One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now. What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers—right from the belly of the beast.In A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Larry McDonald, a Wall Street insider, reveals, the culture and unspoken rules of the game like no book has ever done. The book is couched in the very human story of Larry McDonald’s Horatio Alger-like rise from a Massachusetts “gateway to nowhere” housing project to the New York headquarters of Lehman Brothers, home of one of the world’s toughest trading floors.We get a close-up view of the participants in the Lehman collapse, especially those who saw it coming with a helpless, angry certainty. We meet the Brahmins at the top, whose reckless, pedal-to-the-floor addiction to growth finally demolished the nation’s oldest investment bank. The Wall Street we encounter here is a ruthless place, where brilliance, arrogance, ambition, greed, capacity for relentless toil, and other human traits combine in a potent mix that sometimes fuels prosperity but occasionally destroys it.The full significance of the dissolution of Lehman Brothers remains to be measured. But this much is certain: it was a devastating blow to America’s—and the world’s—financial system. And it need not have happened. This is the story of why it did.

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Michael Lewis - The Money Culture (2011).jpeg

Lewis wrote a very funny and trenchant book about life as a junior bond trader on Wall Street in the mid-1980s and called it Liar's Poker ( LJ 9/1/89). In this new book, he revisits familiar ground. In essays and pieces that originally appeared in magazines and newspapers, he strolls down Wall Street and takes aim at such targets as Michael Milken, the RJR Nabisco takeover, Louis Rukeyser, the Savings & Loan crisis, the Japanese, etc., and dissects them. There is not much in the way of true revelation here, but, with Lewis's puckish humor and inimitable writing style, the stories are entertaining and thought-provoking. And he proves that "the raw itch for money is still with us as surely as ever . . . and the money on Wall Street is better than elsewhere." This should be a big hit with the readers of his previous book. For all popular nonfiction collections.

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Noam Chomsky - Gaza in Crisis; Reflections on Isra el's War Against the Palestinians (2010).jpeg

Although much of the material collected here precedes Israel's recent military attack on a Gaza-bound international flotilla of embargo-breaking humanitarian aid, this succinct and eye-opening collection of recent interviews and essays from the renowned linguist and activist Chomsky (Hopes and Prospects) and prominent Israeli historian Pappé (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine) gives essential context to the crisis. The reader will find Chomsky's consistent positions on everything from the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the issue of a one- versus two-state settlement. Pappé adds vital and unexpected historical background, including a chapter on the deep American evangelical roots in the support of Zionism and the birth of modern Arab nationalism in Palestine. Pappé and Chomsky are not perfectly in synch on every point: Chomsky remains skeptical of an academic boycott of Israel, for instance, called for in the past by Pappé and others. But the fundamentals of the crisis--and its scale in humanitarian, moral and political terms--are clear, as well as clearly expressed, between them. This sober and unflinching analysis should be read and reckoned with by anyone concerned with practicable change in the long-suffering region.

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Noam Chomsky - Gaza in Crisis; Reflections on Isra el's War Against the Palestinians (2010).epub

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Julian Stallabrass - Art Incorporated; The Story o f Contemporary Art (2005).jpg

The art world is bound to the economy, writes Julian Stallabrass, "as tightly as Ahab to the white whale." In Art Incorporated, Stallabrass offers a provocative look at contemporary art and the dramatic changes that have taken place in the last twenty years, illuminating the connections between money, politics, and art. Stallabrass notes that the spectacular crash of 1989 profoundly changed the character of contemporary art, shattering the art-world's self-importance and producing a reaction against art that engaged with theory and politics, in favor of art that set out to awe, entertain, and be sold. He describes the growth of biennials and other art events across the globe in the 1990s, the construction of new museums of contemporary art, and the expansion of many museums already in existence. These activities, Stallabrass writes, have become steadily more commercial, as museums establish alliances with corporations, bring their products closer to commercial culture, and move from modeling themselves on libraries to becoming more like theme parks. In connection with this, he offers an insightful look at installation art, which is often seen as an art that firmly resists buying and selling, pointing out that installations appeal to museums precisely because a work of art that can only be seen on a particular site ensures that viewers have to go there. Shedding light on everything from the greatly increased visibility for women artists, to the intense competition between art and television, to the conservative backlash against notorious works, Art Incorporated provides a frank and penetrating view of the contemporary art world.

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7,2 MB
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Julian Stallabrass - Art Incorporated; The Story o f Contemporary Art (2005).pdf

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Uli Linke , Danielle Taana Smith - Cultures of Fea r; A Critical Reader (2009).jpg

In Cultures of Fear, a truly world-class line up of scholars explore how governments use fear in order to control their citizens. The "social contract" gives modern states responsibility for the security of their citizens, but this collection argues that governments often nurture a culture of fear within their contries. When people are scared of "terrorist" threats, or "alarming rises" in violent crime they are more likely to accept oppressive laws from their rulers. Cultures of Fear is and interdisciplinary reader for students of anthropology and politics. Contributors include Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Zizek, Jean Baudrillard, Catharine MacKinnon, Neil Smith, Cynthia Enloe, David L. Altheide, Cynthia Cockburn and Carolyn Nordstrum.

