Finance & Money Management Audiobooks

WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times bestselling financial journalist Gretchen Morgenson and financial policy analyst Joshua Rosner investigate the insidious world of private equity, revealing how it leeches profits from everyday Americans, tanks the companies it acquires, and puts our entire economic system at risk. Much has been written about the widening gulf between rich and poor, the pernicious effects our deepening income inequality has on the US’s well-being, and how our style of capitalism has failed to provide a living wage for so many Americans. But nothing has fully detailed the crucial role a small cohort of elite financiers has played in this dispiriting outcome over the past thirty years. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Gretchen Morgenson, with coauthor Joshua Rosner, unmask the small group of celebrated Wall Street financiers, and their government enablers, who use excessive debt and dubious practices to undermine our nation’s economy for their own enrichment: private equity. These are the Plunderers lucidly and maddeningly traces the thirty-year history of corporate takeovers in America and private equity’s increasing dominance. Morgenson and Rosner investigate some of the biggest names in private equity, exposing how they buy companies, load them with debt, and then bleed them of assets and profits. All while prosecutors and regulators stand idle. Morgenson and Rosner show how companies absorbed by private equity have worse outcomes for everyone but the financiers: employees are more likely to lose their jobs or their benefits; companies are more likely to go bankrupt; patients are more likely to have higher healthcare costs; residents of nursing homes are more likely to die; towns struggle when private equity buys the main businesses, crippling the local economy; andschool teachers, firefighters, medical technicians, and other public workers are more likely to have lower returns on their pensions because of the fees private equity extracts from their investments. In other words: we are all worse off because of private equity. These are the Plunderers exposes the greed and pillaging in private equity, revealing the many ways these billionaires have bled our economy, and, in turn, us.

In a revelatory dispatch from the frontier of capitalist extremism, an acclaimed historian of ideas shows how free marketeers are realizing their ultimate goal: an end to nation-states and the constraints of democracy. Look at a map of the world and you’ll see a colorful checkerboard of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. Over the last decade, globalization has shattered the map into different legal spaces: free ports, tax havens, special economic zones. With the new spaces, ultracapitalists have started to believe that it is possible to escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight altogether. Crack-Up Capitalism follows the most notorious radical libertarians—from Milton Friedman to Peter Thiel—around the globe as they search for the perfect space for capitalism. Historian Quinn Slobodian leads us from Hong Kong in the 1970s to South Africa in the late days of apartheid, from the neo-Confederate South to the former frontier of the American West, from the medieval City of London to the gold vaults of right-wing billionaires, and finally into the world’s oceans and war zones, charting the relentless quest for a blank slate where market competition is unfettered by democracy. A masterful work of economic and intellectual history, Crack-Up Capitalism offers both a new way of looking at the world and a new vision of coming threats. Full of rich details and provocative analysis, Crack-Up Capitalism offers an alarming view of a possible future. A Macmillan Audio production from Metropolitan Books.

Have you ever wondered why Bernie Madoff thought he could brazenly steal his clients' money? Or why investors were so easily duped by Elizabeth Holmes? Or how courageous people like Jeffrey Wigand are willing to become whistleblowers and put their careers on the line? Fraud is everywhere—from Nigerian "princes," embezzlers, and Ponzi schemers to corporate giants like Enron and Volkswagen. And fraud is costly. Each year, consumers, small businesses, governments, and corporations lose trillions of dollars. We've become so accustomed to hearing about fraud, we accept it as part of the world we live in today—so much so, that our abilities to identify it and speak about it are limited. No more. In Fool Me Once, renowned expert Kelly Richmond Pope shows fraud in action, uncovering what makes perps tick, victims so gullible, and whistleblowers so morally righteous, while also encouraging us to look at our own behaviors and motivations in the hopes of protecting ourselves and our companies. By the time you finish this book, you'll have a better understanding of—and perhaps more compassion for—perpetrators; a renewed connection to victims; and an appreciation for those who blow the whistle.

