Read Books Online and Download eBooks, EPub, PDF, Mobi, Kindle, Text Full Free.
Do Americans Shop Too Much
Download Do Americans Shop Too Much full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Do Americans Shop Too Much ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
Book Synopsis Do Americans Shop Too Much? by : Juliet Schor
Download or read book Do Americans Shop Too Much? written by Juliet Schor and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Juliet Schor breaks a taboo by exposing Americans' shopping habits to moral society. Schor disapproves of unfettered private consumption, not only because we already use up so much, but also because overspending to bolster a sense of self does not lead to happiness. Along with her critique, Schor suggests intriguing ideas for making 'status' goods accessible for all--for example, imposing high taxes on expensive items to subsidize lines of affordable 'luxury' goods. A firestorm of responses follow from economist Robert Frank and others. The New Democracy Forum is a series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns. "A civic treasure. . . . A truly good idea, carried out with intelligence and panache." --Robert Pinsky
Book Synopsis Do Americans Shop Too Much? by : Juliet Schor
Download or read book Do Americans Shop Too Much? written by Juliet Schor and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Juliet Schor breaks a taboo by exposing Americans' shopping habits to moral society. Schor disapproves of unfettered private consumption, not only because we already use up so much, but also because overspending to bolster a sense of self does not lead to happiness. Along with her critique, Schor suggests intriguing ideas for making 'status' goods accessible for all--for example, imposing high taxes on expensive items to subsidize lines of affordable 'luxury' goods. A firestorm of responses follow from economist Robert Frank and others. The New Democracy Forum is a series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns. "A civic treasure. . . . A truly good idea, carried out with intelligence and panache." --Robert Pinsky
Book Synopsis A Consumers' Republic by : Lizabeth Cohen
Download or read book A Consumers' Republic written by Lizabeth Cohen and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-12-24 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this signal work of history, Bancroft Prize winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lizabeth Cohen shows how the pursuit of prosperity after World War II fueled our pervasive consumer mentality and transformed American life. Trumpeted as a means to promote the general welfare, mass consumption quickly outgrew its economic objectives and became synonymous with patriotism, social equality, and the American Dream. Material goods came to embody the promise of America, and the power of consumers to purchase everything from vacuum cleaners to convertibles gave rise to the power of citizens to purchase political influence and effect social change. Yet despite undeniable successes and unprecedented affluence, mass consumption also fostered economic inequality and the fracturing of society along gender, class, and racial lines. In charting the complex legacy of our “Consumers’ Republic” Lizabeth Cohen has written a bold, encompassing, and profoundly influential book.
Book Synopsis The No Spend Year by : Michelle McGagh
Download or read book The No Spend Year written by Michelle McGagh and published by Coronet. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Personal finance journalist, Michelle McGagh, takes on a challenge to not spend money for a whole year in an engaging narrative that combines personal experience with accessible advice on money so you can learn to spend less and live more. Michelle McGagh has been writing about money for over a decade but she was spending with abandon and ignoring bank statements. Just because she wasn't in serious debt, apart from her massive London mortgage, she thought she was in control. She wasn't. Michelle's took a radical approach and set herself a challenge to not spend anything for an entire year. She paid her bills and she has a minimal budget for her weekly groceries but otherwise Michelle spent no money at all. She found creative ways to live have a social life and to travel for free. She has saved money but more importantly she is happier. Her relationship with money, with things, with time, with others has changed for the better. The No Spend Year is Michelle's honestly written and personal account of her challenge. But it is more than that, it is also a tool for life. There are top tips for your own finances including easy to understand advice on interest, mortgages, savings , pensions and spending less to help you live a more financially secure life.
Download or read book Beyond Our Means written by Sheldon Garon and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Garon's insightful and provocative new book couldn't be more important, and couldn't be more timely. The prosperity of Americans, and America, now depends on creating a nation of savers and investors, and Garon shows us the way by bringing the experience and lessons of nations worldwide right into our hands."--Ray Boshara, senior fellow, "New America Foundation."
