece, Italy, Belgium and Ireland need serious fiscal retrenchment, but getting even halfway to the Maastricht debt targets ... involves dangerous fiscal overkill. A blatantly unrealistic debt target is unhelpful for these countries in designing effective fiscal programs." They write that the necessary scale of retrenchment would involve "the economics of the lunatic asylum."

Kenen also cites the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, which says that "If the Maastricht targets are adhered to, something significant will have to give in terms of public expenditure in many EC countries, with social consequences which could be highly disruptive. Clawing back public deficits which are across the Community higher in GDP percentage terms than they have been at any moment since the EC was founded, at a time when more and more 'legitimate' demands are made on the public purse, looks increasingly like trying to run up a downward moving escalator."

Thirdly, Kenen looks at the costs of joining Economic and Monetary Union. He cites the economists Ghosh and Wolf who estimate that joining it would cost as much as 2.5 per cent of the European Union's total GDP. The European Union's own employment committee said that Economic and Monetary Union would destroy ten million jobs in the European Union.

Supporters of Economic and Monetary Union like to claim that it would curb the speculators, tame finance capital, and end financial crises. But what does Kenen conclude? "In the first years of Economic and Monetary Union, then, the G-7 countries may find it harder to agree on policies and strategies for exchange rate management, and Economic and Monetary Union may thus lead to exchange rate fluctuations wider than those seen since the Louvre Accord [of 1987]. That would be truly ironic. Economic and Monetary Union is meant to replace the EMS (European Monetary System), which emerged from the desire to create a zone of monetary stability in Europe. Yet the achievement of that goal may have the effect of producing greater exchange rate instability at the global level."

A single European currency would not end speculation. It would still be operating in the world of global speculative flows. A single currency would be the focus for speculation against the dollar and the yen, and a smaller number of currencies could generate even more rapid and destabilising speculative flows.

So, to sum up, Kenen's book shows us that Economic and Monetary Union would be extremely difficult and painful to achieve. It would mean savage cuts in public spending (an estimated £18 billion in Britain), a 2.5 per cent reduction in GDP, and greater exchange rate instability. The cuts in public spending would also increase unemployment, reduce wages and worsen our public services...

EMU is the most important international economic event since the Bretton Woods Agreements of 1944.It will represent a further step in the process of economic integration within the European Union. The effects of the monetary union will be felt primarily in the Euro area participating countries. At the same time, Euro will affect international monetary system. Euro's taking its place among the major international currencies is going to be gradual. This process will be quite important for the countries those with the close economic relationships with the European Monetary Union member countries. This book is a must read for all interested in the Euro...

This book presents the basic economic concepts behind daily activities on financial markets, such as stock price or exchange rate movement, and tries to explain the relations between them. It briefly introduces choice under uncertainty, risk aversion, portfolio optimization problems, market efficiency hypothesis, and equilibrium of asset markets. In addition, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), and Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) are presented. It brings the most exciting part of academic evolution of financial economics in the last three decades to the pubic with modest knowledge of mathematics. It also shows the weakness of these theories. Very self-contained and readable. However, if you want to pursue a ground understanding of these theories, you should go further.

The intention behind this book was to provide a solid introduction and overview of financial economics and financial institutions. The authors suceed brilliantly in those goals. Most people with limited training in economics and mathematics should be able to understand the book (so, for example, this book would be great for early undergraduates or MBA students who have not been exposed to finance or economics).

I think there is enough information in this book to be of some use to even people who have more advanced training. Why? This book gives a good overview of both the theoretical (deductive proofs) and empirical (econometric) research that has been done on various topics (relatively up to date). The book tries to give a balanced view of the merits or problematics of any particular theory in financial economics.

This book deserves a 5 star rating rather than a 4 star one because for what it was intended to be -- a solid introduction and overview -- it does a superb job. It would be unfair to judge any book by some unintended higher standard when it does a great job at doing what it intended to do. Bottom line: If you need a good introduction to financial economics, this is a good place to start.

