Economy

Most investors didn’t take warnings about the future of the economy and the financial marketplace - warnings that a ‘Category 6 Fiscal Storm’, a ‘Debt-Driven Meltdown’, a ‘Systemic Banking Crisis’, a ‘Financial Train Wreck’, a ‘God-Awful Fiscal Storm’, etc. was in store for the U.S. - seriously until it began. Perhaps this time around, before the other shoe drops, we should become more informed so we will be better positioned to survive and prosper regardless of what comes next. Words: 2128

While belt-tightening is indeed required cutting too fast would tip the West back into slump and kill tax revenues, solving nothing – a risk that austerity priests rarely acknowledge. Pacing is everything. Words: 620

The cards may be stacked against equities in 2010. After one of the most spectacular rallies in the history of the equity markets from its March, 2009 low stocks are now arguably overbought, overvalued and on borrowed time Words: 773

"Say Everything" describes a remarkable chapter in the history of communication that leads not only to YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia but also to the transformation of corporate and government communications. Words: 701

What did the investment bankers at Bear Stearns ever do to earn their millions of dollars in bonuses? Where were the regulators when traders at Bear and other Wall Street firms peddled trillions of dollars in mortgage-backed bonds and derivatives, only to realize, too late, that no one had a clue what they were worth? The author keeps the you-are-there factor high much like a Shakespeare play, complete with three acts and characters dialoguing their way on and off stage. Words: 689

The global economy has entered a new era, and a mercurial corporate form that the author calls the Protean Corporation will become the dominant species by the middle of the next decade. "These Protean Corporations," he writes, "will behave like perpetual entrepreneurial startups, continuously changing their form, direction, even their identity. They will be true corporate shape-shifters." Words: 661

The Japanese yen, the British pound and the euro don’t offer any appeal over the dollar because the currency market is a beauty contest where the least ugly wins and not only is the dollar the least ugly, but it offers refuge when fear and uncertainty grip the markets. Words: 1006

Readers are introduced to a host of little-known Lehmanites, many of whom vilify the company's top management, among others. Lehman "was headed directly for the biggest subprime iceberg ever seen," but unlike the captain of the RMS Titanic, McDonald writes, CEO Dick Fuld and his No. 2, Joe Gregory, didn't try to swerve. Words: 560

Anecdotes and common practices of super successful companies are distilled into lessons ending each chapter plus a list the 10 best characteristics of leaders at trailblazing companies such as stressing innovation, creating networks, and treating employees as if they were volunteers. Words: 649

A sunny vision of that region's future that should interest anyone concerned with global business or politics. He argues that entrepreneurial, religiously conservative contingents in such countries as Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran can propel the Middle East into a democratic and prosperous 21st century. Words: 676