The anxious economy

A million readers bought The Undercover Economist to get the lowdown on how economics works on a small scale, in our everyday lives. Since then, economics has become big news. Crises, austerity, riots, bonuses - all are in the headlines all the time. But how does this large-scale economic world really work? What would happen if we cancelled everyone's debt? How do you create a job? Will the BRIC countries take over the world? Asking - among many other things -- what the future holds for the Euro, why the banks are still paying record bonuses and where government borrowing will take us, in The Undercover Economist Strikes Back, Tim Harford returns with his trademark clarity and wit to explain what's really going on - and what it means for us all.

Imagine your main business competitor building a world-class, satellite-equipped "war room" to secretly scope out and monitor your progress developing international ventures. Incredible? Imagine your classified product prototype mysteriously landing on the market under a brand name belonging to your archrival. Astounding? This isn't the story line from the latest John le Carre novel; this is modern-day corporate America -- and it's full of secret agents and operatives, stealing and selling your intellectual property for profit. Peopled by riveting characters displaced from now defunct post-Cold War agencies, Spooked exposes a fascinating tapestry of real-life corporate spying occurring within publicly traded companies such as Dow Chemical, Avery Dennison, 3M, Sony, Motorola, and dozens of others. Adam Penenberg, top investigative journalist for Forbes, and Marc Barry, founder of a Manhattan-based corporate-intelligence agency, uncover and describe in thrilling detail some of the greatest corporate-espionage capers of all time. A brilliant expose, Spooked unravels the truth and hypocrisy behind the multi-billion-dollar corporate-intelligence industry.

Buy Spooked: Espionage In Corporate America at Attic books in Nairobi Kenya

PLEASE NOTE THE BOOK HAS PEN HIGHLIGHTS AND MARKING

'Robert Peston's compelling account of global financial meltdown is a must-read..' - The Observer

Former economics editor of BBC news explains the recent global economic mess and how to escape it - in his characteristically straightforward way.

'How do we fix this mess? I don't know. But don't stop reading now. Perhaps if we have a clearer understanding of what went wrong, we'll have a better idea of what needs to be done. This book is a map of what needs to be fixed.'

The record-breaking unbroken growth between 1992 and 2008 wasn't the economic miracle that it seemed. It was based on a number of dangerous illusions - most notably that it didn't matter that the UK and US year after year consumed more than they earned.

But we couldn't go on increasing our indebtedness forever. The financial crash of 2007/8 and the subsequent economic slump in much of the west was the moment when we realised we had borrowed more than we could afford to repay.

So who got it wrong? Bankers, investors and regulators? And were they greedy, stupid or asleep? What was the role of government? And what part did we, as consumers, play in all this?

How do we get through this difficult period of transition to a more sustainable economy, one based on investment and exports, rather than on borrowing and consumption? With the same probing lucidity he brought to WHO RUNS BRITAIN?, Robert Peston takes us step-by-step towards a common sense way to fix this mess.

Buy How Do We Fix This Mess? The Economic Price of Having it all, and the Route to Lasting Prosperity at Attic books in Nairobi Kenya.

PLEASE NOTE THE BOOK HAS PEN HIGHLIGHTS AND MARKING

An eminent economist and policy adviser offers his prescriptive analysis of the accelerating economic and political transformations of the past decade in seminal articles and essays from the period, updated to reflect current events. An unusual feature of this book is that each of the forty-seven essays, originally published over eight years, is followed by a brief Post-audit to score the author's accuracy and relevance. Readers are invited to test and compare their own views with those of the author.

Buy Linking Economic Policy and Foreign Policy at Attic books in Nairobi Kenya.

A noted Harvard social scientist documents the pitfalls and promises of computerized technology in business life. A seminal work on the social, economic, and emotional consequences of computer technology. In-depth interviews with workers and managers in a variety of economic settings evoke the wrenching sense of disorientation that follows in the wake of the "smart machine".

Buy In The Age Of The Smart Machine at Attic books in Nairobi Kenya.

