By staging human-animal encounters, Romantic literature and art repeatedly questioned how "human" animals could be and how "animal" humans in fact are. Romantic-era authors and artists often depicted perplexing animal intrusions upon humans. Sometimes the intruders were mystifying or terrifying, like Coleridge’s albatross or Poe’s raven; sometimes they were mundane, as in “The Swallow” by Smith or “To a Mouse” by Burns—regardless, encounters with animal-others occasioned Romantic musings. ...

How the Clinton Administration and Fed regulators manipulated the stock market to make the economy appear healthy, when it was not. Multitudes were transfixed by the mirage of a continuing cornucopia, while in the background, internationalist financial interests were helping Red China direct its cheap labor and educated elite first against other Asia countries and, eventually, against the United States. As a result, America is definitely on the road to another Great Depression. Other facto...

For most of the eighteenth century, automata were deemed a celebration of human ingenuity, feats of science and reason. Among the Romantics, however, they prompted a contradictory apprehension about mechanization and contrivance: such science and engineering threatened the spiritual nature of life, the source of compassion in human society. A deep dread of puppets and the machinery that propels them consequently surfaced in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century literature. Roman...

A call-to-arms from Nobel Prize–winning economist and best-selling author Paul Krugman.The Great Recession is more than four years old—and counting. Yet, as Paul Krugman points out in this powerful volley, "Nations rich in resources, talent, and knowledge—all the ingredients for prosperity and a decent standard of living for all—remain in a state of intense pain."How bad have things gotten? How did we get stuck in what now can only be called a depression? And above all, how...

In spite of its key role in creating the ruinous financial crisis of 2008, the American banking industry has grown bigger, more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever. Anchored by six megabanks whose assets amount to more than 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, this oligarchy proved it could first hold the global economy hostage and then use its political muscle to fight off meaningful reform. 13 Bankers brilliantly charts the rise to power of the ...

**The New York Times bestseller"Blinder's book deserves its likely place near the top of reading lists about the crisis. It is the best comprehensive history of the episode... A riveting tale." - Financial Times**One of our wisest and most clear-eyed economic thinkers offers a masterful narrative of the crisis and its lessons.Many fine books on the financial crisis were first drafts of history—books written to fill the nee...

THE BOOK WASHINGTON DOES NOT WANT YOU TO READHow is it that politicians often enter office with relatively modest assets, but then, as investors, regularly beat the stock market and sometimes beat the most rapacious hedge funds? How did some members of Congress know to dump their stock holdings just in time to escape the effects of the 2008 financial meltdown? And how is it that billionaires and hedge fund managers often make well-timed investment decisions that anticipate events i...

This myth shattering book reveals the methods Nouriel Roubini used to foretell the current crisis before other economists saw it coming and shows how those methods can help us make sense of the present and prepare for the future.Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini electrified his profession and the larger financial community by predicting the current crisis well in advance of anyone else. Unlike most in his profession who treat economic disasters as freakish once-in...

**A vivid history of the recent economics of greed in the United States. This book explores how the pursuit of immense personal wealth has led to economic inequity and instability in the country.“A fascinating and deeply disturbing tale of hypocrisy, corruption, and insatiable greed. . . . A much-needed reminder of just how we got into the mess we’re in.”—The New York Review of Books**Age of Greed shows how the single-minded and selfish pursuit of immense ...

In The Great American Stickup, celebrated journalist Robert Scheer uncovers the hidden story behind one of the greatest financial crimes of our time: the Wall Street financial crash of 2008 and the consequent global recession. Instead of going where other journalists have gone in search of this story -- the board rooms and trading floors of the big Wall Street firms -- Scheer goes back to Washington, D.C., a veritable crime scene, beginning in the 1980s, where the captains of the ...

“Whatever it takes”That was Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s vow as the worst financial panic in more than fifty years gripped the world and he struggled to avoid the once unthinkable: a repeat of the Great Depression. Brilliant but temperamentally cautious, Bernanke researched and wrote about the causes of the Depression during his career as an academic. Then when thrust into a role as one of the most important people in the world, he was compelled to boldn...

"America's debt is a powder keg about to blow, and the fuse was lit by the rush of bailouts and stimulus spending."Is your money inflation-proof? It had better be. On the heels of the most recent economic crisis, America is headed toward another: high inflation and dollar devaluation.Charles Goyette reveals the governmental errors that led to the current economic crisis and the bumpy road ahead. The signs are clear: Federal debt is compounding while growth ...