This book deals with the issue of reforming risk in financial markets. This issue has become red hot with the global economic meltdown caused largely by the financial institutions and the practices being followed at the time which rewarded the creation and trading of false financial instruments.

"Whole World on Fire focuses on a technical riddle wrapped in an organizational mystery: How and why, for more than half a century, did the U.S. government fail to predict nuclear fire damage as it drew up plans to fight strategic nuclear war? U.S. bombing in World War II caused massive fire damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but later war plans took account only of damage from blast; they completely ignored damage from atomic firestorms. Recently a small group of researchers has shown that for modern nuclear weapons the destructiveness and lethality of nuclear mass fire often--and predictably--greatly exceeds that of nuclear blast. This has major implications for defense policy: the U.S. government has underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons, Lynn Eden finds, and built far more warheads, and far more destructive warheads, than it needed for the Pentagon's war-planning purposes. How could this have happened? The answer lies in how organizations frame the problems they try to solve. In a narrative grounded in organization theory, science and technology studies, and primary historical sources (including declassified documents and interviews), Eden explains how the U.S. Air Force's doctrine of precision bombing led to the development of very good predictions of nuclear blast--a significant achievement--but for many years to no development of organizational knowledge about nuclear fire. Expert communities outside the military reinforced this disparity in organizational capability to predict blast damage but not fire damage. Yet some innovation occurred, and predictions of fire damage were nearly incorporated into nuclear war planning in the early 1990s. The author explains howsuch a dramatic change almost happened, and why it did not. "Whole World on Fire shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't do well, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences. In a sweeping conclusion, Eden shows the implications of the analysis for understanding such things as the sinking of the Titanic, the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and the poor fireproofing in the World Trade Center.

This book is for a broad audience of practitioners, policymakers, scholars, and anyone interested in scenarios, simulations, and disaster planning. Readers are led through several different planning scenarios that have been developed over several years under the auspices of the US Department of Energy, the US Air Force, and continued work at GlobalInt LLC. These scenarios present different security challenges and their potential cascading impacts on global systems - from the melting of glaciers in the Andes, to hurricanes in New York and Hawaii, and on to hybrid disasters, cyberoperations and geoengineering. The book provides a concise and up-to-date overview of the 'lessons learned', with a focus on innovative solutions to the world's pressing energy and environmental security challenges.

Business Sustainability Factors of Performance, Risk, and Disclosure examines sustainability factors of performance, risk and disclosure. The five dimensions of sustainability performance are economic, governance, social, ethical, and environmental (EGSEE).Business sustainability is advancing from the greenwashing and branding to, very recently, business imperative as shareholders demand, regulators require, and companies report their sustainability performance. Sustainability has become economic and strategic imperative with potential to create opportunities and risks for businesses. Business Sustainability Factors of Performance, Risk, and Disclosure examines sustainability factors of performance, risk and disclosure. The five dimensions of sustainability performance are economic, governance, social, ethical, and environmental (EGSEE). Sustainability risks are reputational, strategic, operational, compliance, and financial (RSOCF). Sustainability disclosures are relevant to financial economic sustainability performance (ESP) and non-financial environmental, social, and governance (ESG) sustainability performance with ethics are integrated into all other components of sustainability performance. This book offers guidance for proper measurement, recognition, and reporting of all five EGSEE dimensions of sustainability performance. It also highlights how people, business, and resources collaborate in a business sustainability and accountability model in creating shared value for all stakeholders. The three sustainability factors of performance, risk and disclosure are driven from the stakeholder primacy concept with the mission of profit-with-purpose. Anyone who is involved with business sustainability and corporate governance, the financial reporting process, investment decisions, legal and financial advising, and audit functions will benefit from this book.

