An eminent economist warns that Western nations’ economic expectations for the future are way out of sync with the realities of economic stagnation and stringent steps will be required to avoid massive political and economic upheaval. “It is alarmingly difficult to disagree with Stephen King. All one can say, perhaps, is that one of the great errors of human nature—strongly displayed before the credit crunch—is the belief that a prevailing trend will continue indefinitely. The crunch is surely a reminder that what goes up must come down.”—Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph “[King] is dabbling in the financial equivalent of the horror genre. Perhaps even scarier, his is the stuff of nonfiction.”—Michael J. Casey, Wall Street Journal

If you are experiencing financial difficulties, you might be feeling anger, discouragement, fear, or even panic. There are many reasons people struggle financially—job loss, unexpected expenses, poor decisions—but, whatever the reason, money troubles are serious, painful, and stressful. When you are financially stressed, it is easy to become ...

"A startling new philosophy and practical guide to getting the most out of your money-and out of life-for those who value memorable experiences as much as their earnings"--

Whether you're living paycheck to paycheck or just trying to make smarter financial choices, let award-winning writer and Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary show you the practical steps you need to take for the financial peace you long for. In The 21-Day Financial Fast, Michelle proposes a field-tested financial challenge: for twenty-one days, put away your credit cards and buy only the barest essentials. What happens next will forever change the way you think about wealth. With Michelle's guidance, you'll discover how to: Break bad spending habits Plot a course to become debt-free with the Debt Dash Plan Avoid the temptation of overspending for college Learn how to prepare elderly relatives and yourself for future long-term care expenses Be prepared for any contingency with a Life Happens Fund Stop worrying about money and find the priceless power of financial peace Join the thousands of others who have already discovered practical ways to achieve financial freedom and experience what it truly means to live a life of financial peace and prosperity.

Have you ever struggled with packing for a trip? You can't decide what you'll need, so you pack for every scenario and take far too much. You struggle to fit everything in your bag, you get stressed lugging it around, and you pay a fortune in airline luggage fees. The Carry-On Traveller will teach you not only how to lighten your load, but how to pack everything you need into a single carry-on-size bag. You can apply these strategies to any trip, whether you are travelling for a week or a year, to hot or cold climates, alone or with kids. By travelling carry-on only, you'll save time at airports, avoid wasting money on checked luggage fees (which are increasingly common), and reduce the stress of hauling bulky bags. It's not an all or nothing approach. Packing light is a learning process, and you might want to take it gradually. Even if you don't travel carry-on only on your next trip, this book will help you pack lighter.

Each year we pay billions in fees to those who run our financial system. The money comes from our bank accounts, our pensions, our borrowing, and often we aren’t told that the money has been taken. These billions may be justified if the finance industry does a good job, but as this book shows, it too often fails us. Financial institutions regularly place their business interests first, charging for advice that does nothing to improve performance, employing short-term buying strategies that are corrosive to building long-term value, and sometimes even concealing both their practices and their investment strategies from investors. In their previous prizewinning book, The New Capitalists, the authors demonstrated how ordinary people are working together to demand accountability from even the most powerful corporations. Here they explain how a tyranny of errant expertise, naive regulation, and a misreading of economics combine to impose a huge stealth tax on our savings and our economies. More important, the trio lay out an agenda for curtailing the misalignments that allow the financial industry to profit at our expense. With our financial future at stake, this is a book that analysts, economists, policy makers, and anyone with a retirement nest egg can’t afford to ignore.

"My mum works really hard and knows lots of fun things to fo that don't cost any money. But when there's nothing left in the cupboards we have to go to the foodbank. Maybe one day things will be different..." [quatrième de couverture]

"A former hedge-fund trader presents a memoir about coming of age on Wall Street, his obsessive pursuit of money, his disillusionment and the radical new way he has come to define success, "--NoveList

The global financial crisis has had a seismic impact upon the wealth of nations. But we have little sense of how it affects one of the most fundamental issues of all: our physical and mental health. This highly significant new book, based on the authors' own groundbreaking research, looks at the daily lives of people affected by financial crisis, from the Great Depression of the 1930s, to post-communist Russia, to the US foreclosure crisis of the late 2000s. Why, it asks, did Sweden experience a fall in suicides during its banking crisis? What triggered a mosquito-borne epidemic in California in 2007? What caused 10 million Russian men to 'disappear' in the 1990s? Why is Greece experiencing rocketing HIV rates? And how did the health of Americans actually improve during the catastrophic crisis of the 1930s? The conclusions it draws are both surprising and compelling: remarkably, when faced with similar crises, the health of some societies - like Iceland - improves, while that of others, such as Greece, deteriorates. Even amid the worst economic disasters, negative public health effects are not inevitable: it's how communities respond to challenges of debt and market turmoil that counts. The Body Economic puts forward a radical proposition. Austerity, it argues, is seriously bad for your health. We can prevent financial crises from becoming epidemics, but to do so, we must acknowledge what the hard data tells us: that, throughout history, there is a causal link between the strength of a community's health and its social protection systems. Now and for generations to come, our commitment to the building of fairer, more equal societies will determine the health of our body economic.

A New York Times Bestseller The leading thinker and most visible public advocate of modern monetary theory -- the freshest and most important idea about economics in decades -- delivers a radically different, bold, new understanding for how to build a just and prosperous society. Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country. Kelton busts through the myths that prevent us from taking action: that the federal government should budget like a household, that deficits will harm the next generation, crowd out private investment, and undermine long-term growth, and that entitlements are propelling us toward a grave fiscal crisis. MMT, as Kelton shows, shifts the terrain from narrow budgetary questions to one of broader economic and social benefits. With its important new ways of understanding money, taxes, and the critical role of deficit spending, MMT redefines how to responsibly use our resources so that we can maximize our potential as a society. MMT gives us the power to imagine a new politics and a new economy and move from a narrative of scarcity to one of opportunity.