American Turnaround - Reinventing AT&T and GM and the Way We Do Business in the USA

Once Upon a Car is the brilliantly reported inside-the-boardrooms-and-factories story of Detroits fight for survival, going beyond the headlines to chronicle how the countrys Big Three auto companies-General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler-teetered on the brink of collapse during the 2008 financial crisis. In a tale that reads like a corporate thriller, Bill Vlasic, who has covered the auto industry for more than fifteen years, first for the Detroit News and now for the New York Times, takes readers into the executive offices, assembly plants, and union halls to introduce a cast of memorable characters, many of whom are speaking out for the first time, including the executives who struggled to save their companies but in the end had to seek a controversial, last-gasp rescue from the U.S. government.

Vlasic goes behind the scenes to portray the men at the top during Detroits last stand. Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors, tried to turn around a dying company, only to be forced to resign as a condition of the government bailout. Bill Ford, great-grandson of the legendary Henry Ford, had the will to keep Ford alive but needed the guts to hire an unknown outsider, Alan Mulally, to transform the company before it crashed. At Chrysler, leadership was constantly changing as new owners tried in vain to fix the smallest of the beleaguered Big Three. And through it all, the president of the United Auto Workers union, Ron Gettelfinger, fought to save the jobs of the men and women who build American-made cars and trucks.

This tale of an iconic industry in crisis is more than a big business drama and provides a rich, unvarnished portrait of how Detroits decline affected tens of thousands of workers and dozens of communities nationwide. The story moves from the gleaming corporate skyscrapers and massive auto plants to the halls of the U.S. Congress and into the Oval Office, where President Obama and his aides wrestled with how to keep General Motors and Chrysler from going out of business. Vlasic shows why the bailout worked, and how Detroit can succeed under new leadership and build automobiles equal to any in the world.

Once Upon a Car tells a uniquely American tale of success, failure, and redemption. It is an important and illuminating chapter in an astonishing story that is still unfolding. And no one is more qualified to write it than Bill Vlasic.

If you want to see how to do a particular Excel task, this is the perfect book.  Each page includes step-by-step instruction in one column and illustrations and screenshots in the other column, so you have all the information you need in one place—no flipping pages!

Improve your Excel skills with just the steps for entering spreadsheet data, building formulas, protecting excel data, formatting cells, designing spreadsheets with graphics, managing workbooks, changing worksheet values, sorting and filtering data, creating charts, creating PivotTables, building macros, integrating Excel into other Office programs, and—whew!—still more.

• Explains essentials tasks for Excel 2010, the spreadsheet application that is part of the Microsoft Office 2010 suite
• Shows you just the steps for numerous Excel tasks using an easy-to-follow, two-column page layout, with step-by-step instruction on one side and illustrations and screenshots on the other
• Covers entering spreadsheet data, building formulas, protecting excel data, formatting cells, designing spreadsheets with graphics, managing workbooks, changing worksheet values, sorting and filtering data, creating charts, creating PivotTables, and building macros
• Walks you step by step through collaborating in Excel and integrating or using Excel with Word, PowerPoint, and Access

James Ward Packard of Warren, Ohio, was an entrepreneur and a talented engineer of infinite curiosity, a self-made man who earned millions from his inventions, including the design and manufacture of America’s first luxury car—the elegant and storied Packard. Henry Graves, Jr., was the very essence of blue-blooded refinement in the early 1900s: son of a Wall Street financier, a central figure in New York high society, and a connoisseur of beautiful things—especially fine watches.

Then, as now, expensive watches were the ultimate sign of luxury and wealth, but in the early twentieth century the limitless ambition, wealth, and creativity of these two men pushed the boundaries of mathematics, astronomy, craftsmanship, technology, and physics to create ever more ingenious timepieces.

In any watch, features beyond the display of hours, minutes, and seconds are known as “complications.” Packard and Graves spurred acclaimed Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe to create the Mona Lisa of timepieces—a fabled watch that incorporated twenty-four complications and took nearly eight years to design and build. For the period, it was the most complicated watch ever created. For years it disappeared, but then it surfaced at a Sotheby’s auction in 1999, touching off a heated bidding war, shattering all known records when it fetched $11 million from an anonymous bidder.

In Five Cities that Ruled the World, theologian Douglas Wilson fuses together, in compelling detail, the critical moments birthed in history’s most influential cities —Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and New York.

Wilson issues a challenge to our collective understanding of history with the juxtapositions of freedom and its intrinsic failures; liberty and its deep-seated liabilities. Each revelation beckoning us deeper into a city’s story, its political systems, and how it flourished and floundered.

You'll discover the significance of:

• Jerusalem's complex history and its deep-rooted character as the city of freedom, where people found their spiritual liberty.
• Athens' intellectual influence as the city of reason and birthplace of democracy.
• Rome's evolution as the city of law and justice and the freedoms and limitations that come with liberty.
• London's place in the world's history as the city of literature where man's literary imagination found its wings.
• New York's rise to global fame as the city of commerce and how it triggered unmatched wealth, industry, and trade throughout the world.

Five Cities that Ruled the World chronicles the destruction, redemption, personalities, and power structures that altered the world's political, spiritual, and moral center time and again. It's an inspiring, enlightening global perspective that encourages readers to honor our shared history, contribute to the present, and look to the future with unmistakable hope.

This full-color, step-by-step guide to QuickBooks 2013 is the fastest, easiest way to master all the important features of the bestselling small business financial software.

QuickBooks 2013 QuickSteps is filled with color screenshots and clear instructions make it easy to get started with the latest release of the leading small business financial software. Follow along and learn how to customize bookkeeping, process invoices, manage payroll, track inventory, run reports, and much more. This practical, fast-paced guide covers all of the new and improved features.

The unique, oblong layout of the QuickSteps series mimics your computer screen, displays graphics and explanations side by side, and lays flat so you can easily refer to the book while working on your computer.

Use these handy guideposts:

• Shortcuts for accomplishing common tasks
• Need-to-know facts in concise narrative
• Helpful reminders or alternate ways of doing things
• Bonus information related to the topic being covered
• Errors and pitfalls to avoid