Prosperity: The Coming Twenty-Year Boom and What It Means to You

Average customer rating:

Wow did this guy blow it!

Prosperity : The Coming Twenty-Year Boom and What It Means t

a dichotomy

This book is not worth the price

The authors' insights on prosperity and education

Prosperity: The Coming Twenty-Year Boom and What It Means to You
Bob Davis
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0812932005
Release Date: 1999-05-04

Amazon.com

Most predictions about the how the American economy will fair over the next 20 years are pretty bleak. The rush to globalization will force jobs to cheaper labor markets in Indonesia and China. Steel and auto workers, who once commanded top-dollar wages, will have no choice but to flip burgers at McDonald's. Gains in productivity will only benefit the rich, and only those involved in the information and technology sectors of the economy can look forward to maintaining today's standard of living--everyone else will slip over the edge. And so the predictions go on.... Authors Bob Davis and David Wessel offer a counterweight to this gloom and doom in their new book Prosperity.

Davis and Wessel, both journalists at the Wall Street Journal, contend that we are on the edge of a huge economic boom that will be fueled by three trends: high technology; the reeducation of the American work force; and globalization. They argue that gains in productivity, long promised by the computer revolution, but never delivered on, will finally kick in causing a surge of innovation and new opportunities not seen since the widespread growth and acceptance of electricity at the turn of the century. Community colleges will help to bridge the wide gap between educated and less educated workers. And finally, globalization will create new jobs and provide low-cost goods to consumers.

If you've grown weary of the future forecasted by books such as The End of Work by Jeremy Rifkin or The End of Affluence by Jeffrey Madrick, Prosperity provides a credible and well-researched reason for optimism about the next 20 years. --Harry C. Edwards

Book Description

Many Americans are enjoying the fruits of prosperity.  Unemployment and inflation are low and it seems that everyone is driving a sport utility vehicle.

But is this a prosperity that's reserved for the upper middle class, the folks driving the Jeep Cherokees?  Or is something more fundamental happening?  The answers are crucial for anyone interested in how America is changing--from corporate executives to policy makers to the average person keeping up with current issues.

Bob Davis and David Wessel have spent thousands of hours in living rooms and workplaces around the country, and they show conclusively that the recent good economic news not only is here to stay but is the start of twenty years of broad-based prosperity.

Prosperity tells stories about how the lives of  the middle class are changing for the better.  These are the people who are still being wrongly consigned  b y prophets of doom and gloom to the sidelines of the new high-tech economy.  People like:
Randy Kohrs, whose training in respiratory therapy at a local community college has lifted him from dead-end, minimum-wage jobs into the ranks of the middle class

Teresa Wooten, a former worker in a low-wage South Carolina clothing factory, who is now a supervisor in a German-owned factory

The workers at the Allen-Bradley plant in Milwaukee, who are benefiting in wages and transferable job skills form the company's recent computer automation

These and many other remarkable stories bring together the three trends that will be the basis for a new, middle-class prosperity:
Our $2 trillion investment in computer and communications technology will finally pay off in faster productivity growth, a more rapidly growing economy, and rising living standards.

Community colleges are helping millions of Americans move from $7-an-hour jobs.  This unheralded change in U.S. education will help reverse the forces that have widened the chasm between more-educated and less-educated workers.

Globalization--much maligned by pundits on the left and the right--will create new and better jobs by U.S. companies that export to developing countries and by foreign companies that build plants and offices in the United States.

Davis and Wessel's front-line account, combined with persuasive evidence of the tangible benefits reaching the middle class, proves that the American dream is not only alive and well, but will reach more people than ever before.

Customer Reviews:

Wow did this guy blow it!.......2004-05-07

Bob Davis wrote this book in 1999, right before the recession. Now in 2004 his book seems to predict the opposite of what has happened. Perhaps Bob didn't forsee a Bush presidency, oh well.

