Kirjahaku

Rather than attempting to explain and predict how 'the Market' functions - a futile endeavor - this book focuses upon the rich teachings that the market offers us for dealing with ambiguities and unexpected and contradictory happenings. These teachings are not intended to master the market, but to sensitize us to the various types of uncertainty that the market and life in general present. Drawing upon years of 'participant-observation' research the book explores the ways people have traditionally tried to 'make sense' out of the inconsistencies and general 'fickleness' of the market. The various market narratives generated by these efforts normally function only to deny the inconsistencies confronted not resolve them. Various market routines are similarly explored and shown only to insulate participants from these market inconsistencies and related unexpected happenings. While both coping practices commonly serve to calm us by denying and insulating us from these uncertainties, they seldom if ever actually resolve them. Fortunately, the market suggests another, less acknowledged coping practice, namely 'acting sensibly.' In this shift from 'knowing' to 'doing,' the book explores practices employed in wrestling with the underlying causal forces that generate the bulk of unexpected happenings. This is followed by a closer look at some of the new teachings of the present-day, modern, global market with its numerous new trading instruments, algorithmic trading programs, high frequency trading, and Big Data. This new market is shown to be a hybrid of making sense and acting sensibly as it employs both narratives/accounts and concrete trading transactions. The final chapter uses the market to suggest how we might best learn to cope with these newer types of uncertainties rather than futilely trying to master them. While all of these teachings are presented primarily in the context of the market, they apply equally to a wide range of other social sectors, most of which have themselves become shaped in various degrees by today's market.

Long the preferred method of exchange for antiques and horseflesh, auctions are used today to sell everything from bestselling books to real estate, government bonds to abandoned automobiles. As sociologist Charles Smith reveals, the mechanical law of supply and demand rarely governs the auction process. Rather value is determined by a complex social process combining both the beliefs and actions of the auction participants and the assumptions and practices on the auction floor. Based on years of participation in and observation of different types of auctions and interviews with hundreds of auctioneers, Smith gives us not only a theoretical understanding of the auction process but the sights and sounds as well.

This book takes the reader on an insiderOs tour of the psychology of stock market investing. In more than 3,000 hours of interviews and observations, Smith granted some of the most famous insiders on Wall Street the protection of anonymity to procure their deepest and most frank views on the operation of the market. Their words are heard here in vivid and often surprising detail. What emerges is a startling portrait of how the prejudices of six different types of players_fundamentalists, insiders, cyclists, traders, efficient market believers, and transformational idea adherents_influence the ups and downs of the market. Smith explains how new trends, such as computer trading and mutual and retirement fund investing, interact with these psychologies_drawing a remarkable picture of how market behavior is inherently more human than technical.

Standing apart from the spate of books on the rising cost of higher education, Charles W. Smith's provocative new book, Market Values in American Higher Education: The Pitfalls and Promises argues that current financial problems in higher education are not tied to such things as tenure, sabbaticals, overemphasis on research, and curriculum changes. Rather, they are due to counterproductive and expensive efforts to impose hierarchical corporate managerial structures, slash and burn cost reduction schemes, and costly pursuits of phantom revenue sources—be they highly visible new programs, grants, or even gifts that actually need to be subsidized by the institution. What needs to be done, according to Smith, is to reaffirm what is already known: Higher education is expensive. Market Values in American Higher Education costs out various aspects of American higher education, explores what we are willing to pay, who should pay, and lays out new and different ways of thinking about the funding of higher education for future generations.

"I never seen that much blood in my life..." his former caregiver testified. Uncle Jimmy is an expos of social prejudices, questioning the role of legal, medical, and religious professionals' responsibilities to stand up to injustice. The author describes Uncle Jimmy's final days in the care of members of his church and nursing assistants, with little oversight. The caregivers were left generous gifts in his last will. Church leadership and members participated in meetings to write the will in the absence of Uncle Jimmy. A legal battle ensued after family members began to discover evidence of misconduct. This is a must-read for members of the legal, medical, and religious professions, particularly those involved in elder care. Indeed, anyone concerned about elder care should examine this case study.