Jill Schlesinger, Emmy and Gracie Award–winning Business Analyst for CBS News, delivers ten timely financial steps to build the life you really want. The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to rethink everything. Now, when it comes to envisioning a post-pandemic future, financial expert Jill Schlesinger hears one question over and over: IS THIS REALLY HOW I WANT TO LIVE? The Great Money Reset is your guide to getting real and building your best life. A bible for navigating our present era of seismic change, Schlesinger’s audiobook shows us how to take advantage of this situation to pull off personal transitions. Whether it's time to get that raise, refinance your mortgage, or start a new business, The Great Money Reset provides a framework to strategize your next financial move. In ten simple steps, you will be empowered to fundamentally break through your unsatisfying pre-pandemic reality and thrive through whatever awful surprises come next. And there will be some. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

From the globally-recognized personal finance educator and social media star behind Her First $100K, an inclusive guide to all things money—from managing debt to investing and voting with your dollars Tori Dunlap was always good with money. As a kid, she watched her prudent parents balance their checkbook every month and learned to save for musical tickets by gathering pennies in an Altoids tin. But she quickly discovered that her experience with money was pretty unusual, especially among her female friends. It wasn’t our fault. Investigating this financial literacy and wealth gap, Tori found that girls are significantly less likely to receive a holistic financial education; we’re taught to restrain our spending, while boys are taught about investing and rewarded for pursuing wealth. In adulthood, women are hounded by the unfounded stereotype of the frivolous spenders whose lattes are to blame for the wealth gap. And when something like, say, a global pandemic happens, we’re the first to have jobs cut and the last to re-enter the workforce. It's no wonder money is a source of anxiety and a barrier to equality for so many of us. But what if money didn't mean restriction, and instead, choice? The ability to luxuriously travel, quit toxic jobs, donate to important organizations, retire early? The freedom to live the life you want, and change the world while you do it? Tori founded Her First $100K to teach women to overcome the unique obstacles standing in the way of their financial freedom. In Financial Feminist, she distills the principles of her shame- and judgment-free approach to paying off debt, figuring out your value categories to spend mindfully, saving money without monk-like deprivation, and investing in order to spend your retirement tanning in Tulum. Featuring journaling prompts, deep-dives into the invisible aspects of the financial landscape, and interviews with experts on everything money—from predatory credit card companies to the racial wealth gap and voting with your dollars—Financial Feminist is the ultimate guide to making your money work harder for you (rather than the other way around.) Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Financial advisor and TV presenter Emmanuel Asuquo, is here to prove that learning about money does not have to be boring, especially as we battle through the current cost of living crisis. GET A MONEY MINDSET • BUILD GOOD FINANCIAL HABITS • SPEND WISELY Get Your Money Right is a no-nonsense, no jargon guide to money that takes you to a place where you are in CONTROL of your MONEY, so that you can earn more of it, spend less, build wealth and eventually, pass more of it on to the next generation. GET YOUR MONEY RIGHT takes complicated financial principles and break them down into practical, easy-to-understand concepts. It shares stories of clients Emmanuel has helped, describing the mess they were in before they met him and giving specific tips into how he helped them out of their situation. Get Your Money Right will allow you to understand: • The UK Financial System, Financial Education in the UK, • Money Mindset, • Building Good Financial Habits, • Working a Nine-to-Five, • Running a Business/Setting up a Side Hustle, • Budgeting, • How to Spend Money, • The UK Credit System, • Borrowing, • Saving, • Pensions, • Investing, • Property, • Protecting your assets, • Generational Wealth, • Philanthropy • BASICALLY, EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW Usually, with money, you need to learn from your mistakes, but now you can just read this book and learn from other people’s and the advice of a qualified financial adviser. We can confirm that this book is great investment – it is the first step to understanding your money and making it work for you. Time to take CONTROL. This audiobook contains a bonus interview with the author.

