Economy of Words

Economy of Words PDF Author: Douglas R. Holmes
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022608776X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Markets are artifacts of language—so Douglas R. Holmes argues in this deeply researched look at central banks and the people who run them. Working at the intersection of anthropology, linguistics, and economics, he shows how central bankers have been engaging in communicative experiments that predate the financial crisis and continue to be refined amid its unfolding turmoil—experiments that do not merely describe the economy, but actually create its distinctive features. Holmes examines the New York District Branch of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, and the Bank of England, among others, and shows how officials there have created a new monetary regime that relies on collaboration with the public to achieve the ends of monetary policy. Central bankers, Holmes argues, have shifted the conceptual anchor of monetary affairs away from standards such as gold or fixed exchange rates and toward an evolving relationship with the public, one rooted in sentiments and expectations. Going behind closed doors to reveal the intellectual world of central banks,Economy of Words offers provocative new insights into the way our economic circumstances are conceptualized and ultimately managed.

Economy of Words

Economy of Words PDF Author: Douglas R. Holmes
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022608776X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book

Book Description
Markets are artifacts of language—so Douglas R. Holmes argues in this deeply researched look at central banks and the people who run them. Working at the intersection of anthropology, linguistics, and economics, he shows how central bankers have been engaging in communicative experiments that predate the financial crisis and continue to be refined amid its unfolding turmoil—experiments that do not merely describe the economy, but actually create its distinctive features. Holmes examines the New York District Branch of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, and the Bank of England, among others, and shows how officials there have created a new monetary regime that relies on collaboration with the public to achieve the ends of monetary policy. Central bankers, Holmes argues, have shifted the conceptual anchor of monetary affairs away from standards such as gold or fixed exchange rates and toward an evolving relationship with the public, one rooted in sentiments and expectations. Going behind closed doors to reveal the intellectual world of central banks,Economy of Words offers provocative new insights into the way our economic circumstances are conceptualized and ultimately managed.

The Economy of the Word

The Economy of the Word PDF Author: Keith Tribe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190211628
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
It was only in the sixteenth century that texts began to refer to the significance of "economic activity" -- of sustaining life. This was not because the ordinary business of life was thought unimportant, but because the principles governing economic conduct were thought to be obvious or uncontroversial. The subsequent development of economic writing thus parallels the development of capitalism in Western Europe. From the seventeenth to the twenty-first century there has been a constant shift in content, audience, and form of argument as the literature of economic argument developed. The Economy of the Word proposes that to understand the various forms that economic literature has taken, we need to adopt a more literary approach in economics specifically, to adopt the instruments and techniques of philology. This way we can conceive the history of economic thought to be an on-going work in progress, rather than the story of the emergence of modern economic thinking. This approach demands that we pay attention to the construction of particular texts, showing the work of economic argument in different contexts. In sum, we need to pay attention to the "economy of the word". The Economy of the Word is divided into three parts. The first explains what the term "economy" has meant from Antiquity to Modernity, coupling this conceptual history with an examination of how the idea of national income was turned into a number during the first half of the twentieth century. The second part is devoted to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, considering first the manner in which Smith deals with international trade, and then the way in which the book was read in the course of the nineteenth century. Part III examines the sources used by Karl Marx and Léon Walras in developing their economic analysis, drawing attention to their shared intellectual context in French political economy.

