Product Description
Filling a major void in the legal literature, a partner and leader in associate training at one of the world's major law firms provides practicing attorneys, law students, law libraries, and business people with an indispensable guide to understanding, drafting, and negotiating contracts. Packed with sample provisions, Working with Contracts uses an innovative "building-block" approach to illustrate the operation and purpose of essential contract provisions and then describes the specific drafting techniques that lawyers use to modify these provisions to satisfy their clients business objectives. Included is an expansive glossary of contract language and basic transactional practices.
Customer Reviews:
Great book for the new lawyer on contracts drafting and negotiating.......2007-10-03
I am a new attorney who just started practicing as a transactional lawyer. I ordered 14 books on this subject. There is no other book that summarized the contracts writing process and the relevant set of legal skills that help in it like this book.
I learned how to darft contracts by doing it while working for a large software company in Seattle. Since I became an attorney, the process became even more interesting (I had many reference points) as I now have the legal skills to add. This helped me combine the hands-on knowledge with the legal theories I learned in school to improve my drafting skills.
The language used is so readable; analogies are thought provoking; techniques explained are useful; and review and interpretation guides are invaluable. Great resource for a new lawyer!
Excellent book for junior lawyers.......2007-10-01
This book contains very useful information for junior corporate lawyers (and some helpful things for a more senior lawyer like me).
Excellent Resource - Esp. for Litigators Transitioning to Transactional Practice.......2005-11-19
I have been litigating on behalf of clients for the past 4 years. For the most part, I see the pitfalls, head aches and problems recognized long after the parties celebrated signing a new deal. Then a client came to me with a request-- he asked me to help negotiate his contract keeping an eye on the issues with litigation potential. (Quite a refreshing request I might add) Shifting gears, I had to brush up on current contract drafting practices and strategy. This book provided an excellent resource as to structure, potential interpretations, expectations, timing of the exchange of drafts.... well written, many areas covered quickly, not labored or too vague. I recommend this book along with Tina Stark's Negotiating Contract Boilerplate for practical contract drafting and review information. And if Charles Fox writes another book - I'd love a copy! Thanks!
Book Description
Michèle Lamont takes us into the world inhabited by working-class men--the world as they understand it. Interviewing black and white working-class men who, because they are not college graduates, have limited access to high-paying jobs and other social benefits, she constructs a revealing portrait of how they see themselves and the rest of society.
Morality is at the center of these workers' worlds. They find their identity and self-worth in their ability to discipline themselves and conduct responsible but caring lives. These moral standards function as an alternative to economic definitions of success, offering them a way to maintain dignity in an out-of-reach American dreamland. But these standards also enable them to draw class boundaries toward the poor and, to a lesser extent, the upper half. Workers also draw rigid racial boundaries, with white workers placing emphasis on the "disciplined self" and blacks on the "caring self." Whites thereby often construe blacks as morally inferior because they are lazy, while blacks depict whites as domineering, uncaring, and overly disciplined.
This book also opens up a wider perspective by examining American workers in comparison with French workers, who take the poor as "part of us" and are far less critical of blacks than they are of upper-middle-class people and immigrants. By singling out different "moral offenders" in the two societies, workers reveal contrasting definitions of "cultural membership" that help us understand and challenge the forms of inequality found in both societies.
Customer Reviews:
Redundant w/predictable research.......2007-02-01
Lamont's research studies a comparison of white, male, American working-class men to their Black counterparts -- exhaustingly. Then she compares these two categories, then American workers in general, to the French working class. Basically, the French have a more sympathetic system due to their socialist/communist roots. The book's quotes are unsurprising - white American working class men look down upon their Black equivalents as a bunch of race-card-players. White working class American men beat the dead horse by quoting Protestant work ethics and "morality". I was glad when the book was over -- it felt like running on a hamster wheel.
A 20th-Century, Female deTocqueville!.......2004-01-30
In this book, LaMont asks white and black, American, working-class men about those they consider immoral and around whom they set boundaries. Eventually, she results in describing how these men conceive of race, immigration, and class in this country. She then compares these two groups with white French and North African counterparts, respectively.
