Economy

A good advice is never old for the new year

Dec 312016

There are many books, magazines and websites for those consumers who want to know how to deal with an economy where everybody wants your money, This book is a great “insider’s guide” to how to take control and wisely manage your money when it comes to practically all aspects of your everyday life. These are the 1,001 things that they won’t tell you related to your family, your children’s education, your home, your money, your goods & services, your food & drink, your mind & body, your medical & dental services, your car and everything related to your free time and entertainment. This guide was published back in 2009, but, except for minor tidbits of information, it still applies. Based on the SmatMoney magazine’s “Ten Things They Won’t Tell You” column, it covers 100 businesses and professions that readers interact with daily.

May you have a prosperous and healthy New Year 2017!

1,001 things they won’t tell you : an insider’s guide to spending, saving and living wisely. Jonathan Dahl. New York: Workman Publishing, 2009.

The USA needs to get back to manufacturing or else

Economy No Responses »

Dec 302016

This is one of those books that states the obvious, that makes us look at the emperor’s new clothes (the obsession with the information age and everything digital over anything else) and that should be read by those who are in power in government, in private companies, in academia. How apt to start a new year, 2014, with a fresh perspective for the USA, a country which, in a sort of reverse Faustian bargain sacrificed its manufacturing industry, the one that contributed enormously to nation-building and world admiration, and domination, in exchange for low cost and low quality goods produced mostly in Asia, where those countries, notably China, got away with all the know-how and the knowledge behind the business of manufacturing.

To quote the publishers: “In Made in the USA, Vaclav Smil powerfully rebuts the notion that manufacturing is a relic of predigital history and that the loss of American manufacturing is a desirable evolutionary step toward a pure service economy. Smil argues that no advanced economy can prosper without a strong, innovative manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates. Reversing a famous information economy dictum, Smil argues that serving potato chips is not as good as making microchips.”

Made in the USA : the rise and retreat of American manufacturing. Vaclav Smil. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2013.

Can big businesses also be environmentally sustainable?

Economy No Responses »

Dec 022016

Big multinational companies, the likes of MacDonald’s, Walmart, Nestlé and Coca-Cola, to name just a few, are now increasingly helping their bottom line with the inclusion of sustainability in their business plans and actions, more than promoting sustainability of life on Earth as it may seem at first glance. The authors call this eco-business or “taking over the idea of sustainability and turning it into a tool of business control and growth that projects an image of corporate social responsibility.” This book will however reveal that “much of what big brands are doing involves defining and using sustainability as a business tool in ways that are actually increasing risks and adding to an ever-mounting global crisis.” This valuable book, well researched, cleverly written and with extensive notes and bibliographic references, will no doubt interest equally economists, environmental activists, business leaders and educated consumers.

Eco-Business : a big-brand takeover of sustainability. Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2013.

Dawn of a new era? Actually, yes

Anthropology, Economy No Responses »

Jun 072016

This book predicts the decline of today’s professions and introduces the people and systems that will replace them. In an internet-enhanced society, according to Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind, we will neither need nor want doctors, teachers, accountants, architects, the clergy, consultants, lawyers, and many others, to work as they did in the 20th century.

The Future of the Professions explains how increasingly capable technologies – from telepresence to artificial intelligence – will place the “practical expertise” of the finest specialists at the fingertips of everyone, often at no or low cost and without face-to-face interaction.

The authors challenge the “grand bargain” – the arrangement that grants various monopolies to today’s professionals. They argue that our current professions are antiquated, opaque and no longer affordable, and that the expertise of their best is enjoyed only by a few. In their place, they propose five new models for producing and distributing expertise in society.

The book raises profound policy issues, not least about employment (they envisage a new generation of “open-collared worker”) and about control over online expertise (they warn of new “gatekeepers”) – in an era when machines become more capable than human beings at most tasks.

[NOTE: This review comes directly from the publisher’s Website].

The future of the professions : How technology will transform the work of human experts. Richard Susskind, Daniel Susskind. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016.

I shop, therefore I exist…

Economy, Sociology No Responses »

Apr 302015

I’m sure this book is part of the reading material of some interesting course in many a college or university and it should also be required reading material for any wise consumer in this day and age. “We have come to operate in a world where the market and its logic have insinuated themselves into every area of our lives. (…) and it not just the case of “hip, hypergentrified Brooklynites succumbing to market psychology”, says the author, but people of all walks of life and income levels sucked into the wishful whirlwind of an unsustainable economic illusion of progress and wellbeing. Thoroughly researched, with a wide historic perspective, and full of insight, it makes some rethink their false sense of security in which corporations have become the authority figures. A great reading to understand contemporary history and how it came to be as it is now. [Note: there are at least two different covers of this book, depending on the date of release. The 2009 edition, with a definitely bland cover design, has a slightly different subtitle: “how the world became a corporation and how to take it back.” The 2011 edition, with the subtitle indicated below, includes “The Life Inc. guide to reclaiming the value you create.”]

Life inc. : how corporatism conquered the world, and how we can take it back. Douglas Rushkoff. New York: Random House, 2011.

Related Website: Rushkoff.

Is the US a developing country in the making?

Economy, Sociology No Responses »

Apr 032015

The contents of this book is not news, but rather a sobering well-researched and documented account of all the ills that trouble America 12 years into the new millennium. Who would’ve thought that the most powerful country in the world, the “greatest nation on Earth”, would arrive to the 21st century in such disarray. For all the ominous and disheartening facts laid out in four eloquent and eye-opening chapters, the author’s goal is to sound the alarm “so that we never do become Third World America“, closing, however, the book with an optimistic note in the form of chapter 5 since this is not a done deal. One cannot help but think, after having lived in this wonderful country for more than two decades, that in fact there is hope (I, for one, I am very hopeful).

Third World America : how our politicians are abandoning the middle class and betraying the American dream. Arianna Huffington. New York: Crown Publishers. 2011. [Note: there are at least two different covers of this book, depending on the date of release].

Related Website: Third World America, hosted by the Huffington Post, of which the author is co-founder.