Book Synopsis Forgotten Americans by : Isabel Sawhill
Download or read book Forgotten Americans written by Isabel Sawhill and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation’s economic inequalities One of the country’s leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society—economic, cultural, and political—and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. While many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.
Download or read book Shoptimism written by Lee Eisenberg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-11-03 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this smart, engaging book, Lee Eisenberg, best-selling author of The Number: A Completely Different Way to Think about the Rest of Your Life, leads us on a provocative and entertaining tour of America's love/hate affair with shopping, a pursuit that, even in hard times, remains a true national pastime. Why do we shop and buy the way we do? In a work that will explain much about the American character, Eisenberg chronicles the dynamics of selling and buying from almost every angle. Neither a cheerleader for consumption nor an anti-consumerist scold, he explores with boundless curiosity the vast machinery aimed at inducing us to purchase everything from hair mousse to a little black dress. He leads us, with understated humor, into the broad universe of marketing, retailing, advertising, and consumer and scientific research--an arsenal of powerful forces that combine to form what he calls "The Sell Side." Through the rest of the book, Eisenberg leads us through the "Buy Side" -- a journey directly into our own hearts and minds, asking among other questions: What are we really looking for when we buy? Why are we alternately excited, guilt-ridden, satisfied, disappointed, and recklessly impulsive? What are our biases, need for status, impulses to self-express, that lead us individually to buy what we buy? Are you a classic buyer (your head wants to do the right thing), or a romantic buyer (your heart just wants to have fun)? How do men and women differ in their attitudes towards shopping, and does the old cliche -- "Women shop, men buy" -- apply any longer? Of special interest are the author's findings on the subject of What Makes a Good Buy? We all purchase things that we sooner or later regret, but what are the guidelines for making purchases that we'll never regret? What, for instance, defines the perfect gift? Brimming with wit and surprise, Shoptimism will be delightful and instructive reading for anyone with a credit card and a healthy curiosity about American culture, through good times and bad. For here, in one vivid journey, is a memorable, panoramic portrait of our everyday self-delusions, desires, and dreams.
Book Synopsis To Buy or Not to Buy by : April Lane Benson, PhD
Download or read book To Buy or Not to Buy written by April Lane Benson, PhD and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2008-12-30 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simple but effective techniques and strategies for the millions of Americans who suffer from a shopping addiction—from a leading psychologist in the field Are you a shopaholic? • Do you use shopping as a quick fix for the blues? • Do you often buy things that you don’t need or can’t afford? • Do your buying binges leave you feeling anxious or guilty? • Is your shopping behavior hurting your relationships? • Have you tried to stop but been unable to? If so, you are not alone. Nearly 18 million Americans are problem shoppers, unable to break the buying habits that lead them into debt, damaged relationships, and depression. If this describes you, or someone you care about, the help you need is here. Drawing on cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, recent research, and decades of working with overshoppers, Dr. April Benson brings together key insights with practical strategies in a powerful program to help you stop overshopping. As you progress through this book, you’ll take back control of your shopping and spending and create a richer, more meaningful and satisfying life.
Download or read book Material World written by Peter Menzel and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A photo-journey through the homes and lives of 30 families, revealing culture and economic levels around the world.
Book Synopsis An American Sickness by : Elisabeth Rosenthal
Download or read book An American Sickness written by Elisabeth Rosenthal and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller/Washington Post Notable Book of 2017/NPR Best Books of 2017/Wall Street Journal Best Books of 2017 "This book will serve as the definitive guide to the past and future of health care in America.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene At a moment of drastic political upheaval, An American Sickness is a shocking investigation into our dysfunctional healthcare system - and offers practical solutions to its myriad problems. In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast? Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries—the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers—that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw. The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.