“A vivid portrait of an exceptional woman and a lively history of the economic and financial crises that helped make the treasury secretary and former Fed chair who she is today.” —Sylvia Nasar, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Beautiful Mind “Captivating. . . . Part biography, part history of ideas, the book provides a fascinating window into the ways thinking on economic policy has evolved in the last 25 years. . . . A must-read for anyone seeking to understand the current economic challenges we face.” —Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lords of Finance An engrossing and deeply human chronicle of the past fifty years of American economic and social upheaval, viewed through the consequential life of the most powerful woman in American economic history, Janet Yellen, and her unconventional partnership in marriage and work with Nobel Laureate George Akerlof. At the dawn of the 21st century, many of America’s leaders believed that free trade, modern finance, technology, and wise government policy had paved the way for a new era of prosperity. Then came a cascade of disasters—a bursting tech bubble, domestic terror attacks, a housing market implosion, a financial system crisis, a deadly global pandemic. These events led to serial recessions, deepened America’s political fractures and widened the divide between those best off and everyone else. Award-winning economics writer Jon Hilsenrath examines what happened, viewing events through the experiences of two historic figures: Janet Yellen was Treasury Secretary, Federal Reserve Chairwoman and Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Her husband, George Akerlof, was an imaginative Nobel prize–winning economist. Long before the upheaval of the past two decades, Akerlof warned of flaws in modern economic thinking; then Yellen had to fix the economy on the fly as it cracked. In telling their story, Hilsenrath explores long-running intellectual battles over the fragile balance between unruly democratic government and unpredictable markets. He introduces readers to the cast of modern intellectuals and policy makers who deciphered, shaped, and steered these systems through prosperity, chaos, and reformation. And he explains what went wrong, why, and what might happen next. What emerges is an absorbing examination of how humans think and behave, and how those actions shape markets, inform economic policy, and could determine the future of a now-deeply divided nation. Hilsenrath reminds us that economics is neither science nor ideology, as some once wished or promised. Economics is an endeavor. Most good love stories are, too. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Finally, a new kind of business startup book—packed full of  practical advice plus essential  legal information you really need but don’t get in business school or anywhere else! David J. Muchow is a thirty-year business expert, serial entrepreneur, corporate lawyer, and inventor who can help you build a successful startup business. This unique guide, which focuses on both the business and legal aspects of startups, is a must-have for every aspiring entrepreneur, small business owner, startup incubator, student, and business and law schools. In 7 Secret Keys to Startup Success, you will learn: - How to cut legal expenses and manage lawyers - How to fire employees and partners without getting sued - Patent, trademark and copyright strategies and tricks - How to raise money without SEC problems - How to avoid the financial “Valley of Death” - What “to do” but also “what not to do" to avoid “startup suicide”.   The book reveals key mistakes that can kill businesses. For example, blogging about your new products can prevent getting a patent. And giving away too much equity and picking the wrong partners can be fatal. You must avoid these mistakes to survive as a business. Other books focus on generalities such as “motivation” and miss these dangerous traps. Muchow, who teaches law, business and entrepreneurship at Georgetown, illustrates the 7 Secret Keys with fun and exciting examples, such as how Ivanka Trump was sued for trademark infringement over her Hettie Sandal design and Oprah Winfrey’s battle to protect her intellectual property for O Magazine. 7 Secret Keys to Startup Success is like having both an expert attorney and a consultant by your side every step of the way on your startup’s journey to success!

An explosive and deeply reported look at the systemic racism inside the American financial services industry, from acclaimed New York Times finance reporter Emily Flitter. In 2018, Emily Flitter received a tip that Morgan Stanley had fired a Black employee without cause. Flitter had been searching for a way to investigate the deep-rooted racism in the American financial industry, and that one tip lit the sparkplug for a three-year journey through the shocking yet normalized corruption in our financial institutions. Examining local insurance agencies and corporate titans like JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, and Wells Fargo, The White Wall reveals the practices that have kept the racial wealth gap practically as wide as it was during the Jim Crow era. Flitter exposes hiring and layoff policies designed to keep Black employees from advancing to high levels; racial profiling of customers in internal emails between bank tellers; major insurers refusing to pay Black policyholders’ claims; and the systematic denial of funding to Black entrepreneurs. She also gives a voice to victims, from single mothers to professional athletes to employees themselves: people who were scammed, lied to, and defrauded by the systems they trusted with their money, and silenced when they attempted to speak out and seek reform. Flitter connects the dots between data, history, legal scholarship, and powerful personal stories to provide an assiduously reported, eye-opening look at what it means to bank while Black. As America continues to confront systemic racism and pave a path forward, The White Wall is an essential examination of one of its most caustic contributors.