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Uli Linke , Danielle Taana Smith - Cultures of Fea r; A Critical Reader (2009).pdf

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James Peck - Ideal Illusions; How the U.S. Governm ent Co-opted Human Rights (2011).jpeg

From a noted historian and foreign-policy analyst, a groundbreaking critique of the troubling symbiosis between Washington and the human rights movement The United States has long been hailed as a powerful force for global human rights. Now, drawing on thousands of documents from the CIA, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, and development agencies, James Peck shows in blunt detail how Washington has shaped human rights into a potent ideological weapon for purposes having little to do with rights—and everything to do with furthering America's global reach.Using the words of Washington's leaders when they are speaking among themselves, Peck tracks the rise of human rights from its dismissal in the cold war years as "fuzzy minded" to its calculated adoption, after the Vietnam War, as a rationale for American foreign engagement. He considers such milestones as the fight for Soviet dissidents, Tiananmen Square, and today's war on terror, exposing in the process how the human rights movement has too often failed to challenge Washington's strategies. A gripping and elegant work of analysis, Ideal Illusions argues that the movement must break free from Washington if it is to develop a truly uncompromising critique of power in all its forms.

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Radiowa Trójka - Za, a nawet przeciw - Niekontrolo wany proceder handlu danymi - 12.04.2011 (43m46s).mp3

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0,9 MB
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Radiowa Trójka - Google łamie prywatność użytkowni ków portalu (56s).mp3

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Javier Santiso - Latin America's Political Economy of the Possible; Beyond Good Revolutionaries and Free-Marketeers (2006).jpg

Różne - Javier Santiso - Latin Americas Political Economy of the...le Beyond Good Revolutionaries and Free-Marketeers 2006.jpg

Neither socialism nor free-market neoliberalism has been a very helpful model for Latin America, writes Javier Santiso in this witty and literate reading of that region's economic and political condition. Latin America must move beyond utopian schemes and rigid ideologies invented in other hemispheres and acknowledge its own social realities of inequality and poverty. And today some countries—notably Chile and Brazil, but also Mexico and Colombia—are doing just that: abandoning the economic "magic realism" that plots miraculous but impossible solutions and forging instead a pragmatic path of gradual reform. Many Latin American leaders are adopting an approach combining monetary and fiscal orthodoxies with progressive social policies. This, says Santiso, is "the silent arrival of the political economy of the possible," which offers hope to a region exhausted by economic reform programs entailing macroeconomic shocks and countershocks. Santiso describes the creation in Chile and Brazil of institutions and policies that are connected to social realities rather than to theories found in economics textbooks. Mexico too has created its own fiscal and monetary policies and institutions, and it has the additional benefit of being a party to NAFTA. Santiso outlines the development strategies unfolding in Latin America, from Chile and Brazil to Colombia and Uruguay, strategies anchored externally by treaties and trade agreements and internally by strong fiscal and monetary institutions and policies. And he charts the less successful trajectories of Argentina, Venezuela, and Bolivia, which are still in thrall to utopian but impossible miracle cures. Santiso's account of this emerging transformation describes Latin America at a crossroads. Beginning in 2006, elections in Brazil, Mexico, and elsewhere may signal whether Latin America will decisively choose the political economy of the possible over the political economy of the impossible.

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7,8 MB
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Javier Santiso - Latin America's Political Economy of the Possible; Beyond Good Revolutionaries and Free-Marketeers (2006).pdf

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Ha-Joon Chang - 23 Things They Don't Tell You Abou t Capitalism (2011).jpeg

If you've wondered how we did not see the economic collapse coming, Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: We didn't ask what they didn't tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists-the apostles of the freemarket-have spun since the Age of Reagan. Chang, the author of the international bestseller Bad Samaritans, is one of the world's most respected economists, a voice of sanity-and wit-in the tradition of John Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz. 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism equips readers with an understanding of how global capitalism works-and doesn't. In his final chapter, "How to Rebuild the World," Chang offers a vision of how we can shape capitalism to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market. Ha-Joon Chang teaches in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge. His books include the bestselling Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. His Kicking Away the Ladder received the 2003 Myrdal Prize, and, in 2005, Chang was awarded the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.
Thing 1: There is no such thing as free market.
Thing 4: The washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet.
Thing 5: Assume the worst about people, and you get the worst.
Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.