The Gyroscope-A Personal "Money Wellness" Strategy is the fourth book in a series about the psychology of money by Dr. Christopher Bayer, the Wall Street Psychologist. The book builds on the foundations laid in the previous three books in the series and delivers to the reader The Gyroscope- a personal wellness strategy, with a robust menu of tools for overcoming some of the critical money problems identified in the previous three books. After a comprehensive definition of Gyroscope, readers are guided through self-assessments and evaluations, including communication and relaxation techniques-all aligned with or made to relate to best practices in fiduciary responsibility. As a tool for self-improvement, the Gyroscope offers readers strategies for work-environment survival and professional risk management, in addition to techniques for personal deception avoidance. Techniques in this area draw readers into a 15-point Personal Rules of Engagement checklist, and exercises in a personal mission statement, with techniques for success benchmarking, affirmations, and engagement in a personal Return on Investment (ROI) calculator. As the final book in the series, it offers readers a tangible gift, an appendix covering the Top Five Things You Should Do Next-a concise, hard-hitting handful of advice that will get anyone on the road toward achieving their goal of balance and fulfillment-a naturally, solid, Gyroscope.

The Bottomless Line-Important Lessons They Did Not Teach You in Business School is the second book in a series about the psychology of money by Dr. Christopher A. Bayer, the Wall Street Psychologist. This book builds on the key concepts in the first volume, to draw the reader's attention to the "dark side" of the business world. Structured in a way that enables readers to examine contemporary examples of willful co-optation, misuse, and misinterpretation of old texts and ideas, run-of-the-mill corruption, and dangerous groupthink, the author examines the personal and broad- scale financial troubles generated by reckless financial misunderstandings. The book is an exploration of how direct and indirect psychological conditioning eliminates morality from decision making in the world of finance. It provides evidence that ties systemic corruption on Wall Street to the lessons of the storied Milgram experiments (obedience, effects of perceived hierarchy and status, immoral actions-"just following orders"). In the end, readers are led to the "big takeaway": the need to cultivate and maintain a core of character in order to weather any ethical storm. It also summarizes the history of financial psychopathy, details the rise and fall of a few notorious Wall Street perpetrators-from the brass at Enron to the infamous Bernard Madoff-and examines how their hardwired psychopathy leaves them bereft of moral qualities necessary to build a functioning and responsive moral compass of Gyroscope.

Body and Mind-The Effects of Money Problems is the third book in a series about the psychology of money by Dr. Christopher Bayer, the Wall Street Psychologist. This volume advances readers into an examination of the effect of money problems on the body and mind. It presents research that supports solutions offered throughout the series to fix maladjustments of the mind and highlights the importance of developing a sound grasp of the mind-body connection to ensure there is an unbreakable bond at all levels. Strategies for developing stress-free solutions for avoiding depression, in addition to detailed data that point to high recovery rates from depression, offer readers practical, tangible tools for managing real-life, money problems. Pointers on how to avoid The Triggers That Produce Multiple Wounds play a critical role in helping readers to equip their gyroscope (internal compass) to cope with stress. Moneystrewn professions, such as finance, are littered with those who want it all-many of them high-functioning addicts to stress, alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, and the accumulation of money in its pure state. This book offers plenty of stories of excess and closes with a meaningful invitation to the reader: Envision Your Own Eden and the Good Life-words of encouragement to help them consider how much money is enough.

The Causes, Culprits, and Context of Our Money Troubles is the first book in a series about the psychology of money by Dr. Christopher Bayer, the Wall Street Psychologist. Informed by more than 30 years of research in the areas of economics/finance and psychology, Dr. Bayer explores the history of our relationship with money-specifically the role morality, and the concept of "virtue," has played in that history, and the wealth versus money dichotomy. Filled with tales and exemplifications, the book introduces readers, pseudonymously, to sample patients of money -mind imbalances, such as the "11 million-dollar man" who becomes corrupted by money's influence, that unbalances their internal gyroscope (internal moral compass). It draws readers to examine past- and present-day corruptions derived from money's influence and compels them to examine concepts and theories from great economists of yore (e.g., Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and J.M. Keynes) to create a theoretical foundation for what the author calls a Gyroscope methodology. As a foundational tool in the series, this book invites readers to consider, for themselves, stories of mass mind-control perpetrated by marketing mavens who utilize (and perhaps manipulate) insights from behavioral psychology to generate rank materialism, manifested in ever-increasing consumption, palatable to the public.