Advisors, pundits, and academics all parrot the same traditional paradigm of a stock-and-bond-only investment strategy. But what if they’re wrong? Stop Investing Like They Tell You is a practical guide to overcoming the potentially ruinous flaws in an investment portfolio. After operating under the umbrella of a large brokerage firm for over five years, Stephen Spicer CFP® came to realize that his personal investment strategy was incongruent with what he was supposed to, or even allowed to, recommend and grew increasingly uncomfortable with the prescribed advice. Unafraid to challenge the traditional paradigms of a broken system, Stephen built Spicer Capital to address his clients (and his own) investment and financial planning concerns. In Stop Investing Like They Tell You, Stephen challenges traditional advice and guides investors through a comprehensive understanding of the 16 most egregious myths regurgitated throughout the financial industry. Upon completion of this text, readers are also left with confidence as to how they can better invest so as to protect and grow their life savings no matter what chaos the future may hold in store.   

The reach of Corporations into our lives via cards and apps has never been greater; many of us rarely use cash these days. But what we’re told is a natural and inevitable move is actually the work of powerful interests. And the great battle of our time is the battle for ownership of the digital footprints that make up our lives. In Cloudmoney, Brett Scott tells an urgent and revelatory story about how the fusion of Big Finance and Big Tech requires “cloudmoney”—digital money underpinned by the banking sector—to replace physical cash. He dives beneath the surface of the global financial system to uncover a long-established lobbying infrastructure: an alliance of partners waging a covert war on cash. He explains the technical, political, and cultural differences between our various forms of money and shows how the cash system has been under attack for decades, as banking and tech companies promote a cashless society under the banner of progress. Cloudmoney takes us to the front lines of a war for our wallets that is also about our freedom, from marketing strategies against cash to the weaponization of COVID-19 to push fintech platforms, and from there to the rise of the cryptocurrency rebels and fringe groups pushing back. It asks the most pressing questions: Who benefits from a cashless society and who gets left behind? Is the end of cash the end of true privacy? And is our cloudmoney future closer than we think it is? Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Understanding money—how to make it, save it, and grow it—has always been fraught for most people, even in the best of times. So what went down when a global pandemic threw a monstrous wrench in the works was sadly-predictable. What was already confusing and stressful became overwhelming and existential, even for someone like Gaby Dunn, who’d spent the past few years researching and reporting on financial literacy for the underserved. In March 2020, as COVID-19 began to bring the world to a stuttering halt, Dunn—author of Bad with Money: The Imperfect Art of Getting Your Financial Sh*t Together and host of the Bad with Money podcast—watched as their income dropped by roughly 50 percent. Suddenly, what had been more of a passion for helping others became a renewed struggle for survival in the midst of economic disaster.   What Dunn has learned in the interim takes center stage in this conversational how-to guide on navigating our new reality, including finance hacks not in pursuit of the ever-elusive American dream but, rather, a thoughtful, more inclusive approach to making the most of your money and surviving amidst financial jargon, shame and judgement. From worker advocacy, scam awareness, and positive thinking to earth-friendly practices, bill negotiation, and overlooked assistance programs, Stimulus Wreck serves as a primer on putting more power in your own hands. It’s also an inspiring reference for those who would take advantage of a system that is always taking advantage of you. With immense empathy and enlightening experience, Dunn doles out dozens of helpful ideas for common-sense steps you can take to turn things around and rebuild when all might seem lost—“so that people can afford to take care of themselves and their families and to plan for a future that allows them basic human rights like food, water, health care, shelter, and more.”

“One of the best books I have read on investing in years.” —Bill Ackman, founder and CEO, Pershing Square Capital Management * “Should be required reading for anyone investing in the stock market, or wanting to.” —Joel Greenblatt, founder and managing principal of Gotham Asset Management and author of The Little Book That Beats the Market From a successful investor and a contributor to Barron’s and Fortune comes a once-in-a-lifetime book that gives modern investors what they need most: a fresh guide to making money in a stock market now dominated by tech stocks. Technological change is reshaping the economy in a way not witnessed since Henry Ford introduced the assembly line. A little more than ten years ago, only two of the ten most valuable publicly traded companies in the world were digital enterprises—today, they comprise eight of the top ten. Investors around the world are struggling to understand the Digital Age and how they can use the stock market to profit from it. Author Adam Seessel understands. Several years ago, he watched his old-school portfolio built using traditional value investing principles decline while the market, driven by “expensive” tech stocks, advanced. Determined to reverse course, he set off in search of a new investment paradigm, one that remained true to the discipline that Ben Graham gave us a century ago while reflecting the new realities of the Digital Age. In this “helpful take on playing the stock market” (Publishers Weekly), Seessel introduces a refreshed value-based framework that any investor, professional or amateur, can use to beat the modern market. Like all sectors, the tech sector follows certain rules. We can study these rules, understand them, and invest accordingly. The world is changing, and we can profit from it. Approaching tech this way, the economy’s current changes and the rapid rise of tech stocks are not reasons to be frightened or disoriented—they’re reasons to be excited. Infused with the same kind of optimism and common sense that inspired Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor and Peter Lynch’s One Up on Wall Street, Where the Money Is ushers in a new era of modern value investing.