Economix

Economix PDF Author: Michael Goodwin
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1613123698
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
New York Times bestseller Stimulus plans: good or bad? Free markets: How free are they? Jobs: Can we afford them? Occupy Wall Street . . . worldwide! Everybody’s talking about the economy, but how can we, the people, understand what Wall Street or Washington knows—or say they know? Read Economix. With clear, witty writing and quirky, accessible art, this important and timely graphic novel transforms “the dismal science” of economics into a fun, fact-filled story about human nature and our attempts to make the most of what we’ve got . . . and sometimes what our neighbors have got. Economix explains it all, from the beginning of Western economic thought, to markets free and otherwise, to economic failures, successes, limitations, and future possibilities. It’s the essential, accessible guide to understanding the economy and economic practices. A must-read for every citizen and every voter. Find teaching guides for Economix and other titles at abramsbooks.com/resources. PRAISE FOR ECONOMIX “Goodwin brilliantly contextualizes economic theories with historical narrative, while Burr’s simple but elegant illustration employs classical techniques like caricaturing politicians and symbolizing big businesses (as a gleeful factory) to help the reader visualize difficult concepts.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “[Economix] brings a lively visual sensibility to this intensely abstruse subject matter without condescending to the reader or dumbing the ideas down.” —MotherJones.com “Flat-out awesome!” —Wired.com “This witty and elegant volume takes on a number of complex issues—in this case, economics, history and finance—and makes them comprehensible for mere mortals.” —Miami Herald “After reading Economix I felt like I understood many fundamental aspects about the way the world works that I had been too lazy to learn about before . . . Economix is a book I’m going to buy and give to people.” —Boing Boing “Having never taken economics in college, I find the world of high finance needlessly complicated and confusing. Thankfully Michael Goodwin saw the need for a basic primary on how the economy currently works and how we got here. A text like this would certainly help high school and college students gain their first taste of financial literacy and it comes recommended for the rest of us.” —ComicMix.com “Just when the world seems to have fallen apart thanks to the economy, Goodwin and Burr’s Economix comes along to give us some understanding of the immense, yet still ‘delicate machine’ that controls our world so that we can be the rulers with our votes and not the uninformed (or disinformed) ruled.” —BigThink.com “Michael Goodwin hasn’t just written a great graphic novel—he’s written one that should be required for every school, newsroom and library in the United States.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune “It’s simply phenomenal. You could read ten books on the subject and not glean as much information.” — David Bach founder of FinishRich Media; author of nine New York Times bestsellers, including Debt Free for Life and The Automatic Millionaire “Goodwin has done the seemingly impossible—he has made economics comprehensible and funny.” — Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power “An amazing lesson in true-world economics! Delightfully presented, powerful, insightful, and important information! What a fun way to fathom a deep and often dark subject!” — John Perkins, author of Hoodwinked and the New York Times bestseller Confessions of an Economic Hit Man “Smart, insightful, clear, and as close to the truth as economics can get. The bonus: Who would have guessed that economics could be fun, and—here's the joy—really accessible? Goodwin roots us in history and fills us with common sense understanding. As he puts it early on, economics seems horribly complicated mostly because we're looking at it all at once. Broken down into its component pieces, it's relatively easy to understand. And a good understanding of economics is critical to maneuvering in the world today. If I were compiling a list of the 100 most important books you can read in a lifetime, this would be on it.” —Stephen Petranek, editor-in-chief, Weider History magazines, former editor-in-chief of Discover magazine “Through a potent mix of comics and punchy, concise, accessible prose, Goodwin takes us on a provocative, exhaustively researched, and exceedingly engaging trip through our history and present day, creating an alternately hilarious and scary picture of where we are today as an economy— and what it all means. More than that, Goodwin makes the arcane, understandable. If your mind either spins or slumbers at the thought of economics, read Goodwin's Economix and all will become clear. —Nomi Prins, author of It Takes a Pillage: An Epic Tale of Power, Deceit, and Untold Trillions “Economix is a lively, cheerfully opinionated romp through the historical and intellectual foundations of our current economy and our current economic problems. Goodwin has a knack for distilling complex ideas and events in ways that invite the reader to follow the big picture without losing track of what actually happened. Any reader wondering how our economy got to where it is today will find this a refreshing overview.” —Timothy W. Guinnane, Philip Golden Bartlett Professor of Economic History, Yale University

