The middle class of our society has an important role-acting as the glue that holds the upper and lower classes together. But what will happen if the middle class crumbles? The Shrinking Middle Class is a comprehensive study of the economic meltdown and its long-term effects on the middle class.

Emanuel Collado is a self-made businessman who focuses the results of his extensive research into a trend first detected in the 1980s. He provides fascinating case studies of middle class families, alarming statistics, and causes of the current economic crisis that both the United States and the world face. As Collado compares past decisions with current issues, he offers explanations for why America has such a disparity in our society and where the social fabric is being skewed to expand at both ends and grow thinner in the middle.

Not so long ago, being middle class meant a reliable job with good pay, a home, access to health care, good education for youth, and a dignified retired life. Collado provides an in-depth look into why the United States is becoming a two-class society and what we can do now to prevent it from happening.

Developments in the global economy have drastically transformed traditional businesses and trading systems. New communications and computing technology have not only opened global trade but have also provided customers with more choices and transparent supply alternatives. As such, modern firms are forced to adapt effective strategies that allow them to stay competitive in a global economy. Entrepreneurial Orientation and Opportunities for Global Economic Growth provides innovative insights into the present-day trends and applications of entrepreneurship and innovation in relation to different countries' economic and social development. The content within this publication encompasses topics including female entrepreneurship, internationalization, and social development. It is a vital reference source for policymakers, economists, academicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, business students, managers, and stakeholders seeking coverage on topics centered on adopting and implementing entrepreneurship in a modern setting.

What is the elusive factor that will elevate the impact of your most important work? You are an expert inyour field whose clients love what your business does. Business is good,yet your intuition tells you that something is missing. You could domore and Build Better Business, but how? Mastery is the key. Mastery has a remarkable power. Mastery defines who you are rather than just what you do. The insights you develop focus your knowledge, skills and experience and inspire trust. Mastery unleashes the power of word of mouth and your influence spreads far beyond your work. Mastery frees you to create the business you have always aspired to lead.

This book provides a general overview of intelligence in health policy, health-care organizations and health services in the light of the current EU digital agenda, which aims to make health data and e-health tools publicly available. The first part analyses the implications of knowledge management and decision-making procedures for intelligent health policies and governance. The second part discusses in detail the concept of intelligence and illustrates why the perspective of organizational intelligence offers a solution to contemporary problems in health care, while the third part focuses on intelligent leadership models in health-care organizations. Providing a guide to new ways of understanding, developing, and reforming health policy and health services, it appeals to scholars as well as decision-makers in health governance and health-care institutions.

In today's data-driven world, certain infrastructures of society have begun to lose their anthropological traits. Economics, specifically, has started placing importance on quantity over quality, excluding its philosophical perspective. Scientists and associates of economics need to be reacquainted with the psychological aspect of commerce and its significance to humanity. Examining the Relationship Between Economics and Philosophy is an essential reference source that discusses the psychological view of economics as well as its philosophical background. Featuring research on topics such as cognitive science, neoliberalism, and neuroeconomics, this book is ideally designed for scientists, economists, managers, executives, academicians, researchers, and students seeking coverage on the philosophy of the financial system and its impact on competitive markets.

In this first comparative study of Chinese and Zimbabwean railway experiences, Gao examines the role played by technological progress in generating significant social change. His principal concern is with indigenous people whose efforts to meet this technological advance has been neglected or underestimated. Gao shows how different cultural traditions, political situations, and individual interests create an attractive variety of local responses to the challenges and opportunities afforded by technology. He not only describes the final consequences of railway development, but emphasizes the dynamic process by which indigenous people first derived, then gradually lost, most of the gains from modern transport advances. In addition, Gao explores a number of permanent impacts of railways on the two areas, including demographic and structural changes, and divisions of race and class. An intriguing study for researchers and students of imperialism, and Chinese and African history.

As long as commodity and securities markets have been in operation, market manipulation has been a serious concern. Now that many electricity and natural gas markets have been opened to competition, manipulation threatens to destroy the value of these markets as well. Yet market manipulation itself remains ill-defined, with uncertain legal and economic principles operating on both sides of regulatory proceedings. Andrew N. Kleit's Modern Energy Market Manipulation offers an in-depth exploration of this crucial gray area. It presents a coherent definition of market manipulation, and drawing upon the substantial available legal evidence, it examines two categories of manipulation cases: those in which the allegations clearly fit the definition of manipulation but in which the facts of the case are unclear, and conversely, those in which the facts of the case are clear but in which it is uncertain whether they actually constitute manipulation. Throughout his discussions, Professor Kleit casts a critical eye not only on energy companies but also on the legal decisions and processes at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which acts as both prosecutor and judge in manipulation matters, and which has consistently sided with its own staff and against defendants. As this book deftly shows, both defendants and prosecutors alike have benefitted from the ambiguities at the heart of existing definitions of market manipulation. Modern Energy Market Manipulation is essential reading for regulators, jurists, litigants, and business managers, and it is of interest to anyone who wants to learn about the enforcement mechanisms of federal regulators.

This proceedings volume presents the latest trends in innovative business development theory and practice from a global, interdisciplinary perspective. Featuring selected contributions from the 25th International Economic Conference Sibiu (IECS 2018) held in Sibiu, Romania, it explores various topics in the areas of economics, business, finance and accounting, including tourism, marketing and Islamic banking and finance. Written by researchers from different regions and sectors around the world, it offers significant insights into the emerging shifts that characterize the fields of innovative economics and global development, innovative business practices, as well as innovative finance and banking, and provides organizations, managers and policy makers with new reliable solutions and opportunities for innovative development and growth within and between organizations around the globe.

