Crash Boom! is a book about independence, courage, resourcefulness, entrepreneurship, and success. Real estate investing is the level playing field where everyone can be an expert on their market of choice, and anyone can build wealth. After watching the economic madness unfold over the past few years, it has become clear that the only way to secure your financial future and build the life of your dreams is to do it yourself. To rely on anyone else would be insane. The housing crisis today is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, if you know how to play the market right. Crash Boom! will teach you how to: Read the housing market cycle. Create an investment plan that will send your kids to college, secure your retirement and create the lifestyle of your dreams. Find undervalued properties and create wealth with creative strategy. Become a real estate investment expert. Real estate is the great American business opportunity. In Crash Boom!, you will learn how to use common sense, energy, and entrepreneurial vision to take advantage of the current situation.

Solve a problem with Puppy and a bag full of blocks! Robie H. Harris and Chris Chatterton team up for another gentle introduction to early math concepts. Puppy wants to build a bed out of blocks, one that is wide enough and long enough for a snooze. But there aren’t enough rectangles, squares, and triangles. NOW WHAT? Build, measure, count, compare! Follow along as Puppy tries again and again and again and finally figures out how blocks of different shapes and sizes can fit together to build a bed that’s just the right size for a nap.

A fun, insightful insider's look at the nuts and bolts of writing action movies, from concept to completion, by a professional screenwriter and professor of screenwriting. Full of witty anecdotes from the front lines (and tricks of the trade from between the lines), Crash! Boom! Bang! promises an enjoyable and educational read for writers and students of all levels. Although bullets and bloodshed abound in cinema, the lessons within will benefit screenwriters of all kinds of movies.

Why do stock and housing markets sometimes experience amazing booms followed by massive busts and why is this happening more and more frequently? In order to answer these questions, William Quinn and John D. Turner take us on a riveting ride through the history of financial bubbles, visiting, among other places, Paris and London in 1720, Latin America in the 1820s, Melbourne in the 1880s, New York in the 1920s, Tokyo in the 1980s, Silicon Valley in the 1990s and Shanghai in the 2000s. As they do so, they help us understand why bubbles happen, and why some have catastrophic economic, social and political consequences whilst others have actually benefited society. They reveal that bubbles start when investors and speculators react to new technology or political initiatives, showing that our ability to predict future bubbles will ultimately come down to being able to predict these sparks.

“An interesting take on some factors that facilitate the development and bursting of bubbles in technology industries. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice Financial market bubbles are recurring, often painful, reminders of the costs and benefits of capitalism. While many books have studied financial manias and crises, most fail to compare times of turmoil with times of stability. In Bubbles and Crashes, Brent Goldfarb and David A. Kirsch give us new insights into the causes of speculative booms and busts. They identify a class of assets—major technological innovations—that can, but does not necessarily, produce bubbles. This methodological twist is essential: Only by comparing similar events that sometimes lead to booms and busts can we ascertain the root causes of bubbles. Using a sample of eighty-eight technologies spanning 150 years, Goldfarb and Kirsch find that four factors play a key role in these episodes: the degree of uncertainty surrounding a particular innovation; the attentive presence of novice investors; the opportunity to directly invest in companies that specialize in the technology; and whether or not a technology is a good protagonist in a narrative. Goldfarb and Kirsch consider the implications of their analysis for technology bubbles that may be in the works today, offer tools for investors to identify whether a bubble is happening, and propose policy measures that may mitigate the risks associated with future speculative episodes.

The irrationally exuberant highs and lows of the 1920s can help students recognize boom and bust cycles past, present, and future. Speculation—an economic reality for centuries—is a hallmark of the modern U.S. economy. But how does speculation work? Is it really caused, as some insist, by popular delusions and the madness of crowds, or do failed regulations play a greater part? And why is it that investors never seem to learn the lessons of past speculative bubbles? Crash! explores these questions by examining the rise and fall of the American economy in the 1920s. Phillip G. Payne frames the story of the 1929 stock market crash within the booming New Era economy of the 1920s and the bust of the Great Depression. Taking into account the emotional drivers of the consumer market, he offers a clear, concise explanation of speculation's complex role in creating one of the greatest financial panics in U. S. history. Crash! explains how postWorld War I changes in the global financial markets transformed the world economy, examines the role of boosters and politicians in promoting speculation, and describes in detail the disastrous aftermath of the 1929 panic. Payne's book will help students recognize the telltale signs of bubbles and busts, so that they may become savvier consumers and investors.

A California farmworker kid's season in hell, told through fast-verse lines that careen to the beat of a fiery heart.