This was impressive sociology and cross-cultural analysis. Lamont found a way to assess nebulous ideas like morality and show how they help to shape very concrete lived experiences like race. The author is great at juggling multifaceted identity matters, unlike most writers who can only deal with "one issue at a timie." She quotes few other scholars, so this book read quickly and would be much more accessible, even to its subject population, than other academic books.
Her analysis of black American men and North African men was very fair. Still, when she described men's lives in details, she usually referred to her white subjects. She states that neither white nor black American men think much about immigrants. However, she was studying subjects in New York and New Jersey. Things may have been quite different if she were studying California or Texas, and even she implies as much.
It's not that I like how many writer blab ad nauseum about their "positionality." However, I wish this author would have discussed herself more. In this postmodern age, most researchers have abandoned pretending they are not there and the evidence speaks for itself. She never explains whether being a woman helped or hurt in getting American and French men to open up to her. How does she know that black or Arabic men didn't say to her what they would expect that a white, class-privileged, French woman academic would want to hear? She never even explains why she limited her study only to men. This was unintentional men's studies. It's particularly shocking in that working-class American women, at least, often don't have the choice to not work. She never explains why she would even want to leave them out of the picture.
Just like her own last name, she writes French names in a surprising way. Lebleu without the B in upper case? Lheureux rather than L'Heureux? Maybe this is a new trend now that France is a member of the European Union.
I really enjoyed this book. In this country, almost everybody identifies with the middle class and this comes at the detriment to poor folk. Further, there is not enough writing about Arabic men in the West, particularly in English. So Lamont's study is a much-needed text. It would be fascinating to hear what French readers have to say about it.
Tedious.......2003-10-31
Like most of what passes as cultural sociology, this book is tedious and predictable. "Boundary-work" and so forth.
Book Description
"
News for a Change: An Advocate’s Guide to Working with the Media gives you many ways of reaching people through the media. Practical, specific, seasonal, proven pathways to get your message, your urgency, your objective for change moving toward greater justice and deeper democracy. You are a citizen advocate, who, with others, is advancing an important cause. You wish to save many hours of futility and avoid hundreds of mistakes in trying to persuade editors and reporters to convey your concerns and recommendations to the people and to the decision-makers in official positions. You read this Guide and possibilities replace frustrations, strategies displace handwriting, successes take off. This Guide takes your First Amendment right and gives it an engine going your way."
--Ralph Nader, Public Citizen
Federal courts order tobacco companies to pay millions of dollars in damages to victims of smoking-related diseases. Liquor advertisements are banned from television and from billboards in school areas. Ten years ago, such legislation would never have passed. What caused the political sentiment to change so quickly?
In this media-driven age, strategic media approaches are vital to achieving visibility, gathering support, and challenging those in positions of power. As
News for a Change details, media advocacy is the strategic use of news media, advertising, and community organizing to advance a public policy initiative. This book serves as a blueprint for those wanting to increase the power and effectiveness of their social change efforts.
Here is a guidebook for developing a strategy that combines key elements of social change--research, community organizing, policy development, advocacy, and politics--with the news media. The authors are seasoned activists and not only provide step-by-step instructions for working with media to promote social change, they share their own valuable insights and experiences.
News for a Change is a must read for individuals and organizations who want to participate in the public debate and get their message across.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent guide for advocates.......2002-03-06
Larry Wallack, Katie Woodruff and Lori Dorfman are recognized experts in media advocacy. This book was a textbook for my media communications course in a graduate school of public health. I would recommend this book for anyone who would like a better understanding of how to work with the media to support advocacy and policy issues, in any subject area. It incorporates a workbook style, with examples of press releases, letters, etc. It's a how-to for hands-on folks. There are also other books focusing on media advocacy, written by Wallack and Dorfman, that I would highly recommend. But News for a Change is an excellent starting point for anyone who needs the media to cover an advocacy/policy issue.