Prosperity : The Coming Twenty-Year Boom and What It Means t.......2000-03-22

This book is well written and very easy to read. I think it has some very interesting ideas expressed as well as providing details about how life has changed based from 1970 to the current scenario.

a dichotomy.......2000-02-21

Davis and Wessel have written an enjoyable, interesting, and easy-to-read book. Seldom do we see an economic work espousing free trade. And almost never from authors who support major government trade intervention. After carefully reading their work, I am still not sure what the point is. They seem to want free trade without free trade.

They believe the computer technology will be the major factor in improving productivity. I expect they are right, but many other technologies affecting production will also be in play. What are the results of many other changes such as the elimination of middlemen ala Wal-Mart? And the vast increase in taxes over the last fourteen years. What is the effect of the vast numbers of producing firms moving offshore?

I was hoping to see an analysis of the role of government as we come under the influence of more government control of resources through taxation and regulation. Has government, the largest player in the service sector, any chance of becoming more efficient as a result of the computer revolution? Will taxes ever go down? Can the United States remain the largest economy with most of the resources controlled by bureaucrats instead of producers and consumers?.

These questions kept me reading to find answers- but alas, they went unanswered.

This book is not worth the price.......1999-03-08

For people who read serious newspapers and magazines, this book do not contain anything new

The authors' insights on prosperity and education.......1999-02-11

Davis and Wessel articulate ideas that have appeared elsewhere such as the necessity of flatter organizations and team decision-making. What makes their book insightful is the comparison between electricity and computers. They note that it took decades before the economic impact of electricity took hold and predict that it will take a few more years for computers to increase productivity exponentially. They make a strong case for the efficacy of community colleges. The authors rightly contend that these colleges are more important to our nation than Harvard. Community colleges will raise the skill levels of American workers just as high schools did at the turn of the century. Education is the key to increased productivity and will also narrow the wage gaps that exist in our society

Book Description

This book truly breaks new ground in bringing sciencetific paradigms to bear on organizational behavior. As rich with understandable and useful metaphors, analogies, and models as it is elegant and straightforward.

Customer Reviews:

Allen's Basic Anatomy Manual.......2000-10-23

I have used this book for years. It seems to be one of a dying breed of simple, no glitz science texts. Illustrations are accurate and informative. A few, minor errors have been corrected, actually editing problems. I have never found factual errors. I don't find the large number of unlabelled human skeletal drawings all that helpful. I would prefer a more detailed listing of the cat skeleton.

Basic Anatomy : A Laboratory Manual: the Human Skeleton, the Cat

Average customer rating:

Basic Anatomy : A Laboratory Manual: the Human Skeleton, the Cat
B. L. Allen
Manufacturer: W. H. Freeman & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HMTF20

Average customer rating:

Write another one, Mr. Rushin!

How disappointing...

Shallow and disappointing

An irresistible Independence Day impulse

Excellent and Very Funny!

Road Swing: One Fan's Journey Into The Soul Of America's Sports
Steve Rushin
Manufacturer: Main Street Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Essays | Miscellaneous | Sports | Subjects | Books
General | Sports | Subjects | Books
Look Inside Sports Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Caddie Was a Reindeer: And Other Tales of Extreme Recreation

Counting Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn

Million Dollar Baby: Stories From The Corner

Missing Links

Sports Illustrated: Hate Mail from Cheerleaders and Other Adventures from the Life of Reilly

ASIN: 0385483929
Release Date: 1999-09-14

Amazon.com

On the cusp of turning 30, Steve Rushin, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, sets out for a year on the road to scope out the odd and not-so-odd shrines that America's built for its fun and games. "I have no doubt," he writes in preparation for his journey, "that one can, through the keyhole of sports, see an entire culture, even one as far-flung and diverse as American culture." He didn't just want to see, though. "I wanted to put my finger on the pulse of American sports, and I wanted that finger to be one of those giant foam-rubber index fingers worn by pinhead fans across the land." His wit sharpened to a point, he sets out to scour the landscape with only the barest of necessities: 36 compact discs, a set of golf clubs, and a dozen rank cigars.