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Ha-Joon Chang - 23 Things They Don't Tell You Abou t Capitalism (2011).epub

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Garet Garrett - The Bubble That Broke the World (2 007).jpg

This book blows away the conventional interpretations of the crash of 1929, not only in its contents but that this book exists at all. It was written in 1931. He ascribes the crash to the pile of up debt, which in turn was made possible by the Fed printing machine. This created distortions in the production structure that cried out for correction. So what is the answer? Let the correction happen and learn from our mistakes.

Such is the thesis of the great Garet Garrett. But take note: this book was a big seller in 1931. In other words, two years before FDR arrived with his destructive New Deal, ascribing the depression to capitalism and speculation, Garrett had already explained what was really behind the correction.

It took Murray Rothbard to resurrect these truths decades later, and when he wrote this in 1963, it was a shock and we are still fighting an uphill battle to explain the true causes of the crash and following depression. But here in this wonderful book is an actual contemporary account that spelled it out plainly for the world to see.

No more can we say that people back then could not have understood. Garrett told them. And thanks to this new edition of this classic and important work, he is telling us again today.

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Garet Garrett - The Bubble That Broke the World (2 007).pdf

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Martin A. Gardner - The Marx Brothers as Social Cr itics; Satire and Comic Nihilism in Their Films (2 009).jpg

The Marx Brothers' films are packed with slapstick and obvious jokes, gags, puns, pratfalls, and mimicry. But beneath the laughs is a serious and biting condemnation of American culture. This book examines historical events, political practices, economic conditions, manners and customs, literary subjects, and popular entertainment as satirized in the films and considers the ways in which the films were relevant in their era and remain so today.

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Martin A. Gardner - The Marx Brothers as Social Cr itics; Satire and Comic Nihilism in Their Films (2 009).pdf

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George Sanford - Democratic Government in Poland; Constitutional Politics Since 1989 (2002).jpg

Democratic government has now been entrenched in Poland. An increasingly significant European actor, Poland presents problematic but also stimulating challenges to new NATO and EU associates. This authoritative overview examines in depth the constitutional and governmental framework in Poland since 1989 and its central political institutions, mechanisms, and actors. Sanford demonstrates how the governmental system evolved pragmatically during the 1990s to cope with modernization and consolidated viable independent statehood consensually around Poland's hardy constitutional values.

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George Sanford - Democratic Government in Poland; Constitutional Politics Since 1989 (2002).pdf

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Lawrence G. McDonald, Patrick Robinson - A Colossa l Failure of Common Sense; The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers (2009).jpg

Różne - Lawrence G. McDonald, Patrick Robinson - A Colossal Fail...he Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers 2009.jpg

One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now. What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers—right from the belly of the beast.

In A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Larry McDonald, a Wall Street insider, reveals the culture and unspoken rules of the game like no book has ever done. The book is couched in the very human story of Larry McDonald’s Horatio Alger-like rise from a Massachusetts “gateway to nowhere” housing project to the New York headquarters of Lehman Brothers, home of one of the world’s toughest trading floors.

We get a close-up view of the participants in the Lehman collapse, especially those who saw it coming with a helpless, angry certainty. We meet the Brahmins at the top, whose reckless, pedal-to-the-floor addiction to growth finally demolished the nation’s oldest investment bank. The Wall Street we encounter here is a ruthless place, where brilliance, arrogance, ambition, greed, capacity for relentless toil, and other human traits combine in a potent mix that sometimes fuels prosperity but occasionally destroys it.

The full significance of the dissolution of Lehman Brothers remains to be measured. But this much is certain: it was a devastating blow to America’s—and the world’s—financial system. And it need not have happened. This is the story of why it did.

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Crowood - Hans Halberstadt - Inside The Great Tank s (1998).jpg

Hans Halberstadt, please make more books like these! This book was perhaps one of the first books to introduce the Jacques Littlefield collection, the worlds largest privately owned armor vehicle collection with over 220 tanks/vehicles. He passed in 2009, but created the MVTF (Military Vehicle Technology Foundation). You can see some of the tanks used in this book from this fantastic collection - stop by if you're in the San Francisco area. It's certainly on my bucket list.

In this book you'll find photos of the Matilda, Stuart, Sherman, Hetzer, T-34/85, T-55, M-60, M551, T-72 a few more, and of course, the M-1. High glossy paper, superb photos, cut aways, spotlessly restored tanks inside and out. Photos of the engines, guns, controls, ammo, are there along with enough text to help beginners understand the who/what/where/whys of armored vehicles past to present. A few of the photos show the M-1 in the field - dirty, dusty, stains, chipped paint, kicking up dust - that's tanking!

This is not a comprehensive book of any one tank, nor does it really cover all of the great tanks, but the photos are so good, I'd recommend this book to anyone with an interest in armor. The only regret is that there are not more pages, more tanks shown. Hans, go back out there and get the rest of the vehicles from this collection!