Gary Gastineau, a managing director at Nuveen Investments and the author of The Options Manual (1988), has written the most detailed account available in print of open-ended exchange-traded funds: how they work, what are their distinctive characteristics, who trades them (largely, specialists, market makers, and hedge funds), who owns them (largely, brokerage firms clearing and carrying the ETF shares for specialists, market makers, or hedge funds), and what are their advantages and disadvantages over other sorts of investment for various investors.

This is no gripping page-turner, in the league of Jack Schwager's "Wizards" series. But it doesn't need to be. Mr. Gastineau's manual is directed chiefly at investment advisers and financial planners as a reference volume, and it serves that purpose quite well. Advisers and planners, and of course their clients, face a bewildering variety of issues pertaining to these relatively new vehicles-issues of tax efficiency, risk management, trading costs and spreads, etc. In many offices, this book will be a welcome aid in sorting out all of that.

Exchange Traded Funds are simply the biggest development for the average retail investor in the past decade. No more need to pay huge fees for opaque mutual funds/unit trusts. Just go to an exchange, buy the fund and hey presto you can track indices and have total price transparency for as long as the exchange is open.

I championed ETFs in my book "Capital Market Revolution" and I am delighted to see that ETF pioneer Gary Gastineau has produced a terrific, comprehensive book on every aspect of Exchange Traded Funds.

If you have any questions about ETFs, they will be answered by this book...

Patrick L Young
author "Capital Market Revolution"
CEO, erivatives.com

I was diagnosed with diabetes just two weeks ago. The dietician at our local hospital introduced me to this book. It is a wonderful resource for tracking consumption of carbohydrates. I look forward to using this book on a daily basis. It is easy to understand and contains volumes of information, for a very small price.

What a God-send! The book the nutritionist gave me was too big to take anywhere conveniently and was entirely too broad in it's listings. This shows so many of my favorite foods that I know planning meals for my "new-to-me" diabetic diet is going to be a snap!

I had the pleasure of having Mr. Questa as a guest lecuturer in a Fixed Income class. This book was used as the text, prior to its publication. The book is a great intro-intermediate fixed income book. It also covers the advanced stochastic models well. It is one of few books that also integrates the foreign exchange market into the analysis. In a few areas the book is difficult to follow however after a careful re-reading it sinks in.

Non ho avuto il piacere di leggere il libro ma il nome dell'autore mi piaceva tantissimo...... è il mio (omonimia) Giorgio Questa

For the fruit nut, this reference is indispensible. When ordering specific varieties, we use it to source stock from nurseries. When searching for trees with certain characteristics, we peruse the descriptions, hunting for certain words (in the pear section, "fireblight-resistant", in the apricot section, "excellent flavor", etc.).
Few complaints: not revised often enough to list new varieties as they come on the market. For example, 'Goldrush' apple is not listed. Descriptions are very brief, probably due to space limitations. Descriptions are also generally a summary of the nursery catalog's text, and therefore not as useful as they could be.
In general, a very fun reference to keep on the shelf.

In the third edition of this excellent reference, the Seed Savers Exchange has provided a very useful tool for nurseries and gardeners to locate sources of heirloom fruit, nut and berry varieties. But it is much more than just a sourcebook, as there are brief descriptions of each fruit variety and indications of how rare or threatened each variety is based on the number of sources. Nursery operators and fruit gene bank managers will find this book to be indespensible!