Book Description
"Everything in the world must be shown and people around the world must have an idea of what's happening to the other people around the world. I believe this is a function of the vector that the documentary photographer must have, to show one person's existence to another."—Sebastião Salgado
Illustrated with a compelling image from each photographer, Witness in Our Time traces the recent history of social documentary photography in the words of twenty-two of the genre's best photographers, editors, and curators, showing that the profession remains vital, innovative, and committed to social change. Featuring interviews with Hansel Mieth, Walter Rosenblum, Michelle Vignes, Wayne Miller, Peter Magubane, Matt Herron, Jill Freedman, Mary Ellen Mark, Earl Dotter, Eugene Richards, Susan Meiselas, Sebastião Salgado, Graciela Iturbide, Antonin Kratochvil, Donna Ferrato, Joseph Rodriguez, Dayanita Singh, Fazal Sheikh, Gifford Hampshire, Peter Howe, Colin Jacobson, and Ann Wilkes Tucker
Customer Reviews:
Brief.......2003-02-26
Covers many famous photojournalists but each coverage is very light and the details are not interesting enough.
I need a new copy.......2001-07-21
This will be the second time I'm buying this book. I've lent it out to one of my staff and somewhere down the line it's disappeared. I think that's says a lot about this book. It's nice to have around to read through on a Saturday morning with a mug of coffee or flip through for inspiration.
It has definitely helped not only the way I see the world, but with my own photography.
Exploring the views/mindsets of prominent photojournalists.......2001-06-24
This is a great book. If you are at all interested in documentary photography/photojournalism, then you will not be able to put this book down!
It is jam-packed with a collection of personal essays by the worlds most prominent documentary photographers. They speak about why and how they do what they do, their path in life and their experiences seeing the world up close and personal.
The book has at least one black and white image example per photographer, but it's not a coffee table photography book. It's a relatively small size and can be carried with you in a bag quite easily.
I'm going to go back and read this book again. It is full of reasonings and inspirations and as a published photographer, it makes me want to grab my Leica and hit the streets with some black and white film...
A Unique and Valuable Resource.......2000-10-25
Witness in Our Time gives readers a rare glimpse into the minds of some of the most talented contemporary documentary photographer. Editor Ken Light offers a valuable resource to any professional or student photographer, or anyone with an interest in documentary photography. Witness in Our Time provides personal accounts by photographers such as Sebastião Salgado, Mary Ellen Mark and Eugene Richards of how each has made it in the challenging field of documentary photography. Witness in Our Time offers an inspirational and sometimes sobering view of the past, present and future of this important field.
Book Description
For retired steelworkers in Youngstown, Ohio, the label "working class" fits comfortably. Questioning the widely held view that laborers in postwar America have adopted middle-class values, Robert Bruno shows that in this community a blue-collar identity has provided a positive focus for many residents. The son of a Youngstown steelworker, Bruno returned to his hometown seeking to understand the formation of his own working-class consciousness and the place of labor in the larger capitalist society. Drawing on interviews with dozens of former steelworkers and on research in local archives, Bruno explores the culture of the community, including such subjects as relations among co-workers, class antagonism, and attitudes toward authority. He describes how, because workers are often neighbors, the workplace takes on a feeling of neighborhood. He also demonstrates that to understand class consciousness one must look beyond the workplace, in this instance from Youngstown's front porches to its bowling alleys and voting booths. Written with a deeply personal approach, Steelworker Alley is a richly detailed look at workers which reveals the continuing strength of class relationships in America.
Customer Reviews:
A very insightful book........1999-09-29
Having grown up in Youngstown, I can fully appreciate the degree to which the author has captured the spirit of the mills and the working class. Anyone interested in labor studies will find this a book well worth reading.
A Good Read!!!.......1999-08-08
Bruno's first and hopefully not his last!
You don't have to bea steelworker or from Youngstown to enjoy this book. Bruno's Yongstownis recognizable to all no mater where you live.
His portait of his hometown captures his family and neighbors who come alive in this interesting new work. Moreover, he has something to say and hesays it well!
Book Description
Challenging assumptions about the separation of high politics and everyday life, Belinda Davis uncovers the important influence of the broad civilian populace—particularly poorer women—on German domestic and even military policy during World War I.
As Britain's wartime blockade of goods to Central Europe increasingly squeezed the German food supply, public protests led by "women of little means" broke out in the streets of Berlin and other German cities. These "street scenes" riveted public attention and drew urban populations together across class lines to make formidable, apparently unified demands on the German state. Imperial authorities responded in unprecedented fashion in the interests of beleaguered consumers, interceding actively in food distribution and production. But officials' actions were far more effective in legitimating popular demands than in defending the state's right to rule. In the end, says Davis, this dynamic fundamentally reformulated relations between state and society and contributed to the state's downfall in 1918. Shedding new light on the Wilhelmine government, German subjects' role as political actors, and the influence of the war on the home front on the Weimar state and society, Home Fires Burning helps rewrite the political history of World War I Germany.