Download or read book Going Broke written by Stuart Vyse and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-01-29 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last three decades, debt, bankruptcy, and home foreclosures have risen to epidemic levels. To make matters worse, the personal savings rate is at its lowest point since the Great Depression. Why, in the richest nation on earth, can't Americans hold on to our money? Winner of the prestigious William James Book Award for Believing in Magic and an authority on irrational behavior, Stuart Vyse offers a unique psychological perspective on the financial behavior of the many Americans today who find they cannot make ends meet, illuminating the causes of our wildly self-destructive spending habits. But unlike other authors, he doesn't entirely blame the victim. Bringing together fascinating studies of consumer behavior, he argues that the mountain of debt burying so many of us is the inevitable byproduct of America's turbo-charged economy and, in particular, of social and technological trends that undermine our self-control. Going Broke illuminates everything from the rise of the credit card, to the increase in state lotteries and casino gambling, to the expansion of new shopping opportunities provided by toll-free numbers, home shopping networks, big-box stores, and the Internet, revealing how vast changes in American society over the last 30 years have greatly complicated our relationship with money. Vyse concludes both with personal advice for the individual who wants to achieve greater financial stability and with pointed recommendations for economic and social change that will help promote the financial health of all Americans. Engagingly written, with startling insights into modern consumerism and with poignant human-interest stories of people facing financial failure, Going Broke offers a provocative new perspective on American economic behavior that is likely to stir controversy and serious debate.
Download or read book Pound Foolish written by Helaine Olen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-12-31 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you’ve ever bought a personal finance book, watched a TV show about stock picking, listened to a radio show about getting out of debt, or attended a seminar to help you plan for your retirement, you’ve probably heard some version of these quotes: “What’s keeping you from being rich? In most cases, it is simply a lack of belief.” —SUZE ORMAN, The Courage to Be Rich “Are you latte-ing away your financial future?” —DAVID BACH, Smart Women Finish Rich “I know you’re capable of picking winning stocks and holding on to them.” —JIM CRAMER, Mad Money They’re common refrains among personal finance gurus. There’s just one problem: those and many similar statements are false. For the past few decades, Americans have spent billions of dollars on personal finance products. As salaries have stagnated and companies have cut back on benefits, we’ve taken matters into our own hands, embracing the can-do attitude that if we’re smart enough, we can overcome even daunting financial obstacles. But that’s not true. In this meticulously reported and shocking book, journalist and former financial columnist Helaine Olen goes behind the curtain of the personal finance industry to expose the myths, contradictions, and outright lies it has perpetuated. She shows how an industry that started as a response to the Great Depression morphed into a behemoth that thrives by selling us products and services that offer little if any help. Olen calls out some of the biggest names in the business, revealing how even the most respected gurus have engaged in dubious, even deceitful, practices—from accepting payments from banks and corporations in exchange for promoting certain products to blaming the victims of economic catastrophe for their own financial misfortune. Pound Foolish also disproves many myths about spending and saving, including: Small pleasures can bankrupt you: Gurus popularized the idea that cutting out lattes and other small expenditures could make us millionaires. But reducing our caffeine consumption will not offset our biggest expenses: housing, education, health care, and retirement. Disciplined investing will make you rich: Gurus also love to show how steady investing can turn modest savings into a huge nest egg at retirement. But these calculations assume a healthy market and a lifetime without any setbacks—two conditions that have no connection to the real world. Women need extra help managing money: Product pushers often target women, whose alleged financial ignorance supposedly leaves them especially at risk. In reality, women and men are both terrible at handling finances. Financial literacy classes will prevent future economic crises: Experts like to claim mandatory sessions on personal finance in school will cure many of our money ills. Not only is there little evidence this is true, the entire movement is largely funded and promoted by the financial services sector. Weaving together original reporting, interviews with experts, and studies from disciplines ranging from behavioral economics to retirement planning,Pound Foolish is a compassionate and compelling book that will change the way we think and talk about our money.
