NeutralPolitics
Showing all 8 results
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The War against Regulation: From Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush (Studies in Government and Public…
4722Battered by our economy and disappointed by our government’s role in that battering, we might be tempted to point the finger of blame at whoever’s currently on the hot seat in front of us. But, as Phillip Cooper shows, we must widen our vision to take in the long history behind this dismal state of affairs. By doing so, it becomes clear that our present circumstances are in many ways the predictable outcome of a several-decades-long war against government regulation and its potential to prote…
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Lewis, Michael) The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
1164The #1 New York Times bestseller: a brilliant account―character-rich and darkly humorous―of how the U.S. economy was driven over the cliff. When the crash of the U. S. stock market became public knowledge in the fall of 2008, it was already old news. The real crash, the silent crash, had taken place over the previous year, in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn’t shine, and the SEC doesn’t dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenet…
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The Rent Is Too Damn High: What To Do About It, And Why It Matters More Than You Think
718From prominent political thinker and widely followed Slate columnist, a polemic on high rents and housing costs—and how these costs are hollowing out communities, thwarting economic development, and rendering personal success and fulfillment increasingly difficult to achieve.Rent is an issue that affects nearly everyone. High rent is a problem for all of us, extending beyond personal financial strain. High rent drags on our country’s overall rate of economic growth, damages the environment, a…
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The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
600Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as “brave and bold,” this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” By targeting bla…
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Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke t…
532“Merchants of Doubt should finally put to rest the question of whether the science of climate change is settled. It is, and we ignore this message at our peril.”-Elizabeth Kolbert “Brilliantly reported andwritten with brutal clarity.”-Huffington Post Now a powerful documentary from the acclaimed director of Food Inc., Merchants of Doubt was one of the most talked-about climate change books of recent years, for reasons easy to understand: It tells the controversial story of how a loose-knit g…
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The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
451Acclaimed journalist Jeffrey Toobin takes us into the chambers of the most important—and secret—legal body in our country, the Supreme Court, revealing the complex dynamic among the nine people who decide the law of the land. An institution at a moment of transition, the Court now stands at a crucial point, with major changes in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, and church-state relations. Based on exclusive interviews with the justices and with a keen sense of the Court’s …
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The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies
320The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan’s sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book. Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand. Boldly calling into q…
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The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care
301A New York Times Bestseller, with an updated explanation of the 2010 Health Reform Bill Bringing to bear his talent for explaining complex issues in a clear, engaging way, New York Times bestselling author T. R. Reid visits industrialized democracies around the world–France, Britain, Germany, Japan, and beyond–to provide a revelatory tour of successful, affordable universal health care systems. Now updated with new statistics and a plain-English explanation of the 2010 health care reform bi…