This enchanting novel in verse captures one young woman’s struggle for independence, equality, and identity as the daughter of Greek and French immigrants in tumultuous 1930s Detroit. Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit is a beautifully written novel in verse loosely based on author Colby Cedar Smith’s paternal grandmother. The story follows Mary as the American-born daughter of Greek and French immigrants living in Detroit in the 1930s, creating a historically accurate portrayal of life as an immigrant during the Great Depression, hunger strikes, and violent riots. Mary lives in a tiny apartment with her immigrant parents, her brothers, and her twin sister, and she questions why her parents ever came to America. She yearns for true love, to own her own business, and to be an independent, modern American woman—much to the chagrin of her parents, who want her to be a “good Greek girl.” Mary’s story is peppered with flashbacks to her parents’ childhoods in Greece and northern France; their stories connect with Mary as they address issues of arranged marriage, learning about independence, and yearning to grow beyond one’s own culture. Though Call Me Athena is written from the perspective of three profoundly different narrators, it has a wide-reaching message: It takes courage to fight for tradition and heritage, as well as freedom, love, and equality.

A comprehensive overview of how Michigan's government and political institutions function

This fiction action pack novel will pull you in and you will not want to put it down until the end.

At a time when the slow pace of economic recovery and continuing reductions in state and federal assistance underscore our need for strong leadership in financial management, this volume offers a deeper understanding of financial theory and practice for its own sake.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.

Michigan at the Millennium provides objective background and analysis on a wide variety of key economic and fiscal issues. The chapters are written by economists and policy analysts at leading universities and other institutions in Michigan. Written in clear, non-technical language, the articles are aimed at an audience that includes members of the legislative and executive branches of state government, members of the judicial system, local government officials, policy analysts, and informed citizens. This volume follows in the tradition of the landmark 1982 study, Michigan's Fiscal and Economic Structure, edited by Harvey E. Brazer. The first section of the volume focuses on broad aspects of the economy, people, and land of Michigan, including chapters on demographics, the labor force, land use, the manufacturing sector, high-technology industries, and health care. Section two focuses on public expenditures and public services, and includes chapters on economic-development efforts, K-12 education, the transportation system, the welfare system, policies for low-wage workers and displaced workers, and pensions. The third section is concerned with taxes and other government revenues. It includes chapters on the Headlee Amendment, income taxes, sales and use taxes, property taxes, the Single Business Tax, intergovernmental fiscal relations, and other sources of revenue.

The economic activity that drives growth in developing countries is heavily concentrated in cities. Catchphrases such as “metropolitan areas are the engines that pull the national economy” turn out to be fairly accurate. But the same advantages of metropolitan areas that draw investment also draw migrants who need jobs and housing, lead to demands for better infrastructure and social services, and result in increased congestion, environmental harm, and social problems. The challenges for metropolitan public finance are to capture a share of the economic growth to adequately finance new and growing expenditures and to organize governance so that services can be delivered in a cost-effective way, giving the local population a voice in fiscal decision making. At the same time, care must be taken to avoid overregulation and overtaxation, which will hamper the now quite mobile economic engine of private investment and entrepreneurial initiative. Metropolitan planning has become a reality in most large urban areas, even though the planning agencies are often ineffective in moving things forward and in linking their plans with the fiscal and financial realities of metropolitan government. A growing number of success stories in metropolitan finance and management, together with accumulated experience and proper efforts and support, could be extended to a broader array of forward-looking programs to address the growing public service needs of metropolitan-area populations. Nevertheless, sweeping metropolitan-area fiscal reforms have been few and far between; the urban policy reform agenda is still a long one; and there is a reasonable prospect that closing the gaps between what we know how to do and what is actually being done will continue to be difficult and slow. This book identifies the most important issues in metropolitan governance and finance in developing countries, describes the practice, explores the gap between practice and what theory suggests should be done, and lays out the reform paths that might be considered. Part of the solution will rest in rethinking expenditure assignments and instruments of finance. The “right” approach also will depend on the flexibility of political leaders to relinquish some control in order to find a better solution to the metropolitan finance problem.