Book Synopsis The Paradox of Choice by : Barry Schwartz
Download or read book The Paradox of Choice written by Barry Schwartz and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
Book Synopsis Thrift and Thriving in America by : Joshua Yates
Download or read book Thrift and Thriving in America written by Joshua Yates and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thrift is a powerful and evolving moral ideal, disposition, and practice that has indelibly marked the character of American life since its earliest days. Its surprisingly multifaceted character opens a number of expansive vistas for analysis, not only in the American past, but also in its present. Thrift remains, if perhaps in unexpected and counter-intuitive ways, intensely relevant to the complex issues of contemporary moral and economic life. Thrift and Thriving in America is a collection of groundbreaking essays from leading scholars on the seminal importance of thrift to American culture and history. From a rich diversity of disciplinary perspectives, the volume shows that far from the narrow and attenuated rendering of thrift as a synonym of saving and scrimping, thrift possess an astonishing capaciousness and dynamism, and that the idiom of thrift has, in one form or another, served as the primary language for articulating the normative dimensions of economic life throughout much of American history. The essays put thrift in a more expansive light, revealing its compelling etymology-its sense of "thriving." This deeper meaning has always operated as the subtext of thrift and at times has even been invoked to critique its more restricted notions. So understood, thrift moves beyond the instrumentalities of "more or less" and begs the question: what does it mean and take to thrive? Thoroughly examining how Americans have answered this question, Thrift and Thriving in America provides fascinating insight into evolving meanings of material wellbeing, and of the good life and the good society more generally, and will serve as a perennial resource on a notion that has and will continue to shape and define American life.
Book Synopsis Can Working Families Ever Win? by : Jody Heyman
Download or read book Can Working Families Ever Win? written by Jody Heyman and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2002-07-17 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jody Heymann takes on the American belief that creating a better life for your children is simply a matter of working hard. She argues that poor parents don't have a fair chance. Because our nation fails to provide essential supports, it is virtually impossible for these individuals to succeed at work while caring well for their children. Because of the twin demands of work and family that poor parents face, the health and education of their children suffer. These kids often lack adequate preschool childcare or school-age care, which reduces their own potential to succeed. Heymann shows how intergenerational poverty is perpetuated by outdated labor policies and suggests what must be done to help families. A wide range of thinkers respond. The New Democracy Forum is a series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns. "A civic treasure. . . . A truly good idea, carried out with intelligence and panache." --Robert Pinsky
Book Synopsis Can We Put an End to Sweatshops? by : Archon Fung
Download or read book Can We Put an End to Sweatshops? written by Archon Fung and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although watchdog agencies monitor workplaces and press corporations to raise labor standards, these agencies are not enough; only coordinated action by consumers, monitors, unions, and nongovernmental organizations will threaten profits and force those who own corporations to care about the lives of those who work for them. Activists, scholars, and officials of the International Labor Organization and the World Bank respond to this provocative and hopeful proposal."--BOOK JACKET.
Book Synopsis Made in America by : Claude S. Fischer
Download or read book Made in America written by Claude S. Fischer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-05-15 with total page 523 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our nation began with the simple phrase, “We the People.” But who were and are “We”? Who were we in 1776, in 1865, or 1968, and is there any continuity in character between the we of those years and the nearly 300 million people living in the radically different America of today? With Made in America, Claude S. Fischer draws on decades of historical, psychological, and social research to answer that question by tracking the evolution of American character and culture over three centuries. He explodes myths—such as that contemporary Americans are more mobile and less religious than their ancestors, or that they are more focused on money and consumption—and reveals instead how greater security and wealth have only reinforced the independence, egalitarianism, and commitment to community that characterized our people from the earliest years. Skillfully drawing on personal stories of representative Americans, Fischer shows that affluence and social progress have allowed more people to participate fully in cultural and political life, thus broadening the category of “American” —yet at the same time what it means to be an American has retained surprising continuity with much earlier notions of American character. Firmly in the vein of such classics as The Lonely Crowd and Habits of the Heart—yet challenging many of their conclusions—Made in America takes readers beyond the simplicity of headlines and the actions of elites to show us the lives, aspirations, and emotions of ordinary Americans, from the settling of the colonies to the settling of the suburbs.