Are you an entrepreneur about to create a new web application? If you want to maximize your chances of building something customers want, this book demonstrates ways to apply and test techniques for customer development, Lean Startup, and bootstrapping. Learn how to identify and engage customers throughout the development cycle so you can focus on building a product that people will actually buy and use. By rigorously following the techniques described in Running Lean, you can eliminate waste - whether it's time, money, effort, or all of the above - and get your product to market quickly. Refined through the real-world experiences of dozens of startup companies, these techniques are part of Eric Ries' Lean Startup methodology. Principles covered in this book include: * Find a problem worth solving, then define a solution * Demo before building * Pricing is part of the product * Maximize for speed, learning, and focus * Build a continuous feedback loop with customers throughout the product development cycle * Right Action, Right Time * Build a path to customers from day one

Buy Running Lean by Ash Maurya at Attic books in Nairobi Kenya.

The Asian financial crisis has served as a catalyst for much-needed change, and made an urgent repositioning effort throughout the region critical. This text is intended to co-ordinate and guide such an effort. It provides a new model for the future of Asian business, one which extends the prospect of vital and sustainable growth to economies and companies which have struggled to survive in recent years. While the authors make reference to several macro-economic and national development concepts, their core analysis stems exclusively from the frameworks and principles of strategic marketing management. Their view is that a entire nation or even region can benefit just as much as a single company from using strategic management concepts to determine where it should be heading and how best to get there.
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Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's Mad Money and bestselling author and financial guru, offers specific advice about how to overcome your fear of the markets and put your investments back on track to recover from the financial debacle of 2008-2009. You don't even look at your 401(k) statements any longer. When mail comes from your broker or your mutual fund, you throw it in a drawer unopened. You know how bad things are and you're just waiting for them to improve before you start thinking about your money again. But how long will that take? How many opportunities will you miss while you hide your head in the sand? Shouldn't you be doing something? Jim Cramer says that there are positive steps you can take to start the financial healing process. You can start to get back to even, then go from there. Cramer explains how to make the best of the bad situation you're in, and how not to succumb to fear and panic. He tell you what steps to take depending on your age and your financial goals. Getting Back to Even will include advice on refinancing a mortgage, recovering from job loss or downsizing, and making a new financial plan. It will include twenty new rules for investing that fit the current economic climate. Jim Cramer believes that the stock market is still the best long-term investment anyone can make. He'll offer guidance on which stocks to select, or how to find a reliable and successful mutual-fund manager, and how to spot the economic recovery when it happens. Whether you're 25 and investing to build wealth or 65 and hoping to restore your retirement savings, you'll need the advice Jim Cramer offers in Getting Back to Even.

Welcome to the new economy - a world where the rate of change is so fast it's only a blur, where the clear lines distinguishing buyer from seller, product from service, employee from entrepreneur are disappearing. To profit from these revolutionary patterns of business, you need a dynamic guide to the new economy. You need BLUR. In this book, Stan Davis and Chris Meyer deliver more than a guided tour to these momentous shifts. They offer readers a working model to illustrate and benefit from the new rules of the connected economy, where advantage is temporary and nothing is fixed in time or space. Showcasing the practices of dozens of enterprises exploring the new frontiers of business - from Amazon.com to DreamWorks SKG to MBNA America - Davis and Meyer build a new framework for delivering and capturing value, evaluating success, developing strategy, and managing organizations in an economic world no longer determined by static measures of supply and demand. BLUR provides a lens for bringing the emerging economic landscape into focus - a world in which change is constant; knowledge and imagination are more valuable than physical capital; products and services are blended as "offers"; transactions give way to "exchanges"; and physical markets take on the characteristics of financial markets. This world rewards those who buck convention, like MCI, which has reorganized every six months to release creativity, or David Bowie, who has sold options on his future earnings as an artist. Adaptability is paramount, as more companies build permeable networks of business relationships with suppliers, distributors, employees, and even competitors, and individuals become "free agents, " contractingtheir services to the highest bidders. BLUR challenges you to question every assumption you hold about how business is conducted, and encourages you to experiment at the edges of business. BLUR outlines nothing less than a revolution in business and consumer culture. Will you watc