Customer Reviews:
full of information but lacked impact.......2004-04-28
Davis' Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin focuses on the "economic war" aspect of WWI. When Great Britain declared war on Germany, they put their greatest weapon, the Navy, to use. The British placed a naval blockade and stopped imports of weapon and food supplies. The British waged "economic war", with the intention of destroying the morale of the German civilians. German soil was poor for growing wheat and so Germany had to import two-thirds of the wheat needed to made bread. 1915 and 1916 had especially poor harvests of potato, which is a staple crop. Along with the British naval blockade, there were significant food shortages, which affected the general population. Davis wanted to introduce the reader to the food shortages and hardships inflicted on the public by the food shortages. Davis wanted to bring out the point that WWI did not only affect the young men going off to fight but the women who stayed home as well.
WWI in Germany was all encompassing war, which included not only the military aspect of the front lines. Davis wanted to illustrate the government neededed to realize WWI also included the home front and the commoner who also was sacrificing for the war. It was not just the soldier, who was fighting for the Fatherland, but the housewife was "fighting" for the Fatherland too. She made her contribution to the Fatherland through dealing with shortages of essential food supplies, rising prices and long food lines. Davis continued her argument with the officials realizing the home front aspect of the war; the administration now understood the connection between the condition of the home front and the condition of the front line.The morale of the people at home would affect the fighting capabilities of the soldier. By the government being aware of this correlation, the soldier's wife, housewife, and factory worker wheeled a considerable amount of political power. "As Berliners cast it, it was still in midwar the women of little means, a figure without formal political rights but with great symbolic power as the leader on the right side of the economic war and of the war over Germany's future."
Even though the book had a great deal of information, she organized the information into a format, which all lead to her point. The reader wasn't overwhelmed with facts thrown at them. Yet, Davis had a tendency of dehumanizing the hardships of the shortages of food.The reader never truly gets the feeling that the Berliners are starving to death.The reader is not able to understand the desperation of the situation. Davis was missing emotion from her book. She reduces starving situation of the common people into a premeditated political move.
really great--I learned a lot.......2004-01-08
I found this book fascinating. I am a World War I buff, and have read dozens of books on the subject, but had no idea about the role played by food shortages in Germany-and I certainly didn't realize before reading this book how important they were politically. I liked this book because the story really came alive for me; I also liked finding out so much about civilian life, which I didn't really know about before. It was interesting to see how civilians reacted to different military battles, military policy, etc., and to compare it to there reaction to domestic policy. This was a great read. My professor recommended it to me because I wanted to read some new books on World War I for my paper, and I'm really glad he did.
Almost unreadable.......2003-02-23
Belinda J. Davis examines the German home front during World War I by describing the severe food crisis affecting "a broadening population of Germans" (2) from the beginning of the war, particularly the lower and working classes in Berlin. Davis asserts that "women of lesser means" (3) were hardest hit by food scarcity, inflation and governmental ineptitude in dealing with the ever-growing food crisis in Germany's capital city, and that these careworn women came to symbolize the hardships of all Germans facing starvation, price-fixing, and hoarding by producers. "Gender plays a central role in this account of the war," Davis announces (3), and goes on to depict the new political role women came to play by way of street riots, public protests and entrance in to the work force (most notably munitions work.) She demands that "we must acknowledge the changes brought about" by the protests of women of lesser means during the course of the Great War that eventually led to revolution in 1918 and the collapse of the German war effort. (234) These important changes were in the form of a "just distribution of material goods and political power," (236) with which Berliners struggled for years to come. Although Davis' innovative focus on lower class women consumers from 1914 to 1918 is a provocative one, Home Fires Burning suffers from a number of organizational and conceptual problems that ultimately undermine the book's success.
