Paranoid Finance


Book Description

There is a link between finance and paranoia, and that link may well be inescapable. At the core of financial imagination lies a notion of value – of ‘value creation’ – that is loaded with trouble. This is the trouble of a fragile metaphor: a metaphor of fecund money and future return, of true value and false value, of true value that should be protected from the perils of dilapidation, expropriation and speculation, but whose substance is in fact nowhere to be found. Contemporary conspiratorial, millennialist discourse on money, banking and wealth does not embody a delirious misrepresentation of the logic of finance: rather, it exacerbates the paranoid potentials inherent in mainstream financial imagination. This is the radical hypothesis developed in this book: that of paranoid finance as a sedimentation of the demons that haunt the conventional categories of financial value. Tutorials abound today that guarantee access to secret knowledge about the financial system, to magical currencies that release eternal returns, to legal schemes conducive to personal sovereignty, and to a way out of economic enslavement. They often combine disparate elements of esotericism, conspiratorialism, antisemitism, populism, libertarianism or spiritualism. But as Muniesa shows, they also provide a testbed for a critique of the limits of financial imagination.




Speculative Communities


Book Description

"In Speculative Communities, Komporozos-Athanasiou examines the ways that financial speculation has moved beyond markets to shape fundamental aspects of our social and political lives. As ordinary people make exceptional decisions--such as the American election of a populist demagogue or the British vote to leave the European Union--they are moving from time-honored and -tested practices of governance, toward the speculative promise of a different kind of future. Even our methods of building community have shifted to the speculative realm as social media platforms enable and amplify alternative visions of the present and future-these are the "speculative communities" that now shape our personal and political realities. For Komporozos-Athanasiou, "to speculate" means increasingly "to connect," to endorse uncertainty preemptively, and often daringly, as a means of social survival. Finance has thus become the model for society writ large. These financial systems have taken a notable turn in our current era, however. Contemporary capitalism sees the risk-taking, entrepreneurial person being refashioned as a politically disoriented, speculative subject, who embraces the future's radical uncertainty rather than averting it. As Komporozos-Athanasiou shows, virtual marketplaces, new social media, and dating apps function as finance's speculative infrastructures, leading to a new type of imagination across economy and society"--




No One Would Listen


Book Description

Harry Markopolos and his team of financial sleuths discuss first-hand how they cracked the Madoff Ponzi scheme No One Would Listen is the thrilling story of how the Harry Markopolos, a little-known number cruncher from a Boston equity derivatives firm, and his investigative team uncovered Bernie Madoff's scam years before it made headlines, and how they desperately tried to warn the government, the industry, and the financial press. Page by page, Markopolos details his pursuit of the greatest financial criminal in history, and reveals the massive fraud, governmental incompetence, and criminal collusion that has changed thousands of lives forever-as well as the world's financial system. The only book to tell the story of Madoff's scam and the SEC's failings by those who saw both first hand Describes how Madoff was enabled by investors and fiduciaries alike Discusses how the SEC missed the red flags raised by Markopolos Despite repeated written and verbal warnings to the SEC by Harry Markopolos, Bernie Madoff was allowed to continue his operations. No One Would Listen paints a vivid portrait of Markopolos and his determined team of financial sleuths, and what impact Madoff's scam will have on financial markets and regulation for decades to come.




The End of Finance


Book Description

This new book by two distinguished Italian economists is a highly original contribution to our understanding of the origins and aftermath of the financial crisis. The authors show that the recent financial crisis cannot be understood simply as a malfunctioning in the subprime mortgage market: rather, it is rooted in a much more fundamental transformation, taking place over an extended time period, in the very nature of finance. The ‘end’ or purpose of finance is to be found in the social institutions by which the making and acceptance of promises of payment are made possible - that is, the creation and cancellation of debt contracts within a specified time frame. Amato and Fantacci argue that developments in the modern financial system by which debts are securitized has endangered this fundamental credit/debt structure. The illusion has been created that debts are universally liquid in the sense that they need not be redeemed but can be continually sold on in increasingly extensive global markets. What appears to have reduced the riskiness of default for individual agents has in fact increased the fragility of the system as a whole. The authors trace the origins of this profound transformation backwards in time, not just to the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s and 90s but to the birth of capitalist finance in the mercantile networks of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This long historical perspective and deep analysis of the nature of finance enables the authors to tackle the challenges we face today in a fresh way - not simply by tinkering with existing mechanisms, but rather by asking the more profound question of how institutions might be devised in which finance could fulfil its essential functions.







