Download or read book The Value of Nothing written by Raj Patel and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2010-01-04 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A deeply though-provoking book about the dramatic changes we must make to save the planet from financial madness."--Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine Opening with Oscar Wilde's observation that "nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing," Patel shows how our faith in prices as a way of valuing the world is misplaced. He reveals the hidden ecological and social costs of a hamburger (as much as $200), and asks how we came to have markets in the first place. Both the corporate capture of government and our current financial crisis, Patel argues, are a result of our democratically bankrupt political system. If part one asks how we can rebalance society and limit markets, part two answers by showing how social organizations, in America and around the globe, are finding new ways to describe the world's worth. If we don't want the market to price every aspect of our lives, we need to learn how such organizations have discovered democratic ways in which people, and not simply governments, can play a crucial role in deciding how we might share our world and its resources in common. This short, timely and inspiring book reveals that our current crisis is not simply the result of too much of the wrong kind of economics. While we need to rethink our economic model, Patel argues that the larger failure beneath the food, climate and economic crises is a political one. If economics is about choices, Patel writes, it isn't often said who gets to make them. The Value of Nothing offers a fresh and accessible way to think about economics and the choices we will all need to make in order to create a sustainable economy and society.
Download or read book Priceless written by Frank Ackerman and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As clinical as it sounds to express the value of human lives, health, or the environment in cold dollars and cents, cost-benefit analysis requires it. More disturbingly, this approach is being embraced by a growing number of politicians and conservative pundits as the most reasonable way to make many policy decisions regarding public health and the environment. By systematically refuting the economic algorithms and illogical assumptions that cost-benefit analysts flaunt as fact, Priceless tells a ''gripping story about how solid science has been shoved to the backburner by bean counters with ideological blinders'' (In These Times). Ackerman and Heinzerling argue that decisions about health and safety should be made ''to reflect not economists' numbers, but democratic values, chosen on moral grounds. This is a vividly written book, punctuated by striking analogies, a good deal of outrage, and a nice dose of humor'' (Cass Sunstein, The New Republic). Essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of human health and environmental protection, Priceless ''shines a bright light on obstacles that stand in the way of good government decisions''.
Download or read book Value Of Nothing written by Raj Patel and published by HarperCollins Canada. This book was released on 2010-06-06 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As retirement funds shrink, savings disappear and houses are foreclosed on, now is a good time to ask a question for which every human civilization has had an answer: why do things cost what they do? The Value of Nothing tracks down the reasons through history, philosophy, neuroscience and sociology, showing why prices are always at odds with the true value of the things that matter most to us. Damien Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull sold for a record $100 million at auction. But if we account for the possibility that blood diamonds were used (as many suspect), the human cost is even greater. A Big Mac might seem like the best deal in these economic times, but after analyzing the energy to produce each burger, from field to Happy Meal, Patel argues the real price tag is a whopping $200. But it is easiest to see the gap between price and value by looking at things that are so-called free. Examining everything from Google to TV, from love to thoughts, The Value of Nothing reveals the hidden social consequences of our global culture of “freedom.”
Download or read book The Gift of Nothing written by Patrick McDonnell and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2008-11-16 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its publication in 2005, The Gift of Nothing has become an instant classic--the perfect gift for "the person who has everything." In this appealing picture book, Mooch the cat--star of the nationally-syndicated comic strip Mutts--searches for a present for his friend, Earl the dog. Earl already has everything he needs: a bowl, a bed, a chewy toy...What else could Mooch get him? Then it dawns on him: NOTHING! This timeless tale has a heart-warming message about the most valuable gift of all--friendship--that appeals to readers of all ages. Great for a last minute gift, this special edition includes an elegant paper slipcase designed to look like gift wrap with foil accents and an embossed bow and faux hang tag.
Download or read book Counting for Nothing written by Marilyn Waring and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 1999-12-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Safe drinking water counts for nothing. A pollution-free environment counts for nothing. Even some people - namely women - count for nothing. This is the case, at least, according to the United Nations System of National Accounts. Author Marilyn Waring, former New Zealand M.P., now professor, development consultant, writer, and goat farmer, isolates the gender bias that exists in the current system of calculating national wealth. As Waring observes, in this accounting system women are considered 'non-producers' and as such they cannot expect to gain from the distribution of benefits that flow from production. Issues like nuclear warfare, environmental conservation, and poverty are likewise excluded from the calculation of value in traditional economic theory. As a result, public policy, determined by these same accounting processes, inevitably overlooks the importance of the environment and half the world's population. Counting for Nothing, originally published in 1988, is a classic feminist analysis of women's place in the world economy brought up to date in this reprinted edition, including a sizeable new introduction by the author. In her new introduction, the author updates information and examples and revisits the original chapters with appropriate commentary. In an accessible and often humorous manner, Waring offers an explanation of the current economic systems of accounting and thoroughly outlines ways to ensure that the significance of the environment and the labour contributions of women receive the recognition they deserve.