Several problematic evidentiary questions are apparent in Home Fires Burning. Davis uses Berlin as a microcosm for all German cities in describing the catastrophic food shortages, such as bread, potatoes and butter, and distribution problems. Yet, despite her introduction in which she discusses Germany as a whole and a willingness to extrapolate from Berlin's example for all of Germany, Davis goes on to say that Berlin was "clearly unique within the empire." (17) This contradiction raises a question of how representative Berlin is for the entire nation, particularly since Davis engages in very little discussion of other German cities. Furthermore, she concludes that Berlin policemen observing rioting women in the streets gradually began to sympathize with those "of lesser means," and eventually colored their reports to superiors with subtle calls for actions and relief. (99-103) If it is true, however, that these police officers manipulated their statements for their own benefit, it casts doubt as to the credibility and reliability of the value of these records (upon which Davis relies heavily) as evidence-something she seems not to have questioned throughout the book.
Davis also commits the "fallacy of insidious generalization," most notably in her lack of quantification. Although Davis does provide several tables in this study and briefly discusses caloric intake quantitatively, she repeatedly generalizes in her narrative and for the most part avoids numbers. In a lengthy discussion of special consumer privileges granted to soldiers' wives, for example, her analysis rests on impressionistic accounts of police reports that echo resentments of those not afforded these benefits (primarily extra food coupons and rent protection.) She provides no analysis of what this allowance meant to soldiers' wives in real terms-was it significant or meaningful? Did those not receiving this benefit have a legitimate gripe, or were their protests based on misperceptions? Throughout this study, the reader gets little sense of the scale of the home front crisis due to a sense of imprecision. Davis employs frequent generalizations (such as "many", "all," or "none") and a persistent, sweeping use of jargon to summarize broad concepts with little or no description.
Hyperbole characterizes Davis' prose. She claims broadly that women were an "inner enemy" of society, while "particular circumstances of the war [resulted in] ...the vilification of femaleness." (45) Nowhere does she prove that all women were vilified for being females-or for any other reason. Additionally, Davis asserts that the "primacy of gender" led to working males receiving more food subsidization, and labels this "a social tragedy." Describing class and gender issues as tragic while a horrific war raged for four years is an inappropriate exaggeration, ultimately weakens the credibility of her entire argument, and should have been avoided.
Throughout her account of World War I food and politics, Davis reveals her own aesthetic of what good government should be, then and now: interventionist. She uses prose to dehumanize her descriptions of government agencies and workers responsible for providing aid, too often referring to them coldly as "the state," "the commission," or "high-level authorities." (67, 91) This literary device creates an impression of an unsympathetic, faceless bureaucracy plodding along, rather than an overwhelmed group of individuals struggling to solve and react to unprecedented domestic problems. Her choice of words when referring to government actions is telling: official actions to solve food crises were "partial, grudging," (109, while their efforts were "hapless." (115) The free market had a "degrading effect" on the German economy, and was inappropriate, (124) while Germans had "to serve, rather than be served" (11) by the state-a condition Davis evidently laments.
Davis uses a grinding, repetitive narrative to hammer home her theme that only a total governmental intervention in the economy and food distribution system of Imperial Germany, especially in Berlin, could have-and should have-saved thousands from starvation and potentially have warded off revolution by the end of the war. She employs repeated examples of limited efforts by imperial agencies to solve the various food and price emergencies to support her claim that partial solutions failed, such as ill-conceived rent controls (210), price ceilings for milk (162) and soup kitchens (156). Thus only radical measures such as "equalized distribution" of food resources (180) and "total control" of the economy by government officials (115) could bring about the "just distribution of material goods and political power," (236) especially for lower class women short of revolution. Unfortunately, Davis' argument is largely unpersuasive, given her failure to provide evidence that such extreme measures would have proven any more effective in alleviating the suffering of Berliners during the war years than the attempts of the state authorities she repeatedly condemns.
Stunning integration of cultural politics and daily life.......2000-04-21
What I loved about this book was how it helps reframe the cultural politics of Weimar and transition Germany. The use of daily life in the theorization of politics and culture is rewarding for Davis, whose use of police reports and bureaucratic documents, buttressed by newspaper and other sources, forces us to rethink the role of the state and working class women in politics.
Because of the lively writing, this book makes good reading for the layperson as well as the academic. It is a fine example of the high quality of historical writing possible when scholars merge contemporary theories of gender and culture with traditional narratives of politics and consumption in wartime Europe.
