Download or read book Speculative Communities written by Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-01-17 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Speculative Communities, Komporozos-Athanasiou examines the ways that financial speculation has moved beyond markets to shape fundamental aspects of our social and political lives. As ordinary people make exceptional decisions--such as the American election of a populist demagogue or the British vote to leave the European Union--they are moving from time-honored and -tested practices of governance, toward the speculative promise of a different kind of future. Even our methods of building community have shifted to the speculative realm as social media platforms enable and amplify alternative visions of the present and future-these are the "speculative communities" that now shape our personal and political realities. For Komporozos-Athanasiou, "to speculate" means increasingly "to connect," to endorse uncertainty preemptively, and often daringly, as a means of social survival. Finance has thus become the model for society writ large. These financial systems have taken a notable turn in our current era, however. Contemporary capitalism sees the risk-taking, entrepreneurial person being refashioned as a politically disoriented, speculative subject, who embraces the future's radical uncertainty rather than averting it. As Komporozos-Athanasiou shows, virtual marketplaces, new social media, and dating apps function as finance's speculative infrastructures, leading to a new type of imagination across economy and society"--

Download or read book Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy written by William H. Janeway and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-08 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique insight into the interaction between the state, financiers and entrepreneurs in the modern innovation economy.

Download or read book A Short History of Financial Euphoria written by John Kenneth Galbraith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1994-07-01 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world-renowned economist offers "dourly irreverent analyses of financial debacle from the tulip craze of the seventeenth century to the recent plague of junk bonds." —The Atlantic. With incomparable wisdom, skill, and wit, world-renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith traces the history of the major speculative episodes in our economy over the last three centuries. Exposing the ways in which normally sane people display reckless behavior in pursuit of profit, Galbraith asserts that our "notoriously short" financial memory is what creates the conditions for market collapse. By recognizing these signs and understanding what causes them we can guard against future recessions and have a better hold on our country's (and our own) financial destiny.

Download or read book The Speculation Economy written by Lawrence E. Mitchell and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2008-11-17 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to reveal the deep historical roots of the modern corporate obsession with stock price - a major cause of recent scandals like those at Enron and WorldComDetails how the rise of the modern corporation created the modern stock market - and why this led to an economy dominated by stock speculationAmerican companies once focused exclusively on providing the best products and services. But today, most corporations are obsessed with maximizing their stock prices, resulting in short-term thinking and the kind of cook-the-books corruption seen in the Enron and WorldCom scandals. How did this happen?In this groundbreaking book, Lawrence E. Mitchell traces the origins of the problem to the first decade of the 20th century, when industrialists and bankers began merging existing companies into huge ''combines''- today's giant corporations - so they could profit by manufacturing and selling stock in these new entities. He describes and analyzes the legal changes that made this possible, the federal regulatory efforts that missed the significance of this transforming development, and the changes in American society and culture that led more and more Americans to enter the market, turning from relatively safe bonds to riskier common stock in the hopes of becoming rich. Financiers and the corporations they controlled encouraged this trend, but as stock ownership expanded and businesses were increasingly forced to cater to stockholders' ''get rich quick'' expectations, a subtle but revolutionary shift in the nature of the American economy occurred: finance no longer served industry; instead, industry began to serve finance.The Speculation Economy analyzes the history behind the opening of this economic Pandora's box, the root cause of so many modern acts of corporate malfeasance.

Download or read book Devil Take the Hindmost written by Edward Chancellor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2000-06-01 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively, original, and challenging history of stock market speculation from the 17th century to present day. Is your investment in that new Internet stock a sign of stock market savvy or an act of peculiarly American speculative folly? How has the psychology of investing changed—and not changed—over the last five hundred years? In Devil Take the Hindmost, Edward Chancellor traces the origins of the speculative spirit back to ancient Rome and chronicles its revival in the modern world: from the tulip scandal of 1630s Holland, to “stockjobbing” in London's Exchange Alley, to the infamous South Sea Bubble of 1720, which prompted Sir Isaac Newton to comment, “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” Here are brokers underwriting risks that included highway robbery and the “assurance of female chastity”; credit notes and lottery tickets circulating as money; wise and unwise investors from Alexander Pope and Benjamin Disraeli to Ivan Boesky and Hillary Rodham Clinton. From the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties, from the nineteenth century railway mania to the crash of 1929, from junk bonds and the Japanese bubble economy to the day-traders of the Information Era, Devil Take the Hindmost tells a fascinating story of human dreams and folly through the ages.