By the time he returns, he's visited basketballer Larry Bird's boyhood home in French Lick, Indiana; paid a nocturnal visit to the "Field of Dreams"; looked up and called Cleveland Brown in the Cleveland phone book; had lunch with Lou Groza; played real golf at Tam O'Shanter in western Pennsylvania and miniature golf down South; and immersed himself in the Baseball Hall of Fame. If his journey--and there's much, much more to it--seems like a lark, it isn't. The trip changes him and his appreciation of the sports world he toils in. "I had set out to test the Shakespearean assertion," he writes, "that 'If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.' ... In short, all my year was a playing holiday." It's also a marvelous series of pit stops recounted with real verve. "And I could now say, with absolute certainty, Shakespeare should have been so lucky." --Jeff Silverman

Book Description

In this alternately hilarious and insightful account, named a Best Book of 1998 by Publishers Weekly, >b>Sports Illustrated writer Steve Rushin uses the lens of sports to come to a deeper understanding of America.

On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, Steve Rushin decided to revisit the twin pursuits of his youth: epic car trips and an unhealthy obsession with sports. So he jumped into his fully alarmed Japanese S.U.V. and drove to American sports shrines for a year, everywhere from Larry Bird's boyhood home in French Lick, Indiana, to the cornfield just outside of Dyersville, Iowa, where Field of Dreams was filmed. Now in paperback, Road Swing is the story of his journey.

Customer Reviews:

Write another one, Mr. Rushin!.......2002-02-22

Books about an author taking a cross-country trip to ''discover'' hidden sports treasures around the fruited plain do not get any better than this.

I've enjoyed Rushin's ''Air and Space'' column for some time now, but never knew he had written a book until I came across it in the library one afternoon. He does not disappoint on either account. Rushin also manages to hit places throughout the country that not everyone has heard of. Heaven help the author that drives cross country and then tries to write meaningful, funny and most important of all fresh and interesting prose about the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore and the Mississippi River.

As a Midwesterner, I appreciate Rushin's dry and self-deprecating sense of humor. Just his musing while in the car were pointed and funny at the same time. And he comes across as someone who can tell you something deep and profound without it sounding like your parents. (I can still laugh out loud just thinking about his day-trip in and around Selma, Alabama or his visit to French Lick, Indiana.)

The only complaint that kept this from being a five-star review was Rushin's ending, which wasn't that funny and almost too hokey to be believed. Too many authors try to wrap up books like this (think a sportsman's P. J. O'Rourke) by answering life's little (or big) questions. Rushin doesn't do that, but seems like he wants to.

(I'll be honest...I'm not to be one of those reviewers who reserves five-star reviews for books like Oliver Twist and anything by William S. I hate those books because I HAD to read them. I enjoy reviewing books I want to read.)

All in all a laugh-out-loud but think quietly book.

How disappointing..........2000-12-17

to do a search on Steve Rushin and find this to be his only work. His column in SI has been a source of great enjoyment to me over the years but Road Swing is even better. Not a page goes by without me finding myself laughing out loud! Sometimes politically incorrect, always irreverent, this book is THE BEST sports humor book I've read. This from a man whose personal collection of sports literature is in the hundreds. If you enjoy reading about sports (heck, if you enjoy reading!), get this book...you won't be disappointed.

Shallow and disappointing.......2000-03-05

The author had a good idea - taking a trip to sports places and writing about them, but this book is very superficial. He spends more time talking about himself and his family than any single thing he saw on the trip.

An irresistible Independence Day impulse.......1999-10-27

From the netherworld an irresistible impulse directed me to start and finish "Road Swing" in one day: July 4, 1999--the anniversary of our forefathers' indelible vision of our nation's destiny. And what a people evolved from their revolutionary thinking! Did our forefathers play football? Baseball? Chip tennis balls through basketball hoops to satisfy their hunger with "buy one-get one free" Big Mac coupons? No. But given freedom, surely they had to know it was inevitable that their descendants someday would. Anyhow I did it, Steve Rushin. All I ask now is that I may take my place in the fleeting and obscure annals of Sports Trivia Americana.

