Author: Michael Green File Type: mobi In Gold We Trust? uses the surge in the price of gold in recent years as a lens to explore the future of money. The economic crisis has caused a crisis of confidence in the dollar, the euro and all money based on the promises of governments. Gold fundamentalists think we should turn back the clock to a system where money is based on gold. Most mainstream economists think this is madness and expect the current system to muddle along. Both are wrong. We argue that rather than being immutable, money is a technology. And, like all technologies, it evolves as what expect from it changes. In a multipolar world, the global economy cannot be based on the dollar, which represents the wobbly promises of the US Federal Government. Instead, we expect money to evolve into a portfolio of monies. Gold, because it is familiar, has been investors first choice in building their monetary portfolios. It wont be the last. The story of gold is therefore not about a return to past certainties but an indicator of an uncertain, unpredictable future for the technology we call money.Amazon.com ReviewMoney began some 5,000 years ago when coins were introduced as units exchangeable for a handful of barley. From this point on, the story of money and its evolution gets quite interesting. Economist writers Michael Green and Matthew Bishop take readers on an exquisite journey through the history of money and its entanglements with philosophers, physicists, rulers, wars, criminals, the discovery of the Americas, and, later, economists. All forms of money, as it turns out, fail with alarming frequency. Fiat currencies--money that is created and backed by a government such as the US dollar or the Euro--fail when people lose trust in the institutions that backs them. Commodity currencies--such as silver coins and gold-backed notes--fail for many more reasons, such as debasement, supply issues, and politics (governments often outlaw commodity money and switch to fiat currency to ease recessions or to fund wars). So where does gold figure into the monetary system? According to the authors, an oversight by Sir Isaac Newton eventually led to gold-backed paper money--a highly problematic, short-lived experiment. So whats next in the evolution of money? In Gold We Trust? explores that frontier in its last chapter. Both highly engaging and well-crafted, this Kindle Single encompasses technology, economics, politics, history, and psychology as it explores the past and future of money. --Paul DiamondFrom AudioFile

Author: Scott Morgenstern File Type: pdf Are politics local? Why? Where? When? How do we measure local versus national politics? And what are the effects? This book provides answers to these questions, within an explicitly comparative framework, including both advanced and developing democracies. It does so by using a statistically-based and graphical account of party nationalization, providing methodology and data for legislative elections covering scores of parties across dozens of countries. The book divides party nationalization into two dimensions - static and dynamic - to capture different aspects of localism, both with important implications for representation. Static nationalization measures the consistency in a partys support across the country and thus shows whether parties are able to encompass local concerns into their platforms. Dynamic nationalization, in turn, measures the consistency among the districts in over-time change in electoral results, under the presumption that where districts differ in their electoral responses, local factors must drive politics. Each of the two dimensions, in sum, considers representation from the perspective of the mix of national versus local politics. **

Author: Stuart Hall File Type: pdf This book brings together in one volume contributions made to the public debate that has developed around the Kilburn Manifesto, a Soundings project that seeks to map the political, economic, social and cultural contours of neoliberalism. The manifesto opens with a framing statement and each chapter then analyses a specific issue or theme. The contributors call into question the neoliberal order itself, and find radical alternatives to its foundational assumptions. Contributors Beatrix Campbell, John Clarke, Sally Davison, Stuart Hall, Ben Little, Doreen Massey, Janet Newman, Alan OShea, Platform, Michael Rustin, George Shire Stuart Hall, Doreen Massey and Michael Rustin founded Soundings in 1995. Doreen Massey is Emeritus Professor of Geography at the Open University. Michael Rustin is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London. Stuart Hall was Emeritus Professor at the Open University. The Kilburn Manifesto is a fitting testament to the contribution of Stuart Hall to British political life. It presents an incisive and powerful analysis of the current neoliberal moment making it essential reading for anyone interested not only in understanding the present but also in developing strategies for intervening into it. Alan Finlayson, Professor of Political and Social Theory at The University of East Anglia **Review The Kilburn Manifesto is a fitting testament to the contribution of Stuart Hall to British political life. It presents an incisive and powerful analysis of the current neoliberal moment making it essential reading for anyone interested not only in understanding the present but also in developing strategies for intervening into it. Professor Alan Finlayson, University of East Anglia About the Author Stuart Hall, Doreen Massey and Michael Rustin were the founding editors of the journal Soundings, in which the theoretical framework of this manifesto was developed. Doreen Massey is Emeritus Professor of Geography at the Open University. Michael Rustin is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London. Stuart Hall was a cultural theorist and most recently Emeritus Professor at the Open University. Stuart died during the development of the manifesto project, but his energy, politics and ideas continue to be the foundation on which the manifesto is based.

Author: Michael Fry File Type: epub The late poet laureate, Sir John Betjeman, said that Edinburgh was the most beautiful city in Europe. Like some other great cities it is set on seven hills. But only one of these, Rome, rivals Edinburgh in matching the beauty of its setting with the stateliness of its buildings. Edinbrugh, too, provides the backdrop to much of the dark drama of the Scottish past, from Mary Queen of Scots to Bonnie Prince Charlie and beyond. Michael Fry, who has lived and worked there for nearly forty years, provides a compellingly readable account of this great city, from the earliest times to the present, balancing Edinburghs cultural, political and social history, and painting a vivid portrait of a city - that like Stevensons Dr Jekyll - is both dark and light, both dark and light, both Auld Reekie and Athens of the North.