Investors today are being fed lies and distortions, are being exploited and neglected. In the wake of the last decade’s rush to invest by millions of households and Wall Street’s obsession with short-term performance, a culture of gamesmanship has grown among corporate management, financial analysts, brokers, and fund managers, making it hard to tell financial fantasy from reality, salesmanship from honest advice.
In Take on the Street, Arthur Levitt—former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission—shows how you can take matters into your own hands. At once anecdotal (names are named), informative, and prescriptive, Take on the Street expounds on, among other subjects: the relationship between broker compensation and your trading account; the conflicts of interest inherent in buy-hold-or-sell recommendations of analysts; what exactly happens—and who gets a piece of the action—when you place an order; the “seven deadly sins” of mutual funds; the vagaries and vicissitudes of 401(k) investments; how accountants engage in sleight of hand to fake impressive company performance; how to find the truth in a company’s financial statements; the real reason for the Street’s hostility to full disclosure; the crisis in corporate governance, and, given these shenanigans and double-dealings, what specific steps you can take to safeguard your financial future.
With integrity and authority, Levitt gives us a bracing primer on the collapse of the system for overseeing our capital markets, and sage, essential advice on a discipline we often ignore to our peril—how not to lose money.

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6 mar 13 5:36

William D. Cohan - House of Cards, A Tale of Hubri s and Wretched Excess on Wall Street (2009).jpg

On March 5, 2008, at 10:15 A.M., a hedge fund manager in Florida wrote a post on his investing advice Web site that included a startling statement about Bear Stearns & Co., the nation’s fifth-largest investment bank: “In my book, they are insolvent.”
This seemed a bold and risky statement. Bear Stearns was about to announce profits of $115 million for the first quarter of 2008, had $17.3 billion in cash on hand, and, as the company incessantly boasted, had been a colossally profitable enterprise in the eighty-five years since its founding.
Ten days later, Bear Stearns no longer existed, and the calamitous financial meltdown of 2008 had begun.
How this happened – and why – is the subject of William D. Cohan’s superb and shocking narrative that chronicles the fall of Bear Stearns and the end of the Second Gilded Age on Wall Street. Bear Stearns serves as the Rosetta Stone to explain how a combination of risky bets, corporate political infighting, lax government regulations and truly bad decision-making wrought havoc on the world financial system.
Cohan’s minute-by-minute account of those ten days in March makes for breathless reading, as the bankers at Bear Stearns struggled to contain the cascading series of events that would doom the firm, and as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, New York Federal Reserve Bank President Tim Geithner, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke began to realize the dire consequences for the world economy should the company go bankrupt.
But HOUSE OF CARDS does more than recount the incredible panic of the first stages of the financial meltdown. William D. Cohan beautifully demonstrates why the seemingly invincible Wall Street money machine came crashing down. He chronicles the swashbuckling corporate culture of Bear Stearns, the strangely crucial role competitive bridge played in the company’s fortunes, the brutal internecine battles for power, and the deadly combination of greed and inattention that helps to explain why the company’s leaders ignored the danger lurking in Bear’s huge positions in mortgage-backed securities.
The author deftly portrays larger-than-life personalities like Ace Greenberg, Bear Stearns’ miserly, take-no-prisoners chairman whose memos about re-using paper clips were legendary throughout Wall Street; his profane, colorful rival and eventual heir Jimmy Cayne, whose world-champion-level bridge skills were a lever in his corporate rise and became a symbol of the reasons for the firm’s demise; and Jamie Dimon, the blunt-talking CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who won the astonishing endgame of the saga (the Bear Stearns headquarters alone were worth more than JP Morgan paid for the whole company).
Cohan’s explanation of seemingly arcane subjects like credit default swaps and fixed- income securities is masterful and crystal clear, but it is the high-end dish and powerful narrative drive that makes HOUSE OF CARDS an irresistible read on a par with classics such as LIAR’S POKER and BARBARIANS AT THE GATE.

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5,1 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

William D. Cohan - House of Cards, A Tale of Hubri s and Wretched Excess on Wall Street (2009).pdf

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6 mar 13 5:36

Mark A. Noll - Protestants in America (2000).jpg

A readable, far-reaching history of a multi-denominational, multi-regional, and multi-ethnic religious group, Protestants in America explores the physical and ideological roots of the denomination up to the present day, and traces the origins of American Protestants all the way back to the first English colony at Jamestown. The book covers their involvement in critical issues from temperance to the civil rights movement, the establishment of Protestant organizations like the American Bible Society and the Salvation Army, and the significant expansion of their ethnic base since the first African-American Protestant churches were built in the 1770s. Mark Noll follows their direct impact on American history--from the American Revolution to World War I and beyond--and peppers his account with profiles of leading Protestants, from Jonathan Edwards and Phillis Wheatley to Billy Graham and Martin Luther King.