Excellent and Very Funny!.......1999-04-24

What a great book. If you like sports, and life, buy this book. Nice job Steve!

Book Description

The "Address Directory of Celebrities in Entertainment, Sports, and Business & Politics" has over 30,000 names with addresses of the most popular celebrities today as well as the stars of the past. Every effort is made to provide you with the current and complete address of famous people in entertainment, sports, business and politics you admire and wish to contact. The author and publisher have searched every source such as movies, TV shows, U.S. newspapers, magazines and the internet to provide you with celebrity names and addresses. A powerful database is used to identify the most current and accurate address of your celebrity. Along with the celebrity addresses are lists of the celebrity's hobbies, charity causes, their career awards, a complete list of celebrity birthdays, places to receive in-person autographs, sample letters, autograph associations and clubs, celebrity websites, celebrity biographies listed on the internet. In addition, the publisher has listed all celebrity updates on his website for free use by readers. There is an excellent customer service department with a toll free number available for you to use with questions about your celebrity. If you are an autograph collector, fundraiser, business person, student, teacher, researcher or anyone wanting to contact a celebrity, we are your trusted source of celebrity information. Buy your copy of "The Address Directory of Celebrities in Entertainment, Sports, Business and Politics" with confidence and satisfaction that you are getting the best source of celebrity addresses.

Customer Reviews:

Impressive customer service !.......2005-03-16

I e-mailed the publisher to ask for an update of a celebrity address. He was fast with an answer. He also mentioned he has started a new service to autograph collectors. He will answer any question on the subject of autoghaph collecting for FREE!
I will use the e-mail address for finding out autograph prices, how and where to buy and sell autographs plus anything else I can think of. A great offer!

Here's The List of Celebrity Autographs.......2005-02-10

I have known David Moore for many years and he is the only author of celebrity directories that uses and updates his address list on daily basis. For me, here is a list of celebrities who I have contacted and received autographs through the mail. They are: Sarah Jessica Parker, Bill Gates, Roy Clark, Gillian Anderson, Nicholas Cage, Bill Cosby, James Garner, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Gary Trudeau, Olivia Newton-John, Brandi Chastain, James Watson, Sandra Day O'Connor, Harmon Killebrew, George Bush, Betty Ford, Jimmy Carter, Leann Rhimes, Muhammad Ali, Angela Landsbury, Reba McEntire, Jay Leno, Faith Hill, Tommy John, Tom Hanks, Michael Eisner, Nolan Ryan, Tony Bennet, Colin Powell, Robert Duvall, John Mellencamp, Whoopi Goldberg and many others. If you want excellent results and great customer service, I highly recommend David Moore's book.

This Author is an Expert.......2005-01-14

After I purchased this book I contacted the author, Mr. Moore to ask him about collecting autographs by index cards or by photographs. He was prompt and very informative with his reply. If you want questions answered about auotgraph collecting, get in touch with him, you will be happy you did.

Amazing book.......2005-01-11

The reader and reviewer who wrote this book is the ULTIMATE has it right. This book is everything an autograph collector needs. Besides the thousands of celebrity addresses, this book backs up the names with celebrity facts. If you want a complete history of actors it is there under the website named in the book, if you want other facts to write to the celebrity about it is there. (the book has celebrity hobbies, celebrity charities, celebrity birthdays, celebrity hangouts and a lot of useful facts about celebrities)This is the only celebrity directory I will ever need. The price of this book is well worth it!!

A Huge List of Celebrity Addresses.......1999-11-20

I am an autograph collector and I was happy to see how complete this book is. I collect astronauts who have walked on the moon, hi-tech business people such as Bill Gates, movie actors like Tom Hanks and baseball sluggers like Sammy Sousa and Mark McGuire. They are in this books with thousands more. It is well organized and I liked the extra features of sample letters and questions & answers about autograph collecting. It is a very good reference for autograph collectors.