21st Century Monetary Policy takes readers inside the Federal Reserve, explaining what it does and why. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Reserve deployed an extraordinary range of policy tools that helped prevent the collapse of the financial system and the U.S. economy. Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues lent directly to U.S. businesses, purchased trillions of dollars of government securities, pumped dollars into the international financial system, and crafted a new framework for monetary policy that emphasized job creation. These strategies would have astonished Powell’s late-20th-century predecessors, from William McChesney Martin to Alan Greenspan, and the advent of these tools raises new questions about the future landscape of economic policy. In 21st Century Monetary Policy, Ben S. Bernanke—former chair of the Federal Reserve and one of the world’s leading economists—explains the Fed’s evolution and speculates about its future. Taking a fresh look at the bank’s policymaking over the past seventy years, including his own time as chair, Bernanke shows how changes in the economy have driven the Fed’s innovations. He also lays out new challenges confronting the Fed, including the return of inflation, cryptocurrencies, increased risks of financial instability, and threats to its independence. Beyond explaining the central bank’s new policymaking tools, Bernanke also captures the drama of moments when so much hung on the Fed’s decisions, as well as the personalities and philosophies of those who have led the institution.

A TOP FINANCE BOOK OF 2022 by THE NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB A SABEW BEST IN BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS FINALIST A straightforward, practical guide to the newest frontier in investment strategy—crypto—from #1 New York Times bestselling author and personal finance expert Ric Edelman. Blockchain and bitcoin are here to stay—and as the Bank of England stated, this new technology could “transform the global financial system.” No wonder PWC says blockchain technology will add $2 trillion to the world’s $80 trillion economy by 2030. Indeed, blockchain technology and the digital assets it makes possible are revolutionary, the most profound innovation for commerce since the invention of the internet. And yet, the average investor—and the investment advisors who manage two-thirds of all their money—aren’t aware of all this, or of the incredible investment opportunities now available. Fortunately, Ric Edelman, one of the most influential experts in the financial field, shows investors how they can engage and thrive in today’s new investment marketplace. Featuring the prophetic insights you’d expect from one of most acclaimed financial advisors, The Truth About Crypto is fun to read and easy to understand—and most importantly gives readers the sound, practical advice we all need to succeed with this new asset class. Best of all, Edelman shows how blockchain works, the difference between digital currency and digital assets, and a comprehensive look at every aspect of the field. This book is a must-read guide if you want to achieve investment success today.

“The first personal finance book for the 2020s: expensive housing, BNPL, side hustles, negotiating a raise, and much more. Erica Alini is one of Canada’s top personal finance pros, and this book shows it.” —ROB CARRICK Wrestle debt to the ground. Figure out whether you should rent or buy. And determine if a side hustle is really worth the hassle.Get a job, buy a house, spend less than you make, and retire at sixty-five. That’s advice for a world that has largely disappeared. Even good jobs today often have no guarantee of stability. Home prices have reached the stratosphere. Meanwhile, student debt drags you down just as you're trying to take off in life.To survive and thrive in today’s reality, you need a whole new personal finance tool kit.Personal finance reporter Erica Alini blends the big picture with practical advice to give you a deeper understanding of the economic forces that are shaping your financial struggles and how to overcome them.Packed with concrete tips, Money Like You Mean It covers all the bases: from debt to investing and retirement, plus renting versus buying, and even how to tell whether a side gig is really worth the effort. It’s the essential road map you need to make it in the current economy.