Download or read book Speculative Harvests written by Jennifer Clapp and published by Agrarian Change & Peasant Stud. This book was released on 2018-04-15 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors highlight the importance of confronting the financialization of food and agriculture, identify the challenges of conventional approaches to reform and consider innovative alternatives. Speculative Harvests is essential for those who not only seek a better understanding of the problems but are also in search of effective interventions.

Download or read book Money Changes Everything written by William N. Goetzmann and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[A] magnificent history of money and finance."—New York Times Book Review "Convincingly makes the case that finance is a change-maker of change-makers."—Financial Times In the aftermath of recent financial crises, it's easy to see finance as a wrecking ball: something that destroys fortunes and jobs, and undermines governments and banks. In Money Changes Everything, leading financial historian William Goetzmann argues the exact opposite—that the development of finance has made the growth of civilizations possible. Goetzmann explains that finance is a time machine, a technology that allows us to move value forward and backward through time; and that this innovation has changed the very way we think about and plan for the future. He shows how finance was present at key moments in history: driving the invention of writing in ancient Mesopotamia, spurring the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome to become great empires, determining the rise and fall of dynasties in imperial China, and underwriting the trade expeditions that led Europeans to the New World. He also demonstrates how the apparatus we associate with a modern economy—stock markets, lines of credit, complex financial products, and international trade—were repeatedly developed, forgotten, and reinvented over the course of human history. Exploring the critical role of finance over the millennia, and around the world, Goetzmann details how wondrous financial technologies and institutions—money, bonds, banks, corporations, and more—have helped urban centers to expand and cultures to flourish. And it's not done reshaping our lives, as Goetzmann considers the challenges we face in the future, such as how to use the power of finance to care for an aging and expanding population. Money Changes Everything presents a fascinating look into the way that finance has steered the course of history.

Download or read book Blockchain Economics and Financial Market Innovation written by Umit Hacioglu and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses various aspects of blockchains in economic systems and investment strategies in crypto markets. It first addresses the topic from a conceptual and theoretical point of view, and then analyzes it from an assessment and investment angle. Further, it examines the opportunities and limitations of the taxation of crypto currency, as well as the political implications, such as regulation of speculation with crypto currencies. The book is intended for academicians and students in the fields of economics and finance.

Download or read book Speculative Everything written by Anthony Dunne and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-12-06 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to use design as a tool to create not only things but ideas, to speculate about possible futures. Today designers often focus on making technology easy to use, sexy, and consumable. In Speculative Everything, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby propose a kind of design that is used as a tool to create not only things but ideas. For them, design is a means of speculating about how things could be—to imagine possible futures. This is not the usual sort of predicting or forecasting, spotting trends and extrapolating; these kinds of predictions have been proven wrong, again and again. Instead, Dunne and Raby pose “what if” questions that are intended to open debate and discussion about the kind of future people want (and do not want). Speculative Everything offers a tour through an emerging cultural landscape of design ideas, ideals, and approaches. Dunne and Raby cite examples from their own design and teaching and from other projects from fine art, design, architecture, cinema, and photography. They also draw on futurology, political theory, the philosophy of technology, and literary fiction. They show us, for example, ideas for a solar kitchen restaurant; a flypaper robotic clock; a menstruation machine; a cloud-seeding truck; a phantom-limb sensation recorder; and devices for food foraging that use the tools of synthetic biology. Dunne and Raby contend that if we speculate more—about everything—reality will become more malleable. The ideas freed by speculative design increase the odds of achieving desirable futures.