Book Description
Working With Numbers and Statistics: A Handbook for Journalists will bolster math skills and improve math confidence for journalists at all skill levels. Authors Charles Livingston and Paul Voakes developed this resource book to improve journalistic writing and reporting, enabling journalists to:
*make accurate, reliable computations, which in turn enables one to make relevant comparisons, put facts into perspective, and lend important context to stories;
*recognize inaccurate presentations, whether willfully spun or just carelessly relayed;
*ask appropriate questions about numerical matters;
*translate complicated numbers for viewers and readers in ways they can readily understand;
*understand computer-assisted reporting; and
*write livelier, more precise pieces through the use of numbers.
The math is presented in a journalistic context throughout, enabling readers to see how the procedures will come into play in their work.
Working With Numbers and Statistics is designed as a reference work for journalism students developing their writing and reporting skills. It will also serve professionals as a useful tool to improve their understanding and use of numbers in news stories.
Customer Reviews:
Good Point...........2005-06-09
Zweig makes a really good point. Whereas society determine the classes based on a family's income and their possesions he breaks it down to three main classes, the Capitalists class, the middle class(which includes lawyers, doctors, financial analysts and etc..) to the working class shich can include workers who may make more than those of the middle class. For example, a lawyer or a doctor fresh out of school will make the same amount of money for the first couple of years as a union worker or even more. Lawyers, doctors ect. are placed in the middle class because of their title and education, not their income.
This book opens up your eyes and makes you see things in a clear and broader sense.
The only negative, I am not comfortable with his writing. There are times he presents one topic and goes off in a tangent the next two lines.
We're all working class....mostly........2005-04-28
This is excellent book that really triggers thought about the distribution of wealth and power in the United States as it is now. Most workers see themselves as "middle class" instead of "working class". Basically, the point of this book is that when the majority of the working class--people Zweig describes as having minimal control over what they do at work (not just factory workers)--they lose the ability to pool their political power and use it to reform the economic system in their favor.
Taking the power back!.......2004-10-28
"The Working Class Majority" came out at a time when formidable economic forces, such as corporate mergers, globalization, recessions, and tax-cuts for the wealthy, had been punishing the American working class with unprecedented impunity, a phenomenon that has forced politicians, media, and learning institutions to intensify their efforts to deflect people's attention from whatever gets them to talk about social classes. Such a concept many thought died with the Berlin Wall and the anachronism of the Soviet system, not to mention the American labor's hey-day before and during the Depression, but Zweig contends that whether it has been in the past or the present, knowledge of class relations has proved paramount to understand how society really functions.
In his class relations study, Zweig found that the United States is neither a 'class-less' country, as the most enthusiasts picture it, nor is it predominantly middle-class, with few prominences as Bill Gates and Ross Perot at the top and few lazy, welfare-supported people, sometimes called the 'underclass,' at the bottom. Instead, the majority of Americans are in the working class, which Zweig estimates makes up 62 percent of the U.S. workforce.
By giving an alternative to the conventional definition of classes, Zweig's thesis mantains that is not solely income and living standards what determines the social position of people in society but rather to what extent they participate (power) in setting the pace and priorities at the workplace and how much they can influence the decision-making process of producing goods and providing services. In other words, the role at the workplace and the means by which an income is earned to afford a certain living standard, Zweig argues, is what defines a person's class.
Zweig divides social classes in the United States into three layers: the capitalist class, or big business layer, the managerial class, and the working class, which makes up the majority of Americans. Zweig separates these three main classes and provides detailed, yet easy-to-grasp analyses about their various subdivisions and roles in society. By adding multiple government and independent sources as well as statistics on U.S. labor and business, Zweig arrives at the conclusion that the majority of Americans are in the working class.
Zweig's book is a wake-up call for the most under-reported, yet largest segment of the population. It is a must-read for all citizens who still believe that cementing a strong working-class culture helps to strenghten democracy in our society.
Best book on US Social Classes in the last Decade.......2002-06-01
Zweig's book is an empirical and analytical tour de force. In rigorous fashion he outlines the current class structure of the US in terms of power and control in the workplace. He proves the continuing relevance of class analysis in an era when most Americans consider themselves middle class, and he aptly describes the class war which the "ruling elite" has been precipitating on the working class. The book is clearly written and convincingly argued, and should be accessible to a wide audience.
