Corporate-finance

I don't know what I find more disheartening, the facts that are revealed in this book or the poor sheep who have made feeble attempts to shoot down Greg Palast's efforts. There are, by far, more facts used to substantiate claims in this book than I have seen used by any journalist in America. Yet a handful of hardcore, conservative automatons will try to persuade you, without any factual support, that Greg Palast is some sort of tabloid journalist who simply pulls his "crazy" theories out of thin air. It's obvious that these folks didn't bother to actually read the book, or they are ignoring the copies of actual memos, letters, and e-mails gathered by Mr. Palast to verify his stories. I am going to assume that they did not read the book, as most of the critics focus only on the content of the first chapter, the Florida election debacle. That is just a fraction of the shameful activities that are illuminated in the book. Oh, and just so you know, Greg is not just another journalist rehashing the Florida scandal. He is regarded in the field of journalism as the man who broke the story. Like his critics, most American journalists do not possess the fortitude to break such a story. Do yourself a favor and buy this book. Read it very carefully. Decide for yourself.

Greg Palast is an investigative reporter who goes out to expose the dark side of democratic societies. The main point he makes is that money is ruining the democratic system. He backs up his claims with lots of exhaustive research. I found his arguments to be quite persuasive.

One of the first points he covers is the 2000 election. Being from Florida, this really touched me. He shows how the Bush campaign used Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris to disenfranchise poor black Democratic voters. Literally thousands were purged from the voter list in an election that Bush "won" by just over 500 votes. This sort of vote tampering is just sad and immoral.

Another point that Palast covers is the inner workings of international organizations such as the IMF and the WTO. He outlines how third world countries are being pillaged by the introduction of IMF requirements and free trade. With the privitazation of national utilities, citizens in third world countries must face the tricks of American global corporations such as were experienced in California.

With all the money, corporate America has too much influence in the government. Palast gives us a warning, so that we can wake up and take in interest in politics before it is too late. Check out this book.

Palast provides a factual blast of secret corporate and government liasons that have been created to rip all of us off! He's done an excellent job of tying together the names and dates of suspicious events, and the guts to spell it all out.

Turns out the U.S. government has been financing corporations, and giving those corporations lucrative contracts, as we all know. However, according to Palast these contracts are specifically for the building new utility companies, or the taking over old utility companies and deregulating them. They are trying to gain control of all utilities such as water, natural gas, cooking oil, fuel oil, waste treatment, and electricity.

Once they take control, these companies can then generate profits forever. They can also generate fake energy crisis, fake oil shortages etc, whenever they feel like it. It is obvious after reading this book that we probably went to war in IRAQ so that this fat-cat Oligarchy could build their utility companies and then get paid back whenever the Iraquis sell their oil. And this profit stream will continue forever, as long as they keep all of us driving oil burning or fuel-cell powered vehicles. What we all kind of knew was true, but couldn't really prove, Palast has now provided the facts to make it so obviously real.

This is a must-read for any aspiring republican or democrat that really wants to learn about what is going on in the world today. There is a thin line being drawn in the sand between good and evil.

A terrific collection of well-written and fascinating pieces of business journalism. I picked this book up at an airport expecting to read just a few of the stories that looked interesting. I ended up reading the entire book cover to cover. Each story offers an insightful and interesting view of a particular business or industry. For anyone interested in the corporate scandals that seem to be erupting in the business world on a near-weekly basis, you will find yourself completely absorbed by this book in no time at all.

This is a collection of 30 business-related articles published in newspaper and magazines in yr2002. Many of them in this edition are about ethics, e.g. questionable accounting practices, role conflict of auditors and financial analysts, overpaid executives etc..There are other topical subjects, e.g. influence of technology, free trade, globalisation, workplace diversity.

The editors have picked up many articles that raise insightful questions and issues. They provide ¡§behind the scene¡¨ information and personalities. Interesting to read casually. The stories talk little about making money or improving corporate performance. They are more about ethnics, fairness and justice. Some articles are openly critical about individual companies or persons.

This book is very enriching to readers who are not familiar with American business practices. For example, non-Americans can have a strong feel about how serious are antitrust investigations and lawsuits in The USA.. The coverage of industries is wide. In addition to popular businesses like IT, finance, manufacturing, you also have banana planting, ice harvesting, auctioning, religious organisations etc..

worth the price of admission for the the michael milken story that ran in Harpers.

From print media and journals to business and general interest publications, the authors have searched for the best business accounts from the past year, providing vignettes and accounts primarily nonfiction in content, but telling of business goals, individuals, and strategies. A diverse, well-represented collection.

Great anthology from a wide variety of sources (the usual financial journals plus some interesting exotic publications (Mother Jones?)). Not a clunker in the lot. Buy this one and its 2001 predecessor and you will be fascinated. Hope this series continues for many years...

Lord Rutherford expressed the opinion that an opinion does not carry much weight unless it is can be expressed numerically.
Dr. Ibbs' work at Berkley is outstanding in that it expresses numerically the basis for our general belief that Project Management adds value to a company's operations.

Regrettably, the book being reviewed is five years old, based on research done at least six or seven years ago. The research is also very limited in scope, being the first part of a two part assignement from the Project Management Institute.

Fortunately, the second part, based on a statistically significant body of research, is currently being printed by PMI and should be available at about mid-2002.

From previews of the work studied at Dr. Ibbs' lectures, it appears that waiting for the completed work will be very much worthwhile because it provides, in dollar terms that executives can understand, the benefits PM brings to corporations, the way the ROI of their costs can be calculated, how a company's weaknesses can be determined and prioritized for strengthening, and the cost of improving these specific elements of management systems.

Except for one detailed review, most reviews on this board are obviously bogus. One reviewer writes "gives detailed insight into CEO's". Wrong, this book throws already well know facts into a quick snippet bio on many CEO without any insight on their thoughts. The author obviously does not know any of these people and does not work in the dot-com field. His info is typically outdated and out of touch. Shame on him for trying to trick people into thinking he knows anything on the subjust.

In less than 200 pages (in large print and extra line spacing), the author spends a few pages on each CEO giving a glimpse into the lives and companies of some of the more well known and famous CEOs. The 11 legendary CEOs are Jeff Bezos of Amazon, John Chambers of Cisco, Scott McNealy of Sun, Stephen Case of AOL, Craig Barrett of Intel, Timothy Koogle of Yahoo, Steven Jobs of Apple, Margaret Whitman of eBay, Steven Ballmer of Microsoft, Louis V. Gerstner of IBM, and Lawrence Ellison of Oracle. Interestingly, I didn't see Bill Gates on the list.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about these CEOs that I had already heard so much about (as most of us in the Internet companies would have). Obviously, a few pages on each CEO can't do justice to these living legends. Knowing this upfront, this book makes for a very enjoyable read on a 2 hour flight when you are on business by yourself.

Pros - you get a glimpse of some very famous CEOs, inspirational, large print, extra line spacing, and short book.

Cons - doesn't provide any remarkable insights, not up to date (this was based on 1998-2000), and a bit pricey for the value added.

There are a few pages devoted to the author's opinion on the Internet era. These are good opinions but nothing revolutionary. Overall, I would say this is a good book to read preferably when you are bored and need some entertainment/inspiration. Enjoy!

This book is a detailed profile of the handful of individuals who shaped the concept of the new CEO. It is very revealing how they struggled to work their way to the top. The author creates a lucid and understandable account of the way of doing business in today's fast paced e-commerce world.