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Crowood - Hans Halberstadt - Inside The Great Tank s (1998).pdf

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Weapon; A Visual History of Arms and Armor (2006).jpg

Weapons illustrated history
from ancient world (3000 bce–1000 ce), middle ages (1000–1500)
early modern world (1500–1775), revolutionary world (1775–1900)
modern world (1900–2006)

For 4,000 years weapons, and the warriors who used them, have acted as the cutting edge of history, using ax, spear, bow, sword, gun, and cannon to determine the rise of kingdoms and the fall of empires.
From the stone axes of the earliest warfare to the heavy artillery of today's modern armies, this awe-inspiring book portrays for the first time the entire spectrum of weaponry.
A spectacular, unprecedented visual reference to the design, function and history of arms and armor from around the world. Combines specially commissioned photography and sophisticated design with authoritative text and exhaustive coverage. Beautifully photographed and richly detailed catalogues display - often at actual size - all the major types of weapon, from spears to machine-guns.
Profiles the warriors who have deployed the weapons to devastating effect, from the Roman legionary to the US Navy Seal.
Includes features that showcase individual weapons in stunning detail.

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Weapon; A Visual History of Arms and Armor (2006).pdf

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Wendell Potter - Deadly Spin; An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans (2010).jpeg

Różne - Wendell Potter - Deadly Spin An Insurance Company Inside... PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans 2010.jpeg

The disinformation campaigns with which health insurance companies hide misdeeds and manipulate public policy are laid bare in this searing j'accuse by one of their own. Potter, a former CIGNA public relations "spin-meister" whose whistle-blowing congressional testimony made a splash, takes us into the war rooms where he and his fellow flacks battled bad publicity--their counterattack against the documentary Sicko included employee training in how to weather a Michael Moore ambush--and fought to stymie health-care legislation. (He helped formulate the rhetoric of socialism and death panels that thundered from Republican podiums.) He exposes the PR pros' propaganda tricks--fake grass-roots organizations, bogus scientific studies--and recounts his shame-faced repentance. But he also trenchantly critiques the failure of America's for-profit health-insurance system: the underhanded methods insurers use to "dump the sick"; the skyrocketing premiums and deductibles that put health care beyond the reach of millions; the obscene salaries executives rake in while denying benefits to patients. These criticisms aren't new, but Potter's street cred and deep knowledge of the industry make his indictment unusually vivid and compelling.

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Audiobook - Wendell Potter - Deadly Spin; An Insur ance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate P R Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans ( 2010) Read by Patrick Lawlor (557m36s).mp3

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Steve Knopper - Appetite for Self-Destruction; The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the D igital Age (2009).jpeg

Różne - Steve Knopper - Appetite for Self-Destruction The Specta...ar Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age 2009.jpeg

In this ambitious look at the music industrys digital revolution, freelance music writer Knopper admirably attempts to make sense of more than three decades of fitful technological innovation and ego clashes. The story begins with the antidisco rallies of the late 1970s, spends a great deal of time on the excesses of the CD era (with an unnecessary detour into the nefarious business dealings of boy band manager Lou Pearlman), then chronicles the reign of Napster and its eventual usurpation by Apples legal iTunes service. Knopper is at his best giving life to the tales of technological innovation and diligent salesmanship that fueled these shifts in consumer trends, as in the story of the CDs invention and the subsequent difficulty of persuading label executives to adopt the new format. The later tales of backroom deals featuring Steve Jobs and various label heads have the spark of real drama, but this is undermined by Knopper not having access to Jobs and by the historical proximity of the events.

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John Quiggin - Zombie Economics; How Dead Ideas St ill Walk among Us (2010).jpg

The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism--the theory that market-based solutions are always best, regardless of the problem. For decades, their advocates dominated mainstream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe. The crisis seemed to have killed off these ideas, but they still live on in the minds of many--members of the public, commentators, politicians, economists, and even those charged with cleaning up the mess. In Zombie Economics, John Quiggin explains how these dead ideas still walk among us--and why we must find a way to kill them once and for all if we are to avoid an even bigger financial crisis in the future.

Zombie Economics takes the reader through the origins, consequences, and implosion of a system of ideas whose time has come and gone. These beliefs--that deregulation had conquered the financial cycle, that markets were always the best judge of value, that policies designed to benefit the rich made everyone better off--brought us to the brink of disaster once before, and their persistent hold on many threatens to do so again. Because these ideas will never die unless there is an alternative, Zombie Economics also looks ahead at what could replace market liberalism, arguing that a simple return to traditional Keynesian economics and the politics of the welfare state will not be enough--either to kill dead ideas, or prevent future crises.

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