The Imaginary Time Bomb

The Imaginary Time Bomb PDF Author: Phil Mullan
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Modern economies are faced with a time bomb ticking inexorably and portending economic disaster attended by political and social chaos. Economic slowdown in advanced industrialized countries will be caused by an ageing population. There will be a marked absence of the "feelgood factor", and there will be a downward economic spiral. This book discusses what will happen when the "baby boom" generation reach their sixties and seventies. It is often suggested that there will be slower growth rates, higher taxes, and inter-generational conflict. Phil Mullan turns these popular arguments on their head: the growing preoccupation with ageing has nothing to do with demography in itself and should be seen as a scapegoat for changes in economy and society, and as a compelling pretext for reducing the role of the state in the economy. Demonstrating that the problem of ageing is used as an anti-state and anti-welfare argument, Mullan demolishes a succession of myths about the ageing time bomb. The key practical argument is that society has coped with the ageing time bomb several times in the past and can do so again. The fundamental determinant is the scale of productive activity and, historically, modern societies double their wealth every 25 years. Ageing populations do not hinder economic growth - the dynamic of economic growth is determined by social factors upon which demographic trends have no influence.

The Imaginary Time Bomb

The Imaginary Time Bomb PDF Author: Phil Mullan
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
Modern economies are faced with a time bomb ticking inexorably and portending economic disaster attended by political and social chaos. Economic slowdown in advanced industrialized countries will be caused by an ageing population. There will be a marked absence of the "feelgood factor", and there will be a downward economic spiral. This book discusses what will happen when the "baby boom" generation reach their sixties and seventies. It is often suggested that there will be slower growth rates, higher taxes, and inter-generational conflict. Phil Mullan turns these popular arguments on their head: the growing preoccupation with ageing has nothing to do with demography in itself and should be seen as a scapegoat for changes in economy and society, and as a compelling pretext for reducing the role of the state in the economy. Demonstrating that the problem of ageing is used as an anti-state and anti-welfare argument, Mullan demolishes a succession of myths about the ageing time bomb. The key practical argument is that society has coped with the ageing time bomb several times in the past and can do so again. The fundamental determinant is the scale of productive activity and, historically, modern societies double their wealth every 25 years. Ageing populations do not hinder economic growth - the dynamic of economic growth is determined by social factors upon which demographic trends have no influence.

The State and the Stork

The State and the Stork PDF Author: Derek S. Hoff
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226347621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
From the colonial era to the present, the ever-shifting debate about America’s prodigious population growth has exerted a profound influence on the evolution of politics, public policy, and economic thinking in the United States. In a remarkable shift since the late 1960s, Americans of all political stripes have come to celebrate the economic virtues of population growth. As one of the only wealthy countries experiencing significant population growth in the twenty-first century, the United States now finds itself at a demographic crossroads, but policymakers seem unwilling or unable to address the myriad economic and environmental questions surrounding this growth. From the founders’ fears that crowded cities would produce corruption, luxury, and vice to the zero population growth movement of the late 1960s to today’s widespread fears of an aging crisis as the Baby Boomers retire, the American population debate has always concerned much more than racial composition or resource exhaustion, the aspects of the debate usually emphasized by historians. In The State and the Stork, Derek Hoff draws on his extraordinary knowledge of the intersections between population and economic debates throughout American history to explain the many surprising ways that population anxieties have provoked unexpected policies and political developments—including the recent conservative revival. At once a fascinating history and a revelatory look at the deep origins of a crucial national conversation, The State and the Stork could not be timelier.

Could it be Dementia?

Could it be Dementia? PDF Author: Louise Morse
Publisher: Monarch Books
ISBN: 0857217429
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This book puts dementia into a Christian context, insisting that loss of memory or reason does not mean a person is worthless. Dementia is in the headlines on a daily basis. Much information is available but it is all factual with no spiritual content. Yet for Christians, dementia can raise questions unlike any other condition. Why does a godly old man begin to use language that has always been anathema to him? Why does a loving mother become stubborn, and suspicious? Where is God in all of this? This book offers information and reassurance gleaned from the extensive experience of Pilgrim Homes, a network of nine Christian care homes and a foundation going back to 1807.

A New Democracy

A New Democracy PDF Author: Harry Shutt
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN: 9781856499743
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
The world order currently remains under the effective control of the industrialized countries of North America and Europe, broadly representing the interests of the world's most powerful corporations. Harry Shutt argues that political movements need to construct new alternative paths of global integration, methods of economic governance that are more responsive to the public's needs and more equitable, and democratic reform designed to make governments more representative.