Syntax Within the Word

Syntax Within the Word PDF Author: Daniel Siddiqi
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255210
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Syntax within the Word provides a multifaceted look into the syntactic framework of Distributed Morphology (DM) within the Minimalist program. For those unfamiliar with the theory, this monograph provides an overview of DM and argues its strengths. For those more familiar with DM, this monograph provides analyses of familiar data much of which has not been treated within the framework: argument selection, stem allomorphy and suppletion, nominal compounds in English (feet-first vs. *heads-first), and the structure of the verb phrase. This monograph also proposes a future for the theory in the form of revisions to DM including: the elimination of readjustment rules, a new economy constraint (Minimize Exponence) that triggers fusion of functional heads, and a feature blocking system.

Banking on Words

Banking on Words PDF Author: Arjun Appadurai
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022631877X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
In this short but ambitious book, Arjun Appadurai argues that the failure of the financial system in 2007-08 in the United States was primarily a failure of language. This argument does not deny that greed, ignorance, weak regulation, and irresponsible risk-taking were important factors in the collapse. But the new role of language in the marketplace, for Appadurai, is the condition of possibility for all these more easily identifiable flaws. Attempts to rectify the social pathologies of contemporary finance must address that failure of language. "Banking on Words "focuses on derivatives as the distinctive innovation of our financial era. Derivatives are written promises concerning the uncertain future prices of financial assets and the substance of these contracts is expressed in terms of money. The recent failure of derivatives markets was systematic and should be understood as failed promises. While it is well-known that derivatives pile risk on risk with little basis in real production and trade, Appadurai reveals this process in a fresh light from which some policy conclusions may be drawn. While critical of derivative finance s present social infrastructure and supporting ideology, Appadurai acknowledges its capacity for creating vast new forms of wealth and asks the crucial question: if we want access to that wealth, what kind of social arrangements would we need to make sure that it benefits all of society rather than reinforcing a system that benefits the few who are already well off? His bold answer involves not the repair of the force of promises but rather the repair and reconstruction of the idea of the individual to enable new sorts of solidarity between dividuals, agents whose very partiality may allow for new aggregations of aspiration, interest and affiliation. This amounts to nothing less than a new ideology of sociality."

William Faulkner

William Faulkner PDF Author: Richard Godden
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400827914
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
In William Faulkner, Richard Godden traces how the novelist's late fiction echoes the economic and racial traumas of the South's delayed modernization in the mid-twentieth century. As the New Deal rapidly accelerated the long-term shift from tenant farming to modern agriculture, many African Americans were driven from the land and forced to migrate north. At the same time, white landowners exchanged dependency on black labor for dependency on northern capital. Combining powerful close readings of The Hamlet, Go Down, Moses, and A Fable with an examination of southern economic history from the 1930s to the 1950s, Godden shows how the novels' literary complexities--from their narrative structures down to their smallest verbal emphases--reflect and refract the period's economic complexities. By demonstrating the interrelation of literary forms and economic systems, the book describes, in effect, the poetics of an economy. Original in the way it brings together close reading and historical context, William Faulkner offers innovative interpretations of late Faulkner and makes a unique contribution to the understanding of the relation between literature and history.

The Economy of Literature

The Economy of Literature PDF Author: Marc Shell
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801846946
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Why did coinage, tyranny, and philosophy develop in the same time and place? Marc Shell explores how both money and language give "worth" by providing a medium of exchange, how the development of money led to a revolution in philosophical thought and language, and how words transform mere commodities into symbols at once aesthetic and practical. Offering carefully documented interpretations of texts from Heraclitus, Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Ruskin, Shell demonstrates the kinship between literary and economic theory and production, introduces new methods of analyzing texts, and shows how literary and philosophical fictions can help us understand the world in which we live.