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5,9 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Mark A. Noll - Protestants in America (2000).pdf

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6 mar 13 5:36

Donald L. Ware - Remington Army and Navy Revolvers , 1861-1888 (2007).jpg

Immediately following the Civil War, the United States Ordnance Department reported it had purchased 128,575 Remington revolvers during the conflict. During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71, Samuel Remington acted as an agent to acquire arms for the French War Ministry. Fifteen to twenty thousand Remington New Model Army revolvers were purchased from the Ordnance Department and sent to France. Donald Ware devoted twenty-five years of research in the Ordnance Department archives, the Remington factory's records, and Army and Navy records to assemble this detailed examination of the development and evolution of Remington revolvers from the beginning of the Civil War through the end of the Indian wars. In addition to information about the revolvers themselves, Ware shares tidbits that he uncovered along the way. For example, part of the equipment issued the Civil War soldier was a bullet mold for his revolver. During the War, the Ordance Department issued combustible ammunition for revolvers, making the mold a superfluous appendage. To avoid carrying the extra weight, the mold was usually tossed away. In 1863, the Ordnance Department notified Remington there was no need to furnish molds with the revolvers and therefore saved the government eighteen cents on each revolver.

About the Author
Donald L. Ware first became interested in collecting antique arms in the early 1950s and started researching Remington handguns in the 1980s. Don, who resides in Russellville, Arkansas, recently celebrated his seventy-ninth birthday.

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8,2 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Donald L. Ware - Remington Army and Navy Revolvers , 1861-1888 (2007).pdf

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6 mar 13 5:36

Roger A. Freeman - The Mighty Eighth in Art (1996).jpg

A collection of artwork featuring the US 8th Air Force during World War II. The paintings are accompanied by a commentary and include: air combat scenes; on board situations; and images of the British bases they flew from.

About the Author
As a boy, Roger Freeman watched from his father's farm as the 8th Air Force took off for its missions over Germany; he has had a lifelong interest in the Mighty Eighth ever since, and now lectures on USA AF history, both here and in.

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Harry G. Shaffer - American Capitalism and the Cha nging Role of Government (1999).jpg

The conventional wisdom has it that a balanced budget is the height of economic rationality, that social security should be privatized, and that most adult welfare recipients could and should get jobs. All our social and economic problems, we are told, are due to too much government; if we only left the American free enterprise system alone, the free market would heal all that ails our society and lead to lasting prosperity. Challenging these widespread stereotypes and myths, this book starts with the fundamental theory underlying capitalist ideology, showing that even in theory an unfettered free market cannot deal effectively with the many needs of a modern economy. Our society has many social goals to which the great majority subscribe--goals such as sustained full employment, universal health care, and quality education for all. The free market will not, the author argues, bring us quality education for every American child, affordable universal health care, Social Security for the elderly, assistance for the poor, or protection of the environment. Only an active, participant government can affect positive change in such areas of social concern.

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10,2 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Harry G. Shaffer - American Capitalism and the Cha nging Role of Government (1999).pdf

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6 mar 13 5:36

Janusz Ledwoch, Jacek Solarz - Czołgi Amerykańskie 1939 - 45 (1994).jpg

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49,3 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Janusz Ledwoch, Jacek Solarz - Czołgi Amerykańskie 1939 - 45 (1994).pdf

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6 mar 13 5:36

Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Con sent, The Political Economy of the Mass Media (200 2).jpg

In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order. Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance. Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.

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6 mar 13 5:36

Michael Sullivan - Legal Pragmatism, Community, Ri ghts, and Democracy (2007).jpg

In Legal Pragmatism, Michael Sullivan looks closely at the place of the individual and community in democratic society. After mapping out a brief history of American legal thinking regarding rights, from communitarianism to liberalism, Sullivan gives a rich and nuanced account of how pragmatism worked to resolve conflicts of self-interest and community well-being. Sullivan's view of pragmatism provides a comprehensive framework for understanding democracy, as well as issues such as health care, education, gay marriage, and illegal immigration that will determine its character in the future. Legal Pragmatism is a bold, carefully argued book that presents a unique understanding of contemporary society, law, and politics.

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6 mar 13 5:36

Michael Sullivan - Legal Pragmatism, Community, Ri ghts, and Democracy (2007).pdf

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Thomas A. Birkland - Lessons of Disaster, Policy C hange After Catastrophic Events (2007).jpg

Even before the wreckage of a disaster is cleared, one question is foremost in the minds of the public: "What can be done to prevent this from happening again?" Today, news media and policymakers often invoke the "lessons of September 11" and the "lessons of Hurricane Katrina." Certainly, these unexpected events heightened awareness about problems that might have contributed to or worsened the disasters, particularly about gaps in preparation. Inquiries and investigations are made that claim that "lessons" were "learned" from a disaster, leading us to assume that we will be more ready the next time a similar threat looms, and that our government will put in place measures to protect us. In "Lessons of Disaster", Thomas Birkland takes a critical look at this assumption. We know that disasters play a role in setting policy agendas - in getting policymakers to think about problems - but does our government always take the next step and enact new legislation or regulations? To determine when and how a catastrophic event serves as a catalyst for true policy change, the author examines four categories of disasters: aviation security, homeland security, earthquakes, and hurricanes. He explores lessons learned from each, focusing on three types of policy change: change in the larger social construction of the issues surrounding the disaster; instrumental change, in which laws and regulations are made; and political change, in which alliances are created and shifted. Birkland argues that the type of disaster affects the types of lessons learned from it, and that certain conditions are necessary to translate awareness into new policy, including media attention, salience for a large portion of the public, the existence of advocacy groups for the issue, and the preexistence of policy ideas that can be drawn upon. This timely study concludes with a discussion of the interplay of multiple disasters, focusing on the initial government response to Hurricane Katrina and the negative effect the September 11 catastrophe seems to have had on reaction to that tragedy.