America's Best Kept Conspiracy Theory.......2001-12-28
If one defines premises the way one wants, one can come to almost any conclusion.
This book asserts that anyone who isn't a manager, professional or entrepeneur is part of the "working class," with all the historical baggage the term carries. Since the author defines the "working class" in such a way that it is the majority of the population, and since it doesn't vote the way the author believes it should, there must be a conspiracy that uses a variety of malign tools to deprive this majority of its right to redistribute the goodies to itself.
This bit of semantic legerdemain permits the author to ignore the economic and social miracle which has occurred in the U.S. and most of the West in the last century: In 1900 the vast, vast majority of us lived in what we would today consider to be dire poverty. Now, almost all of us enjoy a level of wealth, security, leisure...and autonomy...that our great grandparents only saw in their dreams.
Zweig disparages the system that produced this result...and can't explain why it did not occur in the workers' paradise which took his ideas a bit too literally.
There will always be people who can't see the empirical evidence that's right before their eyes. Fortunately, when they publish their views, the reading public generally conspires to keep their ideas a well kept secret.
Average customer rating:
- Interesting
- Very pro-shareholder analysis of a potential better future
- Politicizing Investment Decisions
- Do Pension Funds Benefit Workers?
|
Working Capital: The Power of Labor's Pensions (ILR Press Books)
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Customer Reviews:
Interesting.......2003-01-18
Although I do disagree with the direction that contributors' conclusion, this is an interesting and important little text and well worth a read.
Very pro-shareholder analysis of a potential better future.......2001-10-19
I wonder if the reviewer from Illinois read the same book I did. If so, I think that he must have read it exclusively to knock it down. He takes things completely out of context. I found this book to be very interesting, and very pro-shareholder power. It raises significant questions on who makes the money decisions and how they make them, and offers some intriguing possibilities for the future.
Sometimes it seems like companies have become focused on "shareholder value" as if shareholders weren't human beings with many interests. For example, "shareholders" want airlines to keep prices down, to pay security checkpoint staff the bare minimum ... unless, of course, the shareholder is also flying on the airplane, in which case, they might feel that security is a more important value than thrift.
Some of these articles are a tad dry and academic, but the points they raise are really important. If you're a pension fund trustee, or a pension recipient, I urge you to read this book.
Politicizing Investment Decisions.......2001-09-21
The premise of this book is that pensions are being mismanaged by companies and investment managers to worker's detriment. The facts are misrepresented and the solutions offered are chilling. Here are some examples:
The writers believe that a companyýs management should not make pension investment decisions, even thought by law, most plans are required to be maintained for the exclusive benefit of participants. (Notable exceptions to this rule are public plans and union-sponsored plans!)
Several chapters also state that workers themselves are not capable enough to manage their own pensions ý they should not be allowed to make decisions as to current vs. future spending and make ýmistakesý in asset allocation.
The alarming conclusion is that only 1) union leadership or 2) the government is equipped to make decisions on the $7 trillion invested in pensions.
Pensions investment decisions have not been speculative and are not short-term in nature. The Asian crisis in 1997 and tech decline 2000-present are often cited in the book as examples of mismanagement. However, almost all pension plans were under-weighted (relative to the total market) and extremely few were over-weighted in these sectors at the time of their drop. In other words, plan fiduciaries recognized some of the speculation involved in the inflated prices, and adjusted portfolios accordingly. Had this book been written in 1975, they would decry the ýNifty Fiftyý market decline.
Instead of using professional investment managers that seek (and are incented for) the highest possible return given a risk profile, the authors would like to use other factors in making investment decisions. For example, will any investment decisions result in layoffs, plant closings or job flight overseas?
In other words, we must keep all our existing industries and refuse to re-train workers for the better jobs of tomorrow. This approach didnýt work too well for the Soviet Union.
Yes, it is painful when worker lose their jobs, but the growth of the US economy in the last 20 years has been due, in part, to the fact that we have exited low-skills industries, and we adapt to changes faster than any other country.
The exciting fact is that over 50% of households now own stock, and the majority of us are now owners, as well as workers. We have an opportunity to manage companies better. I agree with the foreword that CEO compensation is too high, and vote my proxies on that basis.