Banking on Death

Banking on Death PDF Author: Robin Blackburn
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789609232
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 497

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Book Description
Banking on Death offers a panoramic view of the history and future of pension provision. A work of unique scope, it traces the origins and development of the pension idea, from the days of the French Revolution to the troubles of the modern welfare state. As we live longer, employers are closing their pension schemes and many claim that public treasuries will not be able to cope with the retirement of the babyboomers. Banking on Death analyses the challenge facing public schemes and the malfunctioning of private retirement provision, concluding with a bold proposal for how to pay for decent pensions for all. Robin Blackburn argues that pension funds have been depleted by wasteful promotion and used as gambling chips by ruthless and overpaid top executives. This is the world of 'grey capitalism,' where employees' savings are sequestrated from them and pressed into the service of corporate aggrandisement. Even the best companies find it hard to run a business and a pension fund at the same time-especially when the latter is larger than the former. The fund managers' notorious short-termism and herd instinct, and their failure to curb the greed and irresponsibility of the corporate elite, lead to obscene inequalities and a blighted social landscape. The pension privatisation lobby, Blackburn shows, has lost major battles in France and Germany, the United States and Italy, because of the popular fears it evokes. And the case for privatisation looks intellectually threadbare after withering critiques from such notable theorists as Joseph Stiglitz and Pierre Bourdieu. Banking on Death shows that pensions are political dynamite, and have undone governments from France and Italy to Argentina. Popular outcries led Reagan, Clinton, and Blair to change tack: will this happen to George W. Bush too? Blackburn argues that the ageing society will generate increased costs but, so long as the new life course is properly financed, all age groups will gain. He proposes a public regime of asset-based welfare, drawing on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes and Rudolf Meidner, that could ensure secondary pensions for all and foster a more responsible, egalitarian and humane pattern of economic development.

Handbook of Human Resource Management in the Tourism and Hospitality Industries

Handbook of Human Resource Management in the Tourism and Hospitality Industries PDF Author: Ronald J. Burke
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1786431378
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
The hospitality and tourism sector is an increasingly significant contributor to GDP worldwide, as well as a key source of employment in developing regions. Drawing on contemporary research, this Handbook provides a provocative review of the major human resource challenges facing the hospitality and tourism sector today.

Ferraris for All

Ferraris for All PDF Author: Ben-Ami, Daniel
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1847423477
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
The growth of the economy and the spread of prosperity are increasingly seen as problematic rather than positive - a trend Daniel Ben-Ami has termed 'growth scepticism'. Prosperity is accused of encourage greed, damaging the environment, causing unhappiness and widening social inequalities. Ferraris for all: A defence of economic progress is a rejoinder to the growth sceptics. Using examples from a range of countries, including the US, the author argues that society as a whole benefits from greater affluence. Action is needed - but to increase abundance and spread it worldwide, not to limit prosperity, as the sceptics would have it. The lively and provocative hardback edition was published to widespread coverage in 2010, and triggered debate and dissent in equal measure.

‘Preparing for Power’

‘Preparing for Power’ PDF Author: Jack Hepworth
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135024239X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
This book employs a history of ideas approach to trace the complex journey of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and its afterlives. Although the RCP existed for barely two decades, it left a curiously lasting impact on British politics, and its legacies have provoked bewilderment, suspicion, and animosity. Formed as the Revolutionary Communist Tendency in 1978, the RCP represented a distinct and often controversial offshoot of the Trotskyist left. Campaigning principally around 'unconditional support for Irish freedom' and anti-racism, RCP cadres expounded an independent revolutionary politics to supersede capitalism. In the 1990s, however, the RCP leadership ruefully declared that the working class had suffered an historic defeat, and the party dissolved in 1996. Combining wide-ranging archival research and twenty-four life-history interviews with former activists, Preparing for Power examines ideological continuity and change among the ex-RCP milieu. Explaining the party's key ideas, their evolution, and their retrospective contestation, Jack Hepworth analyses the RCP's trajectory in a broader political context. In doing so, Hepworth illuminates a network which has been the subject of considerable media sensation and polemical attention.

The Economy as Cultural System

The Economy as Cultural System PDF Author: Todd Dufresne
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441118977
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
The 2008 global crisis, unemployment, lack of retirement funds, bank bailouts... today, the "economy" is on everyone's mind. But what makes this rather opaque concept work? This collection of essays seeks out the answer by exploring contemporary capitalism from a variety of theoretical perspectives and by confronting the economy as a cultural system, a theory, and a driving force of every day life in the West. The first part of the book discusses past and present representation of capitalism (from Hegel and Marx to Negri and Florida) along with their continuing impact. The second part focuses on capitalism as a locus of power and resistance, and maps possible responses to the current situation. The roles of metaphor and discourse is examined throughout to rethink the implications of power in the context of globalization and consumer culture. Each chapter features an abstract, study questions, as well as further reading suggestions, which, along with its accessible theoretical coverage, will make the book an essential study tool for students in social and political thought, globalization, and social theory.

Ageing, Wellbeing and Climate Change in the Arctic

Ageing, Wellbeing and Climate Change in the Arctic PDF Author: Paivi Naskali
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317485920
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
The Arctic and its unique natural resources have become objects of increasing concern. Rapid climate change and ageing of the population are transforming the living conditions in the region. This translates into an urgent need for information that will contribute to a better understanding of these issues. Ageing, Wellbeing and Climate Change in the Arctic addresses the important intersection of ageing, wellbeing and climate change in the Arctic region, making a key interdisciplinary contribution to an area of research on which little has been written, and limited sources of information are currently available. The book explores three key areas of discussion. First, various political issues that are currently affecting the Arctic, such as the social categorisation of elderly people. Second, the living conditions of the elderly in relation to Arctic climate change. Third, the wellbeing of elderly people in terms of traditional knowledge and lifestyles. The book also features contributions from a number of key researchers in the field which examine a broad range of case studies, including the impact of climate change on health in Lapland and elderly people and geographical mobility in Norway. This book will be of great interest to scholars of climate change, gerontology and social policy.