A chronicle of recent events that have shaken the world, from the author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century As a correspondent for the French newspaper Le Monde, world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty has documented the rise and fall of Trump, the drama of Brexit, Emmanuel Macron’s ascendance to the French presidency, the unfolding of a global pandemic, and much else besides, always from the perspective of his fight for a more equitable world. This collection brings together those articles and is prefaced by an extended introductory essay, in which Piketty argues that the time has come to support an inclusive and expansive conception of socialism as a counterweight against the hypercapitalism that defines our current economic ideology. These essays offer a first draft of history from one of the world’s leading economists and public figures, detailing the struggle against inequalities and tax evasion, in favor of a federalist Europe and a globalization more respectful of work and the environment.

*A Financial Times Best Book of the Year* A “provocative” (Booklist) and compelling look at the powerful global forces that will cause billions of us to move geographically over the next decades, ushering in an era of radical change. In the 60,000 years since people began colonizing the continents, a recurring feature of human civilization has been mobility—the ever-constant search for resources and stability. Seismic global events—wars and genocides, revolutions and pandemics—have only accelerated the process. The map of humanity isn’t settled—not now, not ever. As climate change tips toward full-blown crisis, economies collapse, governments destabilize, and technology disrupts, we’re entering a new age of mass migrations—one that will scatter both the dispossessed and the well-off. Which areas will people abandon and where will they resettle? Which countries will accept or reject them? As today’s world population, which includes four billion restless youth, votes with their feet, what map of human geography will emerge? In Move, celebrated futurist Parag Khanna provides an illuminating and authoritative vision of the next phase of human civilization—one that is both mobile and sustainable. As the book explores, in the years ahead people will move people to where the resources are and technologies will flow to the people who need them, returning us to our nomadic roots while building more secure habitats. “An urgent, powerful argument for more open international borders” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Move is a fascinating look at the deep trends that are shaping the most likely scenarios for the future. Most important, it guides each of us as we determine our optimal location on humanity’s ever-changing map.

A “brilliant” (The Washington Post), “clear-eyed and incisive” (The New Republic) analysis of how the wealthiest group in American society is making life miserable for everyone—including themselves. In 21st-century America, the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90% have lost ground. What’s left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9% that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country—and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system. They log insane hours at the office and then turn their leisure time into an excuse for more career-building, even as they rely on an underpaid servant class to power their economic success and satisfy their personal needs. They have segregated themselves into zip codes designed to exclude as many people as possible. They have made fitness a national obsession even as swaths of the population lose healthcare and grow sicker. They have created an unprecedented demand for admission to elite schools and helped to fuel the dramatic cost of higher education. They channel their political energy into symbolic conflicts over identity in order to avoid acknowledging the economic roots of their privilege. And they have created an ethos of “merit” to justify their advantages. They are all around us. In fact, they are us—or what we are supposed to want to be. In this “captivating account” (Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone), Matthew Stewart argues that a new aristocracy is emerging in American society and it is repeating the mistakes of history. It is entrenching inequality, warping our culture, eroding democracy, and transforming an abundant economy into a source of misery. He calls for a regrounding of American culture and politics on a foundation closer to the original promise of America.

AN NPR AND NEW YORK POST BEST BOOK OF 2021 From acclaimed Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Mitchell, the “devastating account” (The Wall Street Journal) of student debt in America. In 1981, a new executive at Sallie Mae took home the company’s financial documents to review. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” he later told the company’s CEO. “This place is a gold mine.” Over the next four decades, the student loan industry that Sallie Mae and Congress created blew up into a crisis that would submerge a generation of Americans into $1.5 trillion in student debt. In The Debt Trap, Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Mitchell tells the “vivid and compelling” (Chicago Tribune) untold story of the scandals, scams, predatory actors, and government malpractice that have created the behemoth that one of its original architects called a “monster.” As he charts the “jaw-dropping” (Jeffrey Selingo, New York Times bestselling author of Who Gets in and Why) seventy-year history of student debt in America, Mitchell never loses sight of the countless student victims ensnared by an exploitative system that depends on their debt. Mitchell also draws alarming parallels to the housing crisis in the late 2000s, showing the catastrophic consequences student debt has had on families and the nation’s future. Mitchell’s character-driven narrative is “necessary reading” (The New York Times) for anyone wanting to understand the central economic issue of our day.

