Download or read book The Predator State written by James K. Galbraith and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cult of the free market has dominated economic policy-talk since the Reagan revolution of nearly thirty years ago. Tax cuts and small government, monetarism, balanced budgets, deregulation, and free trade are the core elements of this dogma, a dogma so successful that even many liberals accept it. But a funny thing happened on the bridge to the twenty-first century. While liberals continue to bow before the free-market altar, conservatives in the style of George W. Bush have abandoned it altogether. That is why principled conservatives -- the Reagan true believers -- long ago abandoned Bush. Enter James K. Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist. In this riveting book, Galbraith first dissects the stale remains of Reaganism and shows how Bush and company had no choice except to dump them into the trash. He then explores the true nature of the Bush regime: a "corporate republic," bringing the methods and mentality of big business to public life; a coalition of lobbies, doing the bidding of clients in the oil, mining, military, pharmaceutical, agribusiness, insurance, and media industries; and a predator state, intent not on reducing government but rather on diverting public cash into private hands. In plain English, the Republican Party has been hijacked by political leaders who long since stopped caring if reality conformed to their message. Galbraith follows with an impertinent question: if conservatives no longer take free markets seriously, why should liberals? Why keep liberal thought in the straitjacket of pay-as-you-go, of assigning inflation control to the Federal Reserve, of attempting to "make markets work"? Why not build a new economic policy based on what is really happening in this country? The real economy is not a free-market economy. It is a complex combination of private and public institutions, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, higher education, the housing finance system, and a vast federal research establishment. The real problems and challenges -- inequality, climate change, the infrastructure deficit, the subprime crisis, and the future of the dollar -- are problems that cannot be solved by incantations about the market. They will be solved only with planning, with standards and other policies that transcend and even transform markets. A timely, provocative work whose message will endure beyond this election season, The Predator State will appeal to the broad audience of thoughtful Americans who wish to understand the forces at work in our economy and culture and who seek to live in a nation that is both prosperous and progressive.
Download or read book The Predator State written by James Galbraith and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A progressive economist challenges popular conservative-minded economic practices, in a scathing critique of Reagan-Bush policies that contends that the political right is misrepresenting the consequences of free-market and free-trade ideals. 50,000 first printing.
Download or read book Predatory States written by J. Patrice McSherry and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This powerful study makes a compelling case about the key U.S. role in state terrorism in Latin America during the Cold War. Long hidden from public view, Operation Condor was a military network created in the 1970s to eliminate political opponents of Latin American regimes. Its key members were the anticommunist dictatorships of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil, later joined by Peru and Ecuador, with covert support from the U.S. government. Drawing on a wealth of testimonies, declassified files, and Latin American primary sources, J. Patrice McSherry examines Operation Condor from numerous vantage points: its secret structures, intelligence networks, covert operations against dissidents, political assassinations worldwide, commanders and operatives, links to the Pentagon and the CIA, and extension to Central America in the 1980s. The author convincingly shows how, using extralegal and terrorist methods, Operation Condor hunted down, seized, and executed political opponents across borders. McSherry argues that Condor functioned within, or parallel to, the structures of the larger inter-American military system led by the United States, and that declassified U.S. documents make clear that U.S. security officers saw Condor as a legitimate and useful 'counterterror' organization. Revealing new details of Condor operations and fresh evidence of links to the U.S. security establishment, this controversial work offers an original analysis of the use of secret, parallel armies in Western counterinsurgency strategies. It will be a clarion call to all readers to consider the long-term consequences of clandestine operations in the name of 'democracy.'
Download or read book The New Industrial State written by John Kenneth Galbraith and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-29 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With searing wit and incisive commentary, John Kenneth Galbraith redefined America's perception of itself in The New Industrial State, one of his landmark works. The United States is no longer a free-enterprise society, Galbraith argues, but a structured state controlled by the largest companies. Advertising is the means by which these companies manage demand and create consumer "need" where none previously existed. Multinational corporations are the continuation of this power system on an international level. The goal of these companies is not the betterment of society, but immortality through an uninterrupted stream of earnings. First published in 1967, The New Industrial State continues to resonate today.
Download or read book Failure to Protect written by Eric S. Janus and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows that "sexual predator" laws, which have intense public and political support, are counterproductive. Janus contends that aggressive measures such as civil commitment and Megan's law, which are designed to restrain sex offenders before they can commit another crime, are bad policy and do little to actually reduce sexual violence. Further, these new laws make use of approaches such as preventive detention and actuarial profiling that violate important principles of liberty. Janus argues that to prevent sexual violence, policymakers must address the deep-seated societal problems that allow it to flourish. From publisher description.