In May 2014, the French research laboratory ISEOR (Socio?Economic Institute for Firms and Organizations) and the University of St. Thomas co?sponsored a second conference on the application of the Socio?Economic Approach to Management (SEAM) paradigm and methodology in the United States. SEAM is a scientific approach to consultancy that focuses on uncovering the dysfunctions and hidden costs that exist in organizations, "hidden" in the sense that they are not captured by traditional accounting methodsand financial analyses. Through intervention that encompasses the entire organization - what the ISEOR team refers to as the HORIVERT approach (combining horizontal and vertical intervention) - the underlying goal is to enhance organizational performance by attacking the "TFW virus," a vestige of the early work by Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, and Max Weber that has sufficiently infiltrated our thinking about management and organization to the point where are falling well short of our own potential. The resultant dysfunctions this virus unleashes creates hidden costs that readily destroy a firm's value?added possibilities. The volume captures the ideas, applications, and exchanges of that meeting, attempting to bring the reader into the conference itself. Chapters include the contributors' presentations ("Chapter Prologue: Conference Remarks"), revised conference papers, and the question and answer dialogue for the session.

Complacent money will be taken by traders Traditional 401Ks are hopelessly handicapped in providing for your retirement. You must act on your own behalf. By focusing on yield and then compounding it, the Compound Yield formula produces measurably increasing income that can be either reinvested, for those not yet retired, or drawn upon by those already retired. The formula is easy to learn and execute consistently for dramatic results. The odds enhancer leads to a geometric change for the portfolio beyond compound interest alone. It takes things easily to the next level. Simple mathematical computations allow the user to progressively increase income regardless of portfolio value. Objectives can be calculated and met over and over again monthly. Results should become easier to meet over time as the portfolio is placed on an exponential trajectory. The best of investing for high yield is magnified by safe trading-there are no losing trades because the outcome is known before a trade is considered. You can see the plan unfold for you. The volatility of your portfolio actually decreases as a consequence of safe trading followed by reinvesting according to specific simple, if not obvious, rules. Marked risk-management follows as a natural consequence of just following the plan. What to do in any market direction becomes obvious. The Compound Yield strategy magnifies income regardless of the direction of individual holdings in your portfolio. How to choose what holdings are worthwhile is explained. Choices are wide open. The formula can be used collaboratively with almost any other strategy. The choice is yours. Being active in your retirement account is important and is made rational and fairly simple by this process. Can you afford another lost decade?

"How I Made BIG Money Trading Stock Options" is a book intended for novice and experienced investors who are just beginning to explore the options market. This book will teach you everything you need to know in order to succeed at trading options by following me through my first 40 transactions. By looking over my shoulder as I execute, annotate, and explain my reasoning behind these trades you will learn all about buying, selling, and writing puts, calls, covered calls, combinations, spreads, strangles, and straddles. You will discover how to use options to lock in profits, how to purchase stocks at less than market price, how to earn double digit interest on money held in your brokerage account, and how to profit no matter what direction the stock market is headed. By the time you are done reading this book, you will have all the knowledge and confidence needed to begin making your own profitable trades!

The global gaming market, due to numerous technological advancements in social media networking and live-streaming video, has exploded in recent years. However, this newly acquired popularity has left many industry professionals pondering a difficult enigma: How does this affect the professional world? Implications and Impacts of eSports on Business and Society: Emerging Research and Opportunities provides innovative research exploring the immersion of competitive electronic sports and applications within global marketing, business, and society. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as social networking, sponsorship branding, and risk management, this book is ideally designed for sports and entertainment practitioners, communications professionals, marketers, business consultants, researchers, professionals, and students seeking current research on potential business opportunities in the eSports industry.

This book explores Ireland's Marriage Bar, examining its impact on women's lives and the predominantly feminised nursing profession. Information on the history of nursing and the evolution of the nursing profession tends to focus on critical events or key persons who shaped the profession. What is less known and explored is the women nurses' work experiences or how the world outside the ward affected the nurse and the nursing profession at moments in time. This book takes one of these moments in time, the period of the Marriage Bar, and examines the women nurses' lives and the nursing profession during this period of Ireland's history. It does so by adopting a historical perspective and a lived experience perspective of women who had to negotiate this practice. Fifty years on from the Bar removal, as remnants of this time in Ireland's history remain, legislative and constitutional change are required to right the wrongs of the past.

Processes of change, stagnation and development in the countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council are analyzed in this book. The contributors show impact of oil revenues on population change and social development and on redefining the socio-economic role of the state. Oil could open venues for industrialization and development. However, lack of population policies, problems of human resources development, the rather slow change in gender relations and in political systems and heavy spending on militarization, it is argued, could impede development endeavour.

This important volume examines the vast potential of--and critical need for--cooperation among the neighboring states of the Pacific Rim. From economic and security matters to cultural and environmental concerns, the Pacific Century will require increased cross-border education, communication, and cooperation, which can be enhanced by regional organizations and agreements. This work offers a compilation of new thinking from international political, business, and academic leaders on the challenges facing the Pacific Rim in the next century, and proposes the emerging Pacific community as a model for global cooperation.