Download or read book How to Do Nothing written by Jenny Odell and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ** A New York Times Bestseller ** NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: Time • The New Yorker • NPR • GQ • Elle • Vulture • Fortune • Boing Boing • The Irish Times • The New York Public Library • The Brooklyn Public Library "A complex, smart and ambitious book that at first reads like a self-help manual, then blossoms into a wide-ranging political manifesto."—Jonah Engel Bromwich, The New York Times Book Review One of President Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of 2019" Porchlight's Personal Development & Human Behavior Book of the Year In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives. Odell sees our attention as the most precious—and overdrawn—resource we have. And we must actively and continuously choose how we use it. We might not spend it on things that capitalism has deemed important … but once we can start paying a new kind of attention, she writes, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humankind’s role in the environment, and arrive at more meaningful understandings of happiness and progress. Far from the simple anti-technology screed, or the back-to-nature meditation we read so often, How to do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, this book will change how you see your place in our world.
Download or read book The Book of Nothing written by John D. Barrow and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-05-20 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What conceptual blind spot kept the ancient Greeks (unlike the Indians and Maya) from developing a concept of zero? Why did St. Augustine equate nothingness with the Devil? What tortuous means did 17th-century scientists employ in their attempts to create a vacuum? And why do contemporary quantum physicists believe that the void is actually seething with subatomic activity? You’ll find the answers in this dizzyingly erudite and elegantly explained book by the English cosmologist John D. Barrow. Ranging through mathematics, theology, philosophy, literature, particle physics, and cosmology, The Book of Nothing explores the enduring hold that vacuity has exercised on the human imagination. Combining high-wire speculation with a wealth of reference that takes in Freddy Mercury and Shakespeare alongside Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking, the result is a fascinating excursion to the vanishing point of our knowledge.
Download or read book The Quants written by Scott Patterson and published by Currency. This book was released on 2011-01-25 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the immediacy of today’s NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, The Quants is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris, and an ominous warning about Wall Street’s future. In March of 2006, four of the world’s richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel. They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them. They were accustomed to risking billions. On that night, these four men and their cohorts were the new kings of Wall Street. Muller, Griffin, Asness, and Weinstein were among the best and brightest of a new breed, the quants. Over the prior twenty years, this species of math whiz--technocrats who make billions not with gut calls or fundamental analysis but with formulas and high-speed computers--had usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers who’d long been the alpha males the world’s largest casino. The quants helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse. Few realized, though, that in creating this unprecedented machine, men like Muller, Griffin, Asness and Weinstein had sowed the seeds for history’s greatest financial disaster. Drawing on unprecedented access to these four number-crunching titans, The Quants tells the inside story of what they thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize--and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQ’s had led them so wrong, so fast.
Download or read book Nothing is Sacred written by Robert J. Barro and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-08-11 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays by the influential—and controversial— macroeconomist Robert J. Barro. Since the 1970s, Robert Barro's academic research has significantly influenced macroeconomic theory. For more than a decade, his writing has also enlivened the pages of publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Business Week. In Nothing Is Sacred, Barro applies his well-honed free market arguments to a remarkably diverse range of issues. These include global problems such as growth and debt, as well as social issues such as the predictive value of SAT scores, drug legalization, the economics of beauty, and the relationship between abortion rights and crime reduction.The book opens with a series of essays on famous economists, past and present, and other prominent figures whose work has economic implications, including Joe DiMaggio and Bono. In the book's second part, Barro discusses the economics of social issues. In the third part, he considers democracy, growth, and international policy, and in the final part he examines fiscal policy, monetary policy, and the macroeconomy. Throughout, he shows that even the most widely held beliefs are not sacred truths but are open to analysis.
Download or read book The Buy Nothing Get Everything Plan written by Liesl Clark and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spirit of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning and The Joy of Less, experience the benefits of buying less and sharing more with this accessible 7-step guide to decluttering, saving money, and creating community from the creators of the Buy Nothing Project. In their island community, friends Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller discovered that the beaches of Puget Sound were spoiled by a daily influx of plastic items and trash washing on shore. From pens and toothbrushes to toys and straws, they wondered, where did it all come from? Of course, it comes from us—our homes, our backyards, our cars, and our workplaces. And so, a rallying cry against excess stuff was born. In 2013, they launched the first Facebook Buy Nothing Project group in their small town off the coast of Seattle, and they never expected it to become a viral sensation. Today there are thousands of Buy Nothing groups all over the world, boasting more than a million members, and 5,000 highly active volunteers. Inspired by the ancient practice of gift economies, where neighbors share and pool resources,The Buy Nothing, Get Everything Plan introduces an environmentally conscious 7-step guide that teaches us how to buy less, give more, and live generously. At once an actionable plan and a thought-provoking exploration of our addiction to stuff, this powerful program will help you declutter your home without filling landfills, shop more thoughtfully and discerningly, and let go of the need to buy new things. Filled with helpful lists and practical suggestions including 50 items you never need to buy (Ziploc bags and paper towels) and 50 things to make instead (gift cards and salad dressing), The Buy Nothing, Get Everything Plan encourages you to rethink why you shop and embrace a space-saving, money-saving, and earth-saving mindset of buying less and sharing more.
