Money and Finance

American Plastic (Mixed media product)

The riveting story of how cosmetic surgery and plastic money melted together to create a subprime mortgage crisis of the body    
 
Plastic surgery has become “the answer” for many Americans, and in American Plastic sociologist Laurie Essig explores how we arrived at this particular solution. Over the last decade there has been a 465 percent increase in cosmetic work, and we now spend over $12 billion annually on procedures like liposuction, face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs. In this fascinating book, Essig argues that this transformation is the result of massive shifts in both our culture and our economy—a perfect storm of greed, desire, and technology.
 
Plastic is crucial to who we are as Americans, Essig observes. We not only pioneered plastic money but lead the world in our willingness to use it. It’s estimated that 30 percent of plastic surgery patients earn less than $30,000 a year; another 41 percent earn less than $60,000. And since the average cost of cosmetic work is $8,000, a staggering 85 percent of patients assume debt to get work done. Using plastic surgery as a lens on better understanding our society, Essig shows how access to credit, medical advances, and the pressures from an image- and youth-obsessed culture have led to an unprecedented desire to “fix” ourselves.


From the Hardcover edition.

Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere (Hardcover)

A hard-hitting look at achieving financial freedom by avoiding excessive borrowing and spending

If you don`t actively resist America`s culture of debt, you`ll end up precisely where the government, banks, and big business want you to be: indentured servitude. The mistakes people make with their money are basic, and avoidable, and unless you understand what they are, you`re probably going to repeat them. What you need is someone who can shed light on the obstacles we face and show you how to avoid getting tripped up by them.

Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere shows how society is rigged to take as much of your wealth as possible, and simple ways you can resist. It investigates, explains, and offers advice for all those who have fallen into debt, taken a second mortgage, been trapped by credit cards, or found themselves unable to get ahead.

• Discusses what you can do to stop the destructive cycle of borrowing and spending
• Illustrates the four major tenets of getting money right
• Highlights how to avoid the many ways that government, banks, and big business try to trap you with debt

To secure your financial future, you must break the dangerous cycle of borrowing and spending, and learn how to guard your wealth against corporate ploys. Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere leads you down the only proven path to financial freedom.

American Plastic (Mixed media product)

The riveting story of how cosmetic surgery and plastic money melted together to create a subprime mortgage crisis of the body    
 
Plastic surgery has become “the answer” for many Americans, and in American Plastic sociologist Laurie Essig explores how we arrived at this particular solution. Over the last decade there has been a 465 percent increase in cosmetic work, and we now spend over $12 billion annually on procedures like liposuction, face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs. In this fascinating book, Essig argues that this transformation is the result of massive shifts in both our culture and our economy—a perfect storm of greed, desire, and technology.
 
Plastic is crucial to who we are as Americans, Essig observes. We not only pioneered plastic money but lead the world in our willingness to use it. It’s estimated that 30 percent of plastic surgery patients earn less than $30,000 a year; another 41 percent earn less than $60,000. And since the average cost of cosmetic work is $8,000, a staggering 85 percent of patients assume debt to get work done. Using plastic surgery as a lens on better understanding our society, Essig shows how access to credit, medical advances, and the pressures from an image- and youth-obsessed culture have led to an unprecedented desire to “fix” ourselves.


From the Hardcover edition.

Staying Put (Paperback)

Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere (Hardcover)

A hard-hitting look at achieving financial freedom by avoiding excessive borrowing and spending

If you don`t actively resist America`s culture of debt, you`ll end up precisely where the government, banks, and big business want you to be: indentured servitude. The mistakes people make with their money are basic, and avoidable, and unless you understand what they are, you`re probably going to repeat them. What you need is someone who can shed light on the obstacles we face and show you how to avoid getting tripped up by them.

Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere shows how society is rigged to take as much of your wealth as possible, and simple ways you can resist. It investigates, explains, and offers advice for all those who have fallen into debt, taken a second mortgage, been trapped by credit cards, or found themselves unable to get ahead.

• Discusses what you can do to stop the destructive cycle of borrowing and spending
• Illustrates the four major tenets of getting money right
• Highlights how to avoid the many ways that government, banks, and big business try to trap you with debt

To secure your financial future, you must break the dangerous cycle of borrowing and spending, and learn how to guard your wealth against corporate ploys. Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere leads you down the only proven path to financial freedom.

American Plastic (Hardcover)

The riveting story of how cosmetic surgery and plastic money melted together to create a subprime mortgage crisis of the body    
 
Plastic surgery has become “the answer” for many Americans, and in American Plastic sociologist Laurie Essig explores how we arrived at this particular solution. Over the last decade there has been a 465 percent increase in cosmetic work, and we now spend over $12 billion annually on procedures like liposuction, face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs. In this fascinating book, Essig argues that this transformation is the result of massive shifts in both our culture and our economy—a perfect storm of greed, desire, and technology.
 