Download or read book Speculation written by Stuart Banner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the difference between a gambler and a speculator? Is there a readily identifiable line separating the two? If so, is it possible for us to discourage the former while encouraging the latter? These difficult questions cut across the entirety of American economic history, and the periodic failures by regulators to differentiate between irresponsible gambling and clear-headed investing have often been the proximate causes of catastrophic economic downturns. Most recently, the blurring of speculation and gambling in U.S. real estate markets fueled the 2008 global financial crisis, but it is one in a long line of similar economic disasters going back to the nation's founding. In Speculation, author Stuart Banner provides a sweeping and story-rich history of how the murky lines separating investment, speculation, and outright gambling have shaped America from the 1790s to the present. Regulators and courts always struggled to draw a line between investment and gambling, and it is no easier now than it was two centuries ago. Advocates for risky investments have long argued that risk-taking is what defines America. Critics counter that unregulated speculation results in bubbles that always draw in the least informed investors-gamblers, essentially. Financial chaos is the result. The debate has been a perennial feature of American history, with the pattern repeating before and after every financial downturn since the 1790s. The Panic of 1837, the speculative boom of the roaring twenties, and the real estate bubble of the early 2000s are all emblematic of the difficulty in differentiating sober from reckless speculation. Even after the recent financial crisis, the debate continues. Some, chastened by the crash, argue that we need to prohibit certain risky transactions, but others respond by citing the benefits of loosely governed markets and the dangers of over-regulation. These episodes have generated deep ambivalence, yet Americans' faith in investment and - by extension - the stock market has always rebounded quickly after even the most savage downturns. Indeed, the speculator on the make is a central figure in the folklore of American capitalism. Engaging and accessible, Speculation synthesizes a suite of themes that sit at the heart of American history - the ability of courts and regulators to protect ordinary Americans from the ravages of capitalism; the periodic fallibility of the American economy; and - not least - the moral conundrum inherent in valuing those who produce goods over those who speculate, and yet enjoying the fruits of speculation. Banner's history is not only invaluable for understanding the fault lines beneath the American economy today, but American identity itself.

Download or read book Bubbles and Crashes written by Brent Goldfarb and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An interesting take on some factors that facilitate the development and bursting of bubbles in technology industries. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice Financial market bubbles are recurring, often painful, reminders of the costs and benefits of capitalism. While many books have studied financial manias and crises, most fail to compare times of turmoil with times of stability. In Bubbles and Crashes, Brent Goldfarb and David A. Kirsch give us new insights into the causes of speculative booms and busts. They identify a class of assets—major technological innovations—that can, but does not necessarily, produce bubbles. This methodological twist is essential: Only by comparing similar events that sometimes lead to booms and busts can we ascertain the root causes of bubbles. Using a sample of eighty-eight technologies spanning 150 years, Goldfarb and Kirsch find that four factors play a key role in these episodes: the degree of uncertainty surrounding a particular innovation; the attentive presence of novice investors; the opportunity to directly invest in companies that specialize in the technology; and whether or not a technology is a good protagonist in a narrative. Goldfarb and Kirsch consider the implications of their analysis for technology bubbles that may be in the works today, offer tools for investors to identify whether a bubble is happening, and propose policy measures that may mitigate the risks associated with future speculative episodes.

Download or read book Early Speculative Bubbles and Increases in the Supply of Money written by and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 2009-03-16 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Housing Bubble was hardly the first in human history. What's eluded historians is the same issue that eludes commentators today: the underlying cause of bubbles. This book is the first (and only) book to solve the mystery of the most famous bubble in world history: Tulipmania in 17th century Netherlands. It Is a legendary event but explanations have been lacking. People blame irrational exuberance, free markets, and an unleashed aristocracy. Douglas French takes a different route: he follows the money to prove that the bubble resulted from a government intervention that dramatically exploded the money supply and fueled the tulip-price bubble – not altogether different from modern bubbles. This book was French’s Master’s thesis written under the direction of Murray Rothbard and examining three of the most famous speculative bubble episodes in history through the lens of Austrian Business Cycle Theory. Although each of these episodes is well documented, this book examines the monetary interventions that engendered each of these events showing that not only the Mississippi Bubble and the South Sea Bubble were caused by government meddling, but Tulipmania was as well. Tulipmania was unique in that it was the sound money policy of the Dutch combined with free coinage laws that led to an acute increase in the supply of money and fostered an atmosphere that was ripe for speculation and malinvestment, manifesting itself in the intense trading of tulip bulbs. The author examines not only the Mississippi Bubble but also the life and monetary theories of its architect, John Law. Professor Joe Salerno calls Law the world’s first macroeconomist who implemented a Keynesian monetary system in France nearly two hundred years before Keynes was born. At the same time across the English Channel, a nearly bankrupt British government looked on with envy at Law’s system, believing that he was working a financial miracle. It was anything but this and investors in both countries were devastated. Although these episodes occurred centuries ago, readers will find the events eerily similar to today’s bubbles and busts: low interest rates, easy credit terms, widespread public participation, bankrupt governments, price inflation, frantic attempts by government to keep the booms going, and government bailouts of companies after the crash. When will we learn? We first have to get cause and effect in history straight. This book is an excellent contribution to that effort.