Book Description

Gardner's Guide to Feature Animation Writing: The Writer's Road Map teaches how to develop marketable animation stories and scripts. Through a simple analogy, you will come to understand the basics of writing for animated features while discovering the distinctions between animation and live-action scripts and examining feature animation genres. In addition, you will be given the tools to create cohesive plot structures for the animated screenplay, fascinating characters, original scenes, and dynamic dialogue. And if you are a bit intimidated about integrating comedy into your animation screenplay, never fear, for once you've mastered Chapter 14 on comedy cones, your script will have the reader laughing out loud. Includes the "secret" and scene-by-scene specific structure included in Gardner's Guide to Screenwriting, with some minor variations. By applying this structure creatively and effectively, your feature animation script will stand out among the thousands of scripts that circulate around studio lots.

Customer Reviews:

Please!!! Save Your Money!!! Marilyn Webber is TV Writing's Biggest Cookie-Cutter!!!.......2006-09-01

How many books can she write that are the same information, only with a genre-specific twist? First she writes a general TV book and then she writes a book on sitcom writing - BOTH using this utterly stupid "roadmap" model. I've even been dumb enough to plunk money down on her live seminar in which she essentially reads from her own book. She latched on to this "roadmap" notion like a pitbull a LONG time ago and she STILL can't let go.

THEN she has the utter gall to write yet another book, this time applying the same hackneyed techniques to the field of animation writing.

When I was in college, using the same paper for three different classes would have been considered plagarizing oneself. It's amazing that her publisher hasn't caught on...

Save your money. Or buy Jefferey Scott's book.

A bit formulaic... but appropriate for the status quo.......2003-10-18

While there was some good information to be gleaned from this book, I found the methods presented rather formulaic... but given the current crop of formulaic, predictable and commercially tied-in animated movies in the past few years, I guess it's appropriate. I also found the driver/city block metaphor rather irritating after a while. But still, some useful ideas in here, hopefully one can learn "The Rules" to be able to break them and try to go outside the status quo and create something that isn't geared towards selling more toys to kids. Not surprising that the entire genre of adult animation was ignored (i.e., Anime, Bakshi, "Heavy Metal") since it's not commercially viable.

Tips on honing a uniform technique.......2002-12-09

Because animation writing is so closely tied to the creation of animation itself, Gardner's Guide To Feature Animation Writing: The Writer's Road Map is reviewed here rather than in our art resource section. Chapters cover the basics of how to link animation to story lines, discussing differences between different animation genres and how scripting differs between animation and live action scenes. Especially invaluable are the tips on honing a uniform technique and presentation to appeal to buyers and enhance sales of animation scripts.

a very good book.......2002-07-31

this book is really helpful for those who want to write animation movies. it helps you create a marketable script with a good story, fascinating characters, etc. it even tells you how to use humour in your script, and that is really useful! i recommand this book to anybody that has a great idea for a full-length animation feature and wants to write a great script for it. this book contains valuable information as well as exercices and a lot of examples. FIVE STARS!!!

Average customer rating:

Hands off...this book doesn't leave my office!

A must have for any Customer Service department!

The Successful Manager's Guide to Selling Through Proactive Customer Service: How to Reduce Inside Sales Costs and Keep Customers Buying Forever
Lee R. Van Vechten
Manufacturer: Business by Phone
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Ring-bound

Customer Service | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Sales & Selling | Marketing & Sales | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Successful Sales Manager's Guide to Business-to-Business Telephone Sales

Motivating Without Money-Cashless Ways to Stimulate Maximum Results, Raise Morale, and Reduce Turnover With Your Telephone Sales and Service Personnel

Stephan Schiffman's Telesales: America's #1 Corporate Sales Trainer Shows You How to Boost Your Phone Sales

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

ASIN: 1881081168

Book Description

The most successful companies always have separate telesales and customer service departments. But, now there is something new that the cutting edge companies are doing that is increasing sales at a LESSER cost of acquiring those sales.

It's a third method of using the phone for customer contact and sales: Proactive Customer Service.

So, what IS Proactive Customer Service?

It is not purely customer service, nor is it hard core outbound selling.