Financial Risk Taking


Book Description

In Financial Risk Taking, trader and psychologist Mike Elvin explores the complex relationship between human behaviour patterns and the markets, offering the reader a context in which to assess their own strengths and weaknesses as investors. The book offers an apposite and uncomplicated system of skills development in the form of competences and competencies that can be applied anywhere along the continuum from casual investor to full-time day trader. Elvin presents a Comprehensive Model of Trading Competence (the MOT) as well as the concepts of analysis and refutation, the paramouncy principle, and self-sabotaging behaviours such as the Santa Claus syndrome and Bohica effect. Areas covered include: Emotions - are they functional or disabling? How do the mechanisms of fear, greed and panic work? Motivation and perception - how do belief paradigms affect perception and performance? What perceptual errors influence decisions to the trader's detriment? Information processing and risk assessment - how does information overload affect Stress How does stress affect investment decisions? Technological and mathematical anxiety - why do we avoid learning the skills we most need? What levels of ability are required? Can psychological and biological theories assist in our understanding of investors' performance?




Paranoia


Book Description

Luigi Zoja presents an insightful analysis of the use and misuse of paranoia throughout history and in contemporary society. Zoja combines history with depth psychology, contemporary politics and tragic literature, resulting in a clear and balanced analysis presented with rare clarity. The devastating impact of paranoia on societies is explored in detail. Focusing on the contagious aspects of paranoia and its infectious, self-replicating dynamics, Zoja takes such diverse examples as Ajax and George W. Bush, Cain and the American Holocaust, Hitler, Stalin and Othello to illustrate his argument. He reconstructs the emblematic arguments that paranoia has promoted in Western history and examines how the power of the modern media and mass communication has affected how it spreads. Paranoia clearly examines how leaders lose control of their influence, how the collective unconscious acquires an autonomous life and how seductive its effects can be – more so than any political, religious or ideological discourse. This gripping study will be essential reading for depth and analytical psychologists, and academics and students of history, cultural studies, psychology, classical studies, literary studies, anthropology and sociology.




Kiplinger's Personal Finance


Book Description

The most trustworthy source of information available today on savings and investments, taxes, money management, home ownership and many other personal finance topics.




The Human Dimension of Depression


Book Description

This book describes the depressive in his or her natural habitat, studies the everyday problems that cause one's depression, and develops treatment approaches directed to the depressive's real-world plight. It explores the borderland between the sacred and the profane, the academic and the popular, the scientific but impractical, and the practical but unscientific. It relies as much on common sense, anecdote, and individual insight as it does on case histories and psychological test protocol. The book is divided into four sections: description, cause, prevention, and treatment. The descriptive section presents the mental-status abnormalities in depression, includes a differential diagnosis of classic depressive symptoms, indicates when so-called classic symptoms of another disorder are in fact depressive, lists the physical complaints that are the product of depression, discusses normal depression, and touches briefly on hypomania. The section on cause recognizes that real troubles are common and chemical troubles rare. It suggests that people do not get depressed because they are under stress or they have suffered loss, but, in simple language, because their boss has threatened to fire them, their wife has threatened to leave, the cat has died, and other similar real-life difficulties. It faces the problems that therapists and patients alike find unpalatable, shameful, and threatening--the things that cause patients to close their eyes or speak in remote euphemisms. The sections on prevention and therapy are not attached to any one school of thought. They are formulated and expressed simply and humanistically, and offer common-sense solutions to the depressives's everyday problems with themselves and their world.




The Godfather - The Game (Xbox 360/PSP)


Book Description

* Pull out map poster - this huge poster shows every area in the game plus, on the back, a flowchart of the games chapters and story lines * Full Walkthrough - Tips for completing every objective and mini-mission. The game is big and the route to success is long, Prima helps players every step of the way, including the new missions for Xbox 360 and the PSP game. * Increase Your Power - Full info on increasing your respect and character class. Respect is very important and Prima knows how to get it.