In late 2008, under the long shadow cast by the most severe economic crisis in generations, a revolutionary new form of currency was quietly being shaped. At the time no one could have predicted that an obscure form of electronic money would in less than a decade prove to be the most important financial innovation of the 21st century—a tool that would spark an entire new economic institution: crypto economy. That once-obscure money was known as Bitcoin, and today it is the highest valued digital coin. And though consumers continue to scramble to cash in on the trending currency, the technology behind Bitcoin known as Blockchain, which allows the currency to bought and sold without regulation by a government, remains a mystery to the public. In Crypto Economy, Aries Wanlin Wang provides the definitive blueprint for understanding how Bitcoin, Blockchain, and other digital technologies are disrupting traditional financial institutions and forever changing the world of commerce.

An award-winning journalist investigates Amazon’s impact on the wealth and poverty of towns and cities across the United States. In 1937, the famed writer and activist Upton Sinclair published a novel bearing the subtitle A Story of Ford-America. He blasted the callousness of a company worth “a billion dollars” that underpaid its workers while forcing them to engage in repetitive and sometimes dangerous assembly line labor. Eighty-three years later, the market capitalization of Amazon.com has exceeded one trillion dollars, while the value of the Ford Motor Company hovers around thirty billion. We have, it seems, entered the age of one-click America—and as the coronavirus makes Americans more dependent on online shopping, its sway will only intensify. Alec MacGillis’s Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated. Ranging across the country, MacGillis tells the stories of those who’ve thrived and struggled to thrive in this rapidly changing environment. In Seattle, high-paid workers in new office towers displace a historic black neighborhood. In suburban Virginia, homeowners try to protect their neighborhood from the environmental impact of a new data center. Meanwhile, in El Paso, small office supply firms seek to weather Amazon’s takeover of government procurement, and in Baltimore a warehouse supplants a fabled steel plant. Fulfillment also shows how Amazon has become a force in Washington, D.C., ushering listeners through a revolving door for lobbyists and government contractors and into CEO Jeff Bezos’s lavish Kalorama mansion. With empathy and breadth, MacGillis demonstrates the hidden human costs of the other inequality—not the growing gap between rich and poor, but the gap between the country’s winning and losing regions. The result is an intimate account of contemporary capitalism: its drive to innovate, its dark, pitiless magic, its remaking of America with every click. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The hugely popular New York Times “Your Money” columnist and author of the bestselling The Opposite of Spoiled offers a deeply reported and emotionally honest approach to the biggest financial decision families will ever make: what to pay for college.  Sending a teenager to a flagship state university for four years of on-campus living costs more than $100,000 in many parts of the United States. Meanwhile, many families of freshmen attending selective private colleges will spend triple—over $300,000. With the same passion, smarts, and humor that infuse his personal finance column, Ron Lieber offers a much-needed roadmap to help families navigate this difficult and often confusing journey.  Lieber begins by explaining who pays what and why and how the financial aid system got so complicated. He also pulls the curtain back on merit aid, an entirely new form of discounting that most colleges now use to compete with peers. While price is essential, value is paramount. So what is worth paying extra for, and how do you know when it exists in abundance at any particular school? Is a small college better than a big one? Who actually does the teaching? Given that every college claims to have reinvented its career center, who should we actually believe? He asks the tough questions of college presidents and financial aid gatekeepers that parents don’t know (or are afraid) to ask and summarizes the research about what matters and what doesn’t. Finally, Lieber calmly walks families through the process of setting financial goals, explaining the system to their children and figuring out the right ways to save, borrow, and bargain for a better deal.  The Price You Pay for College gives parents the clarity they need to make informed choices and helps restore the joy and wonder the college experience is supposed to represent. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

At a time when healthcare and medical insurance are more important than ever comes this authoritative, unbiased new volume in the acclaimed Get What’s Yours series. Healthcare expert Philip Moeller has written a reliable, concise guide to healthcare and health insurance basics. He provides tools that patients need before, during, and after they get medical care. He describes the care we need, the care we don’t, and how to deal with doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers. Moeller explains telemedicine and healthcare apps that have become so important during the coronavirus epidemic. The book shares the stories of disruptive health innovators who have given us access to true health costs, cheaper prescription drugs, and low-cost care in and outside the US. You will learn how to avoid poor care, fight back against denied insurance claims and inflated bills, and use social media to connect with powerful advocates. Throughout, Get What’s Yours for Healthcare draws on stories of people who share their lessons on how to successfully navigate the healthcare system. This invaluable guide helps people get access to the care they need at a price they can afford. It’s the book we all need now.