Download or read book Predator Nation written by Charles H. Ferguson and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2013-05-21 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Ferguson, who electrified the world with his Academy Award-winning documentary, Inside Job, now reveals how rogues with influence have taken over the country and are driving it to financial and social ruin. In Predator Nation, Ferguson exposes the networks of academic, government, and congressional influence--in all recent administrations, including Obama's--that prepared the path to conquest. He reveals how once-revered figures like Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers have become mere courtiers to the elite. And based on many newly released court filings, he details the extent of the crimes--there is no other word--committed in the frenzied chase for storied wealth that marked the 2000s. And, finally, he lays out a brief plan of action for how we might take it back.
Download or read book The Political Economy of Predation written by Mehrdad Vahabi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses conflict theory through one type of conflict in particular: manhunting, or predation.
Download or read book Post Communist Mafia State written by B lint Magyar and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, the Hungarian political party Fidesz removed many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole. In a new approach the author characterizes the system as the ?organized over-world?, the ?state employing mafia methods? and the ?adopted political family', applying these categories not as metaphors but elements of a coherent conceptual framework. The actions of the post-communist mafia state model are closely aligned with the interests of power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia channeled wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, the mafia state does the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and secret service. The innovative conceptual framework of the book is important and timely not only for Hungary, but also for other post-communist countries subjected to autocratic rules. ÿ
Download or read book Invasive Pythons in the United States written by Michael E. Dorcas and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Dorcas and Willson provide a much needed examination of the growing impact of Burmese pythons as an invasiue spcies in the United States By highlighting The many dangers and detrimental effects the introduction of nonnative pythons has caused in the Everglades this book documents the mounting threat that invasives pose to ecosystems everywhere. The first book to focus solely on this issue, Invasive Pythons in the United States is well researched, well illustrated, and well timed" --Book Jacket.
Download or read book The Cougar Conundrum written by Mark Elbroch and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2020-08-13 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between humans and mountain lions has always been uneasy. A century ago, mountain lions were vilified as a threat to livestock and hunted to the verge of extinction. In recent years, this keystone predator has made a remarkable comeback, but today humans and mountain lions appear destined for a collision course. Its recovery has led to an unexpected conundrum: Do more mountain lions mean they’re a threat to humans and domestic animals? Or, are mountain lions still in need of our help and protection as their habitat dwindles and they’re forced into the edges and crevices of communities to survive? Mountain lion biologist and expert Mark Elbroch welcomes these tough questions. He dismisses long-held myths about mountain lions and uses groundbreaking science to uncover important new information about their social habits. Elbroch argues that humans and mountain lions can peacefully coexist in close proximity if we ignore uninformed hype and instead arm ourselves with knowledge and common sense. He walks us through the realities of human safety in the presence of mountain lions, livestock safety, competition with hunters for deer and elk, and threats to rare species, dispelling the paranoia with facts and logic. In the last few chapters, he touches on human impacts on mountain lions and the need for a sensible management strategy. The result, he argues, is a win-win for humans, mountain lions, and the ecosystems that depend on keystone predators to keep them in healthy balance. The Cougar Conundrum delivers a clear-eyed assessment of a modern wildlife challenge, offering practical advice for wildlife managers, conservationists, hunters, and those in the wildland-urban interface who share their habitat with large predators.
Download or read book The Predator written by Katherine Applegate and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2011 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marco has never wanted to be an Animorph but the Yeerks are about to do something that will change his mind.
Download or read book The Perfect Predator written by Steffanie Strathdee and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An electrifying memoir of one woman's extraordinary effort to save her husband's life-and the discovery of a forgotten cure that has the potential to save millions more. "A memoir that reads like a thriller." -New York Times Book Review "A fascinating and terrifying peek into the devastating outcomes of antibiotic misuse-and what happens when standard health care falls short." -Scientific American Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom came down with a stomach bug. What at first seemed like a case of food poisoning quickly turned critical, and by the time Tom had been transferred via emergency medevac to the world-class medical center at UC San Diego, where both he and Steffanie worked, blood work revealed why modern medicine was failing: Tom was fighting one of the most dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the world. Frantic, Steffanie combed through research old and new and came across phage therapy: the idea that the right virus, aka "the perfect predator," can kill even the most lethal bacteria. Phage treatment had fallen out of favor almost 100 years ago, after antibiotic use went mainstream. Now, with time running out, Steffanie appealed to phage researchers all over the world for help. She found allies at the FDA, researchers from Texas A&M, and a clandestine Navy biomedical center -- and together they resurrected a forgotten cure. A nail-biting medical mystery, The Perfect Predator is a story of love and survival against all odds, and the (re)discovery of a powerful new weapon in the global superbug crisis.