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6 mar 13 5:36

Thomas A. Birkland - Lessons of Disaster, Policy C hange After Catastrophic Events (2007).pdf

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Concord 3005 - Joel B. Paskauskas - Rangers, US Ar my's 75th Ranger Regiment (2001).jpg

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6 mar 13 5:36

Concord 3005 - Joel B. Paskauskas - Rangers, US Ar my's 75th Ranger Regiment (2001).pdf

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Joel Ellis, M.D. Holloway, Amanda Neill - A Dictio nary of Common Wildflowers of Texas & the Southern Great Plains (2005).jpg

USA Books - Joel Ellis, M.D. Holloway, Amanda Neill - A Dictionary...n Wildflowers of Texas the Southern Great Plains 2005.jpg

Castilleja coccinea, Indian Paintbrush. Scientific name: Castilleja, for Domingo Castillejo (fl. 1781), a Spanis botanist plus coccinea, Latin for scarlet. Reference is to the color of the flowers. Common name: Indian Paintbrush, from the appearance of the flowers that resemble a brush dipped in paint. American Indians obtained dye from this plant. This typical entry from "A Dictionary of Common Wildflowers of Texas and the Southern Great Plains" illustrates the synthesis the book provides between scientific and common names of the plants. Intended as a companion to field guides of common flowers in the region, this dictionary offers an opportunity to reference both names. The scientific or binomial name (the genus and species) is translated from its Latin form and its original language - Latin, Greek, European, Oriental, American Indian, even a personal name - is identified. The common names for flowers in this region are usually of English or Mexican Spanis origin, although many come from several American Indian languages. The common names of some plants, like Indian Paintbrush, are familiar to most residents of Texas and the Southern Plains. Others such as Tall Joe Pie-Weed, Clammyweed, or Sensitive Pea may come as a surprise. Dr. Holloway explains the reason for the common name in many cases. Sensitive Pea, for instance, is named sensitive because the leaves curl when touched and pea because it produces a pod. Thoroughly researched and current with contemporary botanical terms, this is a book that professionals will keep in their personal libraries as a reference tool and native plant enthusiasts will keep in their cars for identifying flora along the road.

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Joel Ellis, M.D. Holloway, Amanda Neill - A Dictio nary of Common Wildflowers of Texas & the Southern Great Plains (2005).pdf

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Dutchess County, New York, Drive Tour Guide (2004).jpg

Dutchess County was formed in 1683 as one of the original counties of New York, in a bold move by English Colonial Governor Thomas Dongan to cut off New England expansion and confirm control of the Northeast by the Stuart monarchy. Our name honors Maria Beatrice D’Este, the Dutchess (old spelling) of York. Her husband James, the Duke, as proprietor and future King, named everything he controlled for relatives and friends. The sole inhabitants then were the Wappinger Indians.

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Dutchess County, New York, Drive Tour Guide (2004).pdf

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Perry Miller - The New England Mind, From Colony t o Province (1983).jpg

A classic examination of the early American intellectual life. All serious students and scholars of American literature and history must read this book.

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Perry Miller - The New England Mind, From Colony t o Province (1983).pdf

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Abigail Jones, Marissa Miley - Restless Virgins, L ove, Sex, and Survival at a New England Prep Schoo l (2008).jpg

Established in 1798, Milton Academy had always had a proud history of achievement, integrity, and pride—until a sex scandal rocked the campus and made headlines in the spring of 2005. Written by two Milton graduates who know this world—and these students—like no others, Restless Virgins follows a group of seniors who were there as the "incident" (as it came to be called) unfolded. Startling, riveting, important, and true, it offers an honest, intimate look at the real lives of today's teens—an eye-opening yet sensitive depiction of normal kids with normal struggles that no teen, parent, or educator can afford to ignore.

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Christina Tree, Kim Grant - Best Places to Stay, N ew England, Bed & Breakfasts, Country Inns, and Ot her Recommended Getaways (2000).jpg

USA Books - Christina Tree, Kim Grant - Best Places to Stay, New E...ts, Country Inns, and Other Recommended Getaways 2000.jpg

For long weekends, romantic getaways, and family vacations, the BEST PLACES TO STAY series describes an array of distinctive accommodations for discriminating travelers. The authors personally visit and evaluate each establishment, compiling accurate, reliable, up-to-date, and unbiased information for anyone who insists on nothing but the best. Country Inns; Bed & Breakfasts; Lodges, Spas; Resorts; Romantic Hideaways; Guest Farms; Grand Old Resorts. Describes more than 350 accommodation choices in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

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