It is NOT simply cross-selling or upselling on the inbound call.

It is not taking your reactive customer service reps and having them place calls in their spare time (which, we all know means they mysteriously have less and less spare time).

It is NOT having your highly compensated and skilled outbound sales reps follow up on inbound price requests or call customers and say,

"How's it going?"

"Do you need anything this week?"

"How are your supplies doing?"

"Wanted to make sure everything is OK."

"Can I quote on anything?"

"Any projects coming up?"

"Can I help you in any way?"

In a nutshell, the concept is quite simple:

Calling your regular customers on a regular basis.

That, in and of itself is not necessarily new. But doing it in a planned, organized way, with the right people, managed and compensated in the right way, within a properly-designed departmental infrastructure, is a new concept.

Proactive Customer Service is an entirely new position or department within the organizational chart. It is method of selling over the phone that lies between proactive outbound selling and reactive customer service. It generates more sales, from existing customers, but at a lesser cost to the organization than proactive outbound selling.

By using Proactive Customer Service you have regular contact with customers, which means you maintain, build, and grow better relationships with them, while protecting them from the competition.

And you can learn, step-by-step, how you can implement Proactive Customer Service, the right way, from telesales management expert Lee Van Vechten, who has tested and refined the process. He shares all of the secrets with you in "The Successful Manger's Guide to Selling Through Proactive Customer Service--How to Reduce Inside Sales Costs and Keep Customers Buying Forever."

MORE BENEFITS OF PROACTIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE

By using Proactive Customer Service you can, Manage and grow accounts that previously received little or no contact.

Take advantage of opportunities to cross sell and upsell so as to maximize revenue from accounts, while providing the ultimate in customer satisfaction

Minimize customer attrition do to lack of attention. You build customer loyalty since they are being contacted more often by 'their' representative.

Your customers have ONE point of regular contact, meaning greater satisfaction, and greater likelihood of buying from you regularly

Bottom line--this says it all--you can extend the lifetime value of your customers, while LOWERING overall sales costs. More sales for less money means more profits.

WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM PROACTIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE?

How do you know if doing Proactive Customer Service is for you? See if you can identify with any of the following:

Companies that now pay too much in compensation for simple tasks such as following up on inquiries, taking orders from customers--orders that the customers would have placed anyway!

Companies that each year increasingly lose customers and sales volume due to lack of customer contact (or worse: who don't KNOW why they're losing customers and sales)

Companies that have tried proactive telesales, but didn't have or couldn't find the personnel necessary to handle that role, but yet still desire to proactively contact their customers

Companies that generate sales through direct marketing (mail, catalog, internet) but do not contact the customers personally afterward in order to get repeat a

Customer Reviews:

Hands off...this book doesn't leave my office!.......2003-03-27

Great book to refer to! It doesn't leave my office, although many have tried...none have succeeded.

Seriously...it has helped our firm extensively. Highly suggested!

Ron Doan
Director, Marketing
Cisco Systems, Inc.

A must have for any Customer Service department!.......2003-03-21

Too bad this is not made with a hard cover because I use mine so much the spine is about to fall apart. This book has helped me create and maintain a strong CS department. I really did use it on a daily basis for the first month or so after I purchased it. Two thumbs up here...

Elisa Frederick
Group Product Manager
Microsoft

Average customer rating:
The WTO agreements: Deficiencies, imbalances and required changes
Bhagirath Lal Das
Manufacturer: TWN, Third World Network
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Exports & Imports | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 9839747258

Book Description

Banking privatisation represents one of the major forces which are significantly changing the banking sector in Europe. Studying the process of banking privatisation thus helps to understand the dynamics of the sector. This book analyses - from the perspective of both commercial banking and investment banking - the various processes of banking privatisation in Europe and their effects on the strategies and structures of banks. In its theoretical part, the book considers technical and financial aspects of banking privatisation from Spain, France, Italy, Norway, Germany, and Russia. An indispensable reading for investment bankers, regulators as well as policy-makers responsible for the existence of efficient and stable banking systems.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books