Plastic is crucial to who we are as Americans, Essig observes. We not only pioneered plastic money but lead the world in our willingness to use it. It’s estimated that 30 percent of plastic surgery patients earn less than $30,000 a year; another 41 percent earn less than $60,000. And since the average cost of cosmetic work is $8,000, a staggering 85 percent of patients assume debt to get work done. Using plastic surgery as a lens on better understanding our society, Essig shows how access to credit, medical advances, and the pressures from an image- and youth-obsessed culture have led to an unprecedented desire to “fix” ourselves.

American Plastic (Mixed media product)

The riveting story of how cosmetic surgery and plastic money melted together to create a subprime mortgage crisis of the body    
 
Plastic surgery has become “the answer” for many Americans, and in American Plastic sociologist Laurie Essig explores how we arrived at this particular solution. Over the last decade there has been a 465 percent increase in cosmetic work, and we now spend over $12 billion annually on procedures like liposuction, face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs. In this fascinating book, Essig argues that this transformation is the result of massive shifts in both our culture and our economy—a perfect storm of greed, desire, and technology.
 
Plastic is crucial to who we are as Americans, Essig observes. We not only pioneered plastic money but lead the world in our willingness to use it. It’s estimated that 30 percent of plastic surgery patients earn less than $30,000 a year; another 41 percent earn less than $60,000. And since the average cost of cosmetic work is $8,000, a staggering 85 percent of patients assume debt to get work done. Using plastic surgery as a lens on better understanding our society, Essig shows how access to credit, medical advances, and the pressures from an image- and youth-obsessed culture have led to an unprecedented desire to “fix” ourselves.


From the Hardcover edition.

American Plastic (Hardcover)

The riveting story of how cosmetic surgery and plastic money melted together to create a subprime mortgage crisis of the body    
 
Plastic surgery has become “the answer” for many Americans, and in American Plastic sociologist Laurie Essig explores how we arrived at this particular solution. Over the last decade there has been a 465 percent increase in cosmetic work, and we now spend over $12 billion annually on procedures like liposuction, face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs. In this fascinating book, Essig argues that this transformation is the result of massive shifts in both our culture and our economy—a perfect storm of greed, desire, and technology.
 
Plastic is crucial to who we are as Americans, Essig observes. We not only pioneered plastic money but lead the world in our willingness to use it. It’s estimated that 30 percent of plastic surgery patients earn less than $30,000 a year; another 41 percent earn less than $60,000. And since the average cost of cosmetic work is $8,000, a staggering 85 percent of patients assume debt to get work done. Using plastic surgery as a lens on better understanding our society, Essig shows how access to credit, medical advances, and the pressures from an image- and youth-obsessed culture have led to an unprecedented desire to “fix” ourselves.

American Plastic (Hardcover)

The riveting story of how cosmetic surgery and plastic money melted together to create a subprime mortgage crisis of the body    
 
Plastic surgery has become “the answer” for many Americans, and in American Plastic sociologist Laurie Essig explores how we arrived at this particular solution. Over the last decade there has been a 465 percent increase in cosmetic work, and we now spend over $12 billion annually on procedures like liposuction, face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs. In this fascinating book, Essig argues that this transformation is the result of massive shifts in both our culture and our economy—a perfect storm of greed, desire, and technology.
 
Plastic is crucial to who we are as Americans, Essig observes. We not only pioneered plastic money but lead the world in our willingness to use it. It’s estimated that 30 percent of plastic surgery patients earn less than $30,000 a year; another 41 percent earn less than $60,000. And since the average cost of cosmetic work is $8,000, a staggering 85 percent of patients assume debt to get work done. Using plastic surgery as a lens on better understanding our society, Essig shows how access to credit, medical advances, and the pressures from an image- and youth-obsessed culture have led to an unprecedented desire to “fix” ourselves.

Financial Engineering and Arbitrage in the Financial Markets (Hardcover)

Many students of financial markets and institutions learn a lot of the descriptive details about types of securities and products traded, but do not gain a real insight into what drives people to trade in these markets.  They leave the classroom still believing that financial trading firms primarily speculate on the direction of the market movements or earn money from fees.  They fail to grasp the concept of relative value arbitrage, which drives most of the trading in today`s fast and interconnected markets. 

This book will teach them what money and capital markets are about through a sequence of arbitrage-based numerical illustrations and exercises enriched with institutional detail.  It will explain to the reader what all the people sitting on the trading floors of financial firms do and why they all sit together.

The new edition builds on the logic of the first book which is that all financial markets, whether for equity, commodities, currencies or credit, have the same structural building blocks. These are in the increasing order of complexity: spot (cash) transactions (immediate exchanges of cash for asset), forward/futures (pre-agreed-upon future exchanges of cash for asset), swaps (pre-agreed-upon sets of multiple future cash flow exchanges), and options (future exchanges of cash for asset contingent on an event or price level). These contracts are like Lego blocks continuously added together or taken apart by financial engineers to create new structured securities. The main valuation principle is simple: a whole is worth the sum of its parts.

Section I explains the structural building blocks outlined above and puts them in the context of financial engineering and investment strategy.

Section II is new and offers an overview of financial engineering landscape, from the general asset-backed trust structure to details of tranched mortgage securities, CDOs, exotic options and structured financial products people find offered to them