Economy of the Unlost

Economy of the Unlost PDF Author: Anne Carson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400823153
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
The ancient Greek lyric poet Simonides of Keos was the first poet in the Western tradition to take money for poetic composition. From this starting point, Anne Carson launches an exploration, poetic in its own right, of the idea of poetic economy. She offers a reading of certain of Simonides' texts and aligns these with writings of the modern Romanian poet Paul Celan, a Jew and survivor of the Holocaust, whose "economies" of language are notorious. Asking such questions as, What is lost when words are wasted? and Who profits when words are saved? Carson reveals the two poets' striking commonalities. In Carson's view Simonides and Celan share a similar mentality or disposition toward the world, language and the work of the poet. Economy of the Unlost begins by showing how each of the two poets stands in a state of alienation between two worlds. In Simonides' case, the gift economy of fifth-century b.c. Greece was giving way to one based on money and commodities, while Celan's life spanned pre- and post-Holocaust worlds, and he himself, writing in German, became estranged from his native language. Carson goes on to consider various aspects of the two poets' techniques for coming to grips with the invisible through the visible world. A focus on the genre of the epitaph grants insights into the kinds of exchange the poets envision between the living and the dead. Assessing the impact on Simonidean composition of the material fact of inscription on stone, Carson suggests that a need for brevity influenced the exactitude and clarity of Simonides' style, and proposes a comparison with Celan's interest in the "negative design" of printmaking: both poets, though in different ways, employ a kind of negative image making, cutting away all that is superfluous. This book's juxtaposition of the two poets illuminates their differences--Simonides' fundamental faith in the power of the word, Celan's ultimate despair--as well as their similarities; it provides fertile ground for the virtuosic interplay of Carson's scholarship and her poetic sensibility.

Nixon's Economy

Nixon's Economy PDF Author: Allen J. Matusow
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780700608881
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Historian Allen J. Matusow now presents the first comprehensive history of Nixon's political economy. He depicts a president who disliked the subject but was forced to pay attention or lose his dream of effecting a historic realignment of the political parties in America. The study derives its authority from extensive archival research in Nixon's presidential papers, including notes by Haldeman and Ehrlichman of crucial conversations in the Oval Office. Matusow shows the poverty of contemporary economic theory, Nixon's willingness to sacrifice the world economy for his domestic political purposes, and his desperate attempts to find something, anything, that might work. Lurching from one set of policies to another, Matusow argues, Nixon achieved only illusory successes that ultimately brought on a decade of economic disaster.

Words that Matter

Words that Matter PDF Author: Leticia Bode
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815731922
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
How the 2016 news media environment allowed Trump to win the presidency The 2016 presidential election campaign might have seemed to be all about one man. He certainly did everything possible to reinforce that impression. But to an unprecedented degree the campaign also was about the news media and its relationships with the man who won and the woman he defeated. Words that Matter assesses how the news media covered the extraordinary 2016 election and, more important, what information—true, false, or somewhere in between—actually helped voters make up their minds. Using journalists' real-time tweets and published news coverage of campaign events, along with Gallup polling data measuring how voters perceived that reporting, the book traces the flow of information from candidates and their campaigns to journalists and to the public. The evidence uncovered shows how Donald Trump's victory, and Hillary Clinton's loss, resulted in large part from how the news media responded to these two unique candidates. Both candidates were unusual in their own ways, and thus presented a long list of possible issues for the media to focus on. Which of these many topics got communicated to voters made a big difference outcome. What people heard about these two candidates during the campaign was quite different. Coverage of Trump was scattered among many different issues, and while many of those issues were negative, no single negative narrative came to dominate the coverage of the man who would be elected the 45th president of the United States. Clinton, by contrast, faced an almost unrelenting news media focus on one negative issue—her alleged misuse of e-mails—that captured public attention in a way that the more numerous questions about Trump did not. Some news media coverage of the campaign was insightful and helpful to voters who really wanted serious information to help them make the most important decision a democracy offers. But this book also demonstrates how the modern media environment can exacerbate the kind of pack journalism that leads some issues to dominate the news while others of equal or greater importance get almost no attention, making it hard for voters to make informed choices.