In his The Gift, Marcel Mauss attempts to explain and understand gifts in primitive societies. Mauss first decides to show that the motives behind giving gifts are more complicated than commonly believed to be. In modern day society, gifts are often thought of as something given out of good will and without the expectance of something in return. Mauss shows us that in many tribal and native cultures, this is not necessarily true. In discussing the Maori, he says, "They had a kind of exchange system, or rather one of giving presents that must ultimately either be reciprocated or given back" (10). The principle of gift giving is governed by the concept of mana, which is the authority, honor, and prestige derived from the wealth and glory of being a superior gift giver. One must give gifts in order to maintain and increase mana and reciprocates them in order to prevent oneself from losing it. The obligations to give and receive are both very important. To reject a gift leads to two problems. Initially, Mauss states that to do so "is to reject the bond of alliance and commonality" (13). To reject such an important bond in a society that so heavily values communal identity is "tantamount to declaring war" (13). The second problem is that of losing mana and being viewed as afraid to accept gifts because one is unable to reciprocate them. The concept of gift giving as one that has the motives of power and authority involved displaces the common belief of gift giving. Durkheim's influence on Mauss is apparent in Mauss' discussion of the contract and sacred qualities. The sacred quality of exchange and contracts also has a relationship to appeasing the gods according to Mauss, or so it is viewed in primitive societies (and according to Durkheim the remnants of such beliefs continue in today's society). Mauss says that the ideal of the gift as distributive justice arises from the belief that the gods punish those with great wealth who are not generous. Therefore, if a gift are given out of generosity and to promote justice, does that mean that those with less wealth have not only less honor and authority, but also a lower level of justness because they are unable to give great gifts?
Gift giving appears to be a "total" social phenomenon or service because of how it works on not only economic levels, but also social levels. The motives for gift giving are not as magnanimous as one may believe because as Mauss says concerning exchange-gifts, "They are kept for the sheer pleasure of possessing them" (23). He seeks to understand the blind accumulation of wealth and says that it is motivated by "competition, rivalry, ostentatiousness, the seeking after the grandiose" (28). To him, these are somewhat negative motives, although he does not explicitly say so. Mauss shows how gift giving evolves with the Native Americans where the concept of honor is more exaggerated and the idea of "credit" and a time limit on the reciprocation of gifts is highlighted. A gift is essentially given with the motive that not only does one gain honor, respect, and authority from it, but that one will also receive something in return. Now if this something received in return is usually paid "with interest" so to speak as it is expected to be of greater value than the original gift. If Mauss is indeed correct, then why is there not a greater disparity of wealth in these primitive societies? If one is wealthy, then one could seek to continuously extend one's own authority and wealth at the same time by giving all the time, since accepting the gift is virtually required, a wealthy person could do so and gain interest on all the gifts given.

Overall, it's interesting and provocative. It is helpful to have read Durkheim's Professional Ethics and Civic Morals (then you realize that Mauss is just following in Durkheim's footsteps). What kind of society do they propose? It's not too clear. I'm still trying to figure that one out, but nonetheless, it's a provocative book, as is Durkheim's.

Mauss' book is a part sociological, part anthropological study of the practice of gift exchange. First, he explores the various forms this practice takes in distinct ethnographic settings. In each case, one catches a glimpse of what Mauss calls the 'total social fact': the notion that exchanging gifts signifies, beneath its voluntary and individualistic façade, a complex social affair. On the one hand, bonds of solidarity are created/maintained between implicated social groups; on the other, political relations of subordination (in which the donor often, if not always, occupies the dominant position) are reproduced/contested. Second, Mauss moves on to problematize the notion that the thing exchanged is merely an 'inert and lifeless object' and the synchronic view of gift exchange as a short-lived act devoid of temporality. Working his way through his ethnographic observations, Mauss unearths the historical dimension of the gift, which now appears to possess a 'spiritual' power irredemiably related to the donor and a historicity (and story) beyond the momentary encounter between donor and recipient. What follows from these two complementary arguments is that gift exchange, contrary to the individualistic notion that it merely involves the persons exchanging the gifts, establishes a wider social/political nexus, connecting the social groups the donor and recipient are members of. Finally, Mauss returns to the present and redeems the gift from its 'archaic' context to explore its potential as a social-democratic tool against 'unbridled' capitalist exchange.