Take Control of Your Startup—and Watch it Grow An analysis of success: By learning from both the mistakes and achievements of those before us, we can better craft our own approach to success. Award-winning professor of entrepreneurship Dileep Rao presents readers with a detailed guide to success through his interviews and analysis of billion-dollar entrepreneurs (those who built a venture from startup to more than $1 billion in sales and valuation) and 100 million-dollar entrepreneurs (startup to $100 million). Build your business without venture capital (VC) funding: While starting a business without outside help seems difficult, Rao is here to show entrepreneurs that not only is it possible, but it could very well lead to a more successful business. Rao shares how more than 90 percent of America’s billion-dollar entrepreneurs in the VC era (since 1946) avoided or delayed VC, and instead used finance-smart expertise—skills that combine business-smart, capital-smart, and leadership-smart strategies. The right mix of internal and external financing: It takes more than one person to grow a business from the bottom up. But that doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice control of the venture in the process. Armed with 23 years of experience as a financer, Rao shows readers how to optimize internal financing so as to attract external financing. By keeping control of the venture, entrepreneurs keep more of the wealth, as well. Dileep Rao’s Finance Secrets of Billion-Dollar Entrepreneurs shares with readers: Pre-financing, financing and post-financing skills and strategies of finance-smart entrepreneurs The ins and outs of venture finance, applicable to anyone looking to start a business Tips on increasing capital productivity and attaining financially sustainable entrepreneurship If you’ve enjoyed entrepreneurship-focused titles such as The Lean Startup, The $100 Startup, and Venture Deals, then Rao’s Finance Secrets of Billion-Dollar Entrepreneurs is the next book for you.

Discover number-one New York Times best-selling author David Bach’s three secrets to financial freedom in an engaging story that will show you that you are richer than you think. Drawing on the author’s experiences teaching millions of people around the world to live a rich life, this fast, easy listen reveals how anyone — from millennials to Baby Boomers — can still make his or her dreams come true. In this compelling, heartwarming parable, Bach and his best-selling coauthor John David Mann (The Go-Giver) tell the story of Zoey, a 20-something woman living and working in New York City. Like many young professionals, Zoey is struggling to make ends meet under a growing burden of credit card and student loan debt, working crazy hours at her dream job but still not earning enough to provide a comfortable financial cushion. At her boss’ suggestion, she makes friends with Henry, the elderly barista at her favorite Brooklyn coffee shop. Henry soon reveals his “Three Secrets to Financial Freedom”, ideas Zoey dismisses at first but whose true power she ultimately comes to appreciate. Over the course of a single week, Zoey discovers she already earns enough to secure her financial future and realize her truest dreams — all she has to do is make a few easy shifts in her everyday routine.

Robert Kiyosaki ― author of the #1 Personal Finance book of all time ― has built a legacy around simplifying complex and often-confusing subjects like money and investing. He continues to challenge conventional wisdom and asks the questions that will help readers sift through today's information overload to uncover ways to assess what's real… and what isn't. And use truth and facts as a foundation for taking control of their financial lives. In this new book, Robert fights what's 'fake' and helps readers differentiate between what's real…and what isn't. Robert pulls no punches in his assessment of what is passed off as 'fact' or conventional wisdom and believes that a strong foundation―for anything we want to build―needs to start with solid, true information. In today's uncertain times, creating a secure financial future and the peace of mind that comes with it starts with taking action and taking control. In FAKE: Fake Money, Fake Teachers, Fake Assets, Robert delivers insights and answers that help ordinary people―who probably haven't had a lot of financial education―determine what's 'real' and relevant to their financial lives. Every day we are bombarded with news reports and information and opinions… How do we decipher fact from fiction? How do we differentiate between truth and lies? And determine what's real… from what isn't? Kiyosaki believes that it starts with education, financial education designed to make us smarter with our money―and able to fight what's fake and use what isn't to secure our financial future.