Download or read book The Value of Nothing written by Julian Roche and published by Global Professional Publishi. This book was released on 2005 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Detailed, easy-to-understand explanations and evaluations of every method* Pulls no punches on strengths and weaknesses of each* Every method is related to the real world* Shows in detail how to use each method without shirking on the theoryManagers, consultants, and students will learn how to master advanced business valuation--understanding ......
Download or read book Apropos of Nothing written by Woody Allen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-03-23 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Long-Awaited, Enormously Entertaining Memoir by One of the Great Artists of Our Time—Now a New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller. In this candid and often hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. Beginning with his Brooklyn childhood and his stint as a writer for the Sid Caesar variety show in the early days of television, working alongside comedy greats, Allen tells of his difficult early days doing standup before he achieved recognition and success. With his unique storytelling pizzazz, he recounts his departure into moviemaking, with such slapstick comedies as Take the Money and Run, and revisits his entire, sixty-year-long, and enormously productive career as a writer and director, from his classics Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Annie and Her Sisters to his most recent films, including Midnight in Paris. Along the way, he discusses his marriages, his romances and famous friendships, his jazz playing, and his books and plays. We learn about his demons, his mistakes, his successes, and those he loved, worked with, and learned from in equal measure. This is a hugely entertaining, deeply honest, rich and brilliant self-portrait of a celebrated artist who is ranked among the greatest filmmakers of our time.
Download or read book The Value of Everything written by Mariana Mazzucato and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2018-04-26 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who really creates wealth in our world? And how do we decide the value of what they do? At the heart of today's financial and economic crisis is a problem hiding in plain sight. In modern capitalism, value-extraction - the siphoning off of profits, from shareholders' dividends to bankers' bonuses - is rewarded more highly than value-creation: the productive process that drives a healthy economy and society. We misidentify takers as makers, and have lost sight of what value really means. Once a central plank of economic thought, this concept of value - what it is, why it matters to us - is simply no longer discussed. Yet, argues Mariana Mazzucato in this penetrating and passionate new book, if we are to reform capitalism - to radically transform an increasingly sick system rather than continue feeding it - we urgently need to rethink where wealth comes from. Who is creating it, who is extracting it, and who is destroying it? Answers to these questions are key if we want to replace the current parasitic system with a type of capitalism that is more sustainable, more symbiotic: that works for us all. The Value of Everything will reignite a long-needed debate about the kind of world we really want to live in.
Download or read book Patron Saints of Nothing written by Randy Ribay and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST "Brilliant, honest, and equal parts heartbreaking and soul-healing." --Laurie Halse Anderson, author of SHOUT "A singular voice in the world of literature." --Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down A powerful coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, and the risks a Filipino-American teenager takes to uncover the truth about his cousin's murder. Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story. Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth -- and the part he played in it. As gripping as it is lyrical, Patron Saints of Nothing is a page-turning portrayal of the struggle to reconcile faith, family, and immigrant identity.
Download or read book Stuffed and Starved written by Raj Patel and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Completely updated and revised edition of one of the most widely-praised food books of recent years. It’s a perverse fact of modern life: There are more starving people in the world than ever before, while there are also more people who are overweight. To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation into the global food network. It took him from the colossal supermarkets of California to India’s wrecked paddy-fields and Africa’s bankrupt coffee farms, while along the way he ate genetically engineered soy beans and dodged flying objects in the protestor-packed streets of South Korea. What he found was shocking, from the false choices given us by supermarkets to a global epidemic of farmer suicides, and real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa. Yet he also found great cause for hope—in international resistance movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable and joyful food system. Going beyond ethical consumerism, Patel explains, from seed to store to plate, the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of both farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.
Download or read book There Is Nothing for You Here written by Fiona Hill and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A celebrated foreign policy expert and key impeachment witness reveals how declining opportunity has set America on the grim path of modern Russia--and draws on her personal journey out of poverty, and her unique perspectives as an historian and policy maker, to show how we can return hope to our forgotten places.
Download or read book A Book About Absolutely Nothing written by I. M. Nobody and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