Download or read book High Yield Future Tense written by Martin Fridson and published by . This book was released on 2015-09-09 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Finance and the Good Society written by Robert J. Shiller and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-21 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nobel Prize-winning economist explains why we need to reclaim finance for the common good The reputation of the financial industry could hardly be worse than it is today in the painful aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. New York Times best-selling economist Robert Shiller is no apologist for the sins of finance—he is probably the only person to have predicted both the stock market bubble of 2000 and the real estate bubble that led up to the subprime mortgage meltdown. But in this important and timely book, Shiller argues that, rather than condemning finance, we need to reclaim it for the common good. He makes a powerful case for recognizing that finance, far from being a parasite on society, is one of the most powerful tools we have for solving our common problems and increasing the general well-being. We need more financial innovation—not less—and finance should play a larger role in helping society achieve its goals. Challenging the public and its leaders to rethink finance and its role in society, Shiller argues that finance should be defined not merely as the manipulation of money or the management of risk but as the stewardship of society's assets. He explains how people in financial careers—from CEO, investment manager, and banker to insurer, lawyer, and regulator—can and do manage, protect, and increase these assets. He describes how finance has historically contributed to the good of society through inventions such as insurance, mortgages, savings accounts, and pensions, and argues that we need to envision new ways to rechannel financial creativity to benefit society as a whole. Ultimately, Shiller shows how society can once again harness the power of finance for the greater good.

Download or read book Fragile Finance written by A. Nesvetailova and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-10-17 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fragile Finance examines financial crisis in the era of global credit. Drawing on the work of Hyman Minsky, the book discusses the global financial system over the past decade, suggesting that financial fragility stems from an explosive combination of financial innovation, over-borrowing, and progressive illiquidity of financial structures.

Download or read book Risk Management Speculation and Derivative Securities written by Geoffrey Poitras and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2002-06-10 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting an integrated explanation of speculative trading and risk management from the practitioner's point of view, "Risk Management, Speculation, and Derivative Securities" is a standard text on financial risk management that departs from the perspective of an agent whose main concerns are pricing and hedging derivatives.

Download or read book Makers and Takers written by Rana Foroohar and published by Currency. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is Wall Street bad for Main Street America? "A well-told exploration of why our current economy is leaving too many behind." —The New York Times In looking at the forces that shaped the 2016 presidential election, one thing is clear: much of the population believes that our economic system is rigged to enrich the privileged elites at the expense of hard-working Americans. This is a belief held equally on both sides of political spectrum, and it seems only to be gaining momentum. A key reason, says Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar, is the fact that Wall Street is no longer supporting Main Street businesses that create the jobs for the middle and working class. She draws on in-depth reporting and interviews at the highest rungs of business and government to show how the “financialization of America”—the phenomenon by which finance and its way of thinking have come to dominate every corner of business—is threatening the American Dream. Now updated with new material explaining how our corrupted financial sys­tem propelled Donald Trump to power, Makers and Takers explores the confluence of forces that has led American businesses to favor balance-sheet engineering over the actual kind, greed over growth, and short-term profits over putting people to work. From the cozy relationship between Wall Street and Washington, to a tax code designed to benefit wealthy individuals and corporations, to forty years of bad policy decisions, she shows why so many Americans have lost trust in the sys­tem, and why it matters urgently to us all. Through colorful stories of both “Takers,” those stifling job creation while lining their own pockets, and “Makers,” businesses serving the real economy, Foroohar shows how we can reverse these trends for a better path forward.