Author Michael Tanner offers a new anti-poverty agenda that includes criminal justice reform, educational freedom, housing deregulation, banking reform, and more inclusive growth.The Inclusive Economy: How to Bring Wealth to America’s Poor energetically challenges the conventional wisdom of both the right and the left that underlies much of the contemporary debate over poverty and welfare policy. National public policy expert Michael Tanner takes to task c...

America's health care system is at a crossroads, faced with rising costs, quality concerns, and a lack of patient control. Some blame market forces. Yet many troubles can be traced directly to pervasive government influence: entitlements, tax laws, and costly regulations. Consumer choice and competition deliver higher quality and lower prices in other areas of the economy. The authors conclude that removing restrictions can do the same for health care. In the newly updated edition, the aut...

In 1995, the Cato Institute published a groundbreaking study, The Work Versus Welfare Trade-Off, which estimated the value of the full package of welfare benefits available to a typical recipient in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. It found that not only did the value of such benefits greatly exceed the poverty level but, because welfare benefits are tax-free, their dollar value was greater than the amount of take-home income a worker would recieve from an entry...

A new, incisive history of the transcontinental railroads and how they transformed America in the decades after the Civil War.The transcontinental railroads of the late nineteenth century were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating debt sparked devastating panics in the U.S. economy. Their dependence on public largess drew them into the corridors of power, initiating new forms of corruption. Their operations rearranged space and time, a...

The authors not only investigate the current forms of property rights on reservations but also expose the limitations of each system showing that customary rights are insecure certificates of possession cannot be sold outside the First Nation and leases are temporary. As well analysis of legislation court decisions and economic reports reveals that current land management has led to unnecessary economic losses. The authors propose creation of a First Nations Property Ownership Act that would ...

A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Winner of the Bancroft Prize. "No one has written a better book about a city…Nature's Metropolis is elegant testimony to the proposition that economic, urban, environmental, and business history can be as graceful, powerful, and fascinating as a novel." —Kenneth T. Jackson, Boston Globe

“No other modern country gives corporations the unfettered power found in America to gouge customers, shortchange workers, and erect barriers to fair play. A big reason is that so little of the news . . . addresses the private, government-approved mechanisms by which price gouging is employed to redistribute income upward.”You are being systematically exploited by powerful corporations every day. These companies squeeze their trusting customers for every last cent, risk their retir...

Bubbles—from hot stocks in the 1920s to hot stocks in the 1990s—are much-lamented features of contemporary economic life. Time and again, American investors, seduced by the lures of quick money, new technologies, and excessive optimism, have shown a tendency to get carried away. Time and again, they have appeared foolish when the bubble burst. The history of finance is filled with tragic tales of shattered dreams, bankruptcies, and bitter recriminations.But what if the I-told-you-s...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter details " how the U.S. business press could miss the most important economic implosion of the past eighty years" (Eric Alterman, media columnist for The Nation ).In this sweeping, incisive post-mortem, Dean Starkman exposes the critical shortcomings that softened coverage in the business press during the mortgage era and the years leading up to the financial collapse of...

In this volume, Michael P. Malone provides a succinct interpretive biography of James J. Hill, the "Empire Builder"-so called for his work in developing the region of the United States between the Great Lakes and the Pacific Northwest.Malone explores Hill’s complex life and personality, his activities and interests, and recreates both the story of the railroad race to the Pacific and the complex interactions involved in the development of the region."Michael Malone has writ...

From origin stories to contemporary struggles over treaty rights and sovereignty issues, Indian Nations of Wisconsin explores Wisconsin's rich Native tradition. This unique volume—based on the historical perspectives of the state’s Native peoples—includes compact tribal histories of the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Oneida, Menominee, Mohican, Ho-Chunk, and Brothertown Indians. Author Patty Loew focuses on oral tradition—stories, songs, the recorded words of Indian treaty negotiators, and i...

A comprehensive history of fraud in America, from the early nineteenth century to the subprime mortgage crisisThe United States has always proved an inviting home for boosters, sharp dealers, and outright swindlers. Worship of entrepreneurial freedom has complicated the task of distinguishing aggressive salesmanship from unacceptable deceit, especially on the frontiers of innovation. At the same time, competitive pressures have often nudged respectable firms to emb...