Download or read book People and Predators written by Defenders of Wildlife and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-06-22 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carnivores provide innumerable ecological benefits and play a unique role in preserving and maintaining ecosystem services and function, but at the same time they can create serious problems for human populations. A key question for conservation biologists and wildlife managers is how to manage the world's carnivore populations to conserve this important natural resource while mitigating harmful impacts on humans. In People and Predators, leading scientists and researchers offer case studies of human-carnivore conflicts in a variety of landscapes, including rural, urban, and political. The book covers a diverse range of taxa, geographic regions, and conflict scenarios, with each chapter dealing with a specific facet of human-carnivore interactions and offering practical, concrete approaches to resolving the conflict under consideration. Chapters provide background on particular problems and describe how challenges have been met or what research or tools are still needed to resolve the conflicts. People and Predators will helps readers to better understand issues of carnivore conservation in the 21st century, and provides practical tools for resolving many of the problems that stand between us and a future in which carnivores fulfill their historic ecological roles.
Download or read book The Predator Paradox written by John A. Shivik and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expert in wildlife management tells the stories of those who are finding new ways for humans and mammalian predators to coexist. Stories of backyard bears and cat-eating coyotes are becoming increasingly common—even for people living in non-rural areas. Farmers anxious to protect their sheep from wolves aren’t the only ones concerned: suburbanites and city dwellers are also having more unwanted run-ins with mammalian predators. And that might not be a bad thing. After all, our government has been at war with wildlife since 1914, and the death toll has been tremendous: federal agents kill a combined ninety thousand wolves, bears, coyotes, and cougars every year, often with dubious biological effectiveness. Only recently have these species begun to recover. Given improved scientific understanding and methods, can we continue to slow the slaughter and allow populations of mammalian predators to resume their positions as keystone species? As carnivore populations increase, however, their proximity to people, pets, and livestock leads to more conflict, and we are once again left to negotiate the uneasy terrain between elimination and conservation. In The Predator Paradox, veteran wildlife management expert John Shivik argues that we can end the war while still preserving and protecting these key species as fundamental components of healthy ecosystems. By reducing almost sole reliance on broad scale “death from above” tactics and by incorporating nonlethal approaches to managing wildlife—from electrified flagging to motion-sensor lights—we can dismantle the paradox, have both people and predators on the landscape, and ensure the long-term survival of both. As the boundary between human and animal habitat blurs, preventing human-wildlife conflict depends as much on changing animal behavior as on changing our own perceptions, attitudes, and actions. To that end, Shivik focuses on the facts, mollifies fears, and presents a variety of tools and tactics for consideration. Blending the science of the wild with entertaining and dramatic storytelling, Shivik’s clear-eyed pragmatism allows him to appeal to both sides of the debate, while arguing for the possibility of coexistence: between ranchers and environmentalists, wildlife managers and animal-welfare activists, and humans and animals.
Download or read book The End of Normal written by James K. Galbraith and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the most respected economic thinkers and writers of our time, a brilliant argument about the history and future of economic growth. The years since the Great Crisis of 2008 have seen slow growth, high unemployment, falling home values, chronic deficits, a deepening disaster in Europe—and a stale argument between two false solutions, “austerity” on one side and “stimulus” on the other. Both sides and practically all analyses of the crisis so far take for granted that the economic growth from the early 1950s until 2000—interrupted only by the troubled 1970s—represented a normal performance. From this perspective, the crisis was an interruption, caused by bad policy or bad people, and full recovery is to be expected if the cause is corrected. The End of Normal challenges this view. Placing the crisis in perspective, Galbraith argues that the 1970s already ended the age of easy growth. The 1980s and 1990s saw only uneven growth, with rising inequality within and between countries. And the 2000s saw the end even of that—despite frantic efforts to keep growth going with tax cuts, war spending, and financial deregulation. When the crisis finally came, stimulus and automatic stabilization were able to place a floor under economic collapse. But they are not able to bring about a return to high growth and full employment. In The End of Normal, “Galbraith puts his pessimism into an engaging, plausible frame. His contentions deserve the attention of all economists and serious financial minds across the political spectrum” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Download or read book Flesh and Blood written by Michael Jan Friedman and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Based on the motion picture from Twentieth Century Fox."
Download or read book Predatory Bureaucracy written by Michael J. Robinson and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Predatory Bureaucracy is the definitive history of America's wolves and our policies toward predators. Tracking wolves from Coronado's day to the present, author Michael Robinson shows that their story merges with that of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey. This federal agency was chartered to research insects and birds but'because of various pressures'morphed into a political powerhouse operating wildlife-extermination programs. Drawing on deep research and wide reading, Robinson's narrative follows the wolves from the eras of explorers and mountain men through the wolves' 120-year entanglement with the federal government. He shares the parallel story of the Survey's rise, detailing the forces that allowed extermination programs to continue'despite opposition from hunters, animal lovers, scientists, environmentalists, and presidents'though the agency's mission and even its name changed. Predatory Bureaucracy will fascinate readers interested in environmental politics and wildlife.