This book is very anti-individual and anti-shareholder.
Do Pension Funds Benefit Workers?.......2001-05-29
Imagine your own money being used to throw you out of a job and deny you a decent living. Millions of workers don't have to imagine this, it is a reality, as the pension funds they have bargained for in union contracts can be used to buy up their firms and throw them out of jobs.
Most people, including workers with defined benefit pension plans, don't realize how little control workers have over their pension money. This is an important issue, since pension funds currently have more than $4 trillion in assets. Pension funds are powerful actors in current financial markets.
However, the control of pension fund assets rests, not with the workers, but rather with the same sort of financial managers who run other types of funds. These financial managers often use pension fund assets to finance the type of speculative short-term investments that they make with other funds. The impact that this behavior might have on the jobs of workers for whom they are investing is not a concern for pension fund managers.
As the papers in this book make clear, this lack of concern is partially for legal reasons - the law requires that pension fund managers act in the interest of the pension plans participants and beneficiaries. But part of the failure of pension fund managers to consider the impact of investments on workers is due to fears and prejudices that go beyond the legal requirements implied by this responsibility.
For example, many funds engage in extremely risky investments at present. Investing in East Asia earlier in the nineties was extremely risky, although many pension fund managers did not become aware of this fact until after the East Asian financial crisis. Similarly, buying stock on the NASDAQ in the late nineties was also quite risky. In spite of the risks involved, hundreds of billions of dollars in pension fund money flowed into East Asia in the early and mid-nineties, and into the NASDAQ in the late nineties.
As this money flowed out of the country or into the tech economy, thousands of smaller and medium sized manufacturing businesses were being starved of capital. The pension funds offered these firms no help. Even though many of these businesses employ unionized workers at decent wage rates, the managers of pension funds had no inclination to use the resources under their control to try to save workers jobs.
Pension funds have also done little to prevent the top executives of major corporations from raiding the companies they manage to pay themselves salaries far out of line with what executives receive elsewhere in the world. The representatives of shareholders, including pension fund managers, have looked the other way as top corporate executives decided to bless themselves with salaries running into the tens, or even hundreds, of millions of dollars annually. These salaries bear no obvious relationship to performance by any measure. As one of the articles in this book notes, exorbitant executive salaries can be viewed as a tax out of workers' paychecks - the impact is the same, less money for wages.
Alternatively, these salaries can be seen as taking money which rightfully belongs to the shareholders. But, for some reason, the $50 million salaries of CEOs never seem to raise as much ire among investors as the concern that autoworkers or steel workers may be overpaid by $1-$2 and hour.
This book shows both how pension funds have failed workers and also how some innovative managers are trying to use pension fund assets to create good paying jobs. It gives examples of success stories, where pension funds have been invested ways that build communities and also provide high returns. These success stories could provide a model for pension fund management in the future.
Book Description
"We put the working class, in all its varieties, at the center of our work. The new working-class studies is not only about the labor movement, or about workers of any particular kind, or workers in any particular place—even in the workplace. Instead, we ask questions about how class works for people at work, at home, and in the community. We explore how class both unites and divides working-class people, which highlights the importance of understanding how class shapes and is shaped by race, gender, ethnicity, and place. We reflect on the common interests as well as the divisions between the most commonly imagined version of the working class—industrial, blue-collar workers—and workers in the `new economy' whose work and personal lives seem, at first glance, to place them solidly in the middle class."—from the Introduction
In John Russo and Sherry Lee Linkon's book, contributors trace the origins of the new working-class studies, explore how it is being developed both within and across fields, and identify key themes and issues. Historians, economists, geographers, sociologists, and scholars of literature and cultural studies introduce many and varied aspects of this emerging field. Throughout, they consider how the study of working-class life transforms traditional disciplines and stress the importance of popular and artistic representations of working-class life.
Books:
- 101 Uses for a Bridesmaid Dress
- A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya
- A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
- A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
- A Piece of Cake: A Memoir
- A Thousand Splendid Suns
- Albert Einstein: Out of My Later Years Through His Own Words
- All I Need to Know About Manufacturing I Learned in Joe's Garage: World Class Manufacturing Made Simple
- America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
- American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
Books Index
Books Home
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