Fine Art and High Finance - Expert Advice on the Economics of Ownership

From how the current crisis happened to the role of banks to how money works, this book addresses complex ideas in an easy to understand Q&A format with lively prose. With examples throughout from personal finance issues such as how to negotiate the best price for a car, and should you buy a warranty for a new computer, to big picture questions that affect our national and global economy such as: What is deflation and inflation? How does monetary policy really work?  How does a corporation actually go bankrupt?   

In the groundbreaking national bestseller The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, internationally respected author and speaker Robin S. Sharma showed us a powerful way to dramatically improve the quality of our personal and professional lives based on timeless success principles form both the East and the West. In doing so, he helped many thousands and sparked a phenomenon.

Now, in Leadership Wisdom, his much-awaited follow-up, Sharma has a new mission: to help you become the kind of visionary leader you deserve to be and transform your business into an organization that thrives in this age of dizzying change. With deep insight and compelling examples, this truly innovative thinker shares an ageless yet eminently practical blueprint for effective leadership that is certain to manifest the highest human gifts of the people you lead and unlock loyalty, commitment and creativity in the process.

Written as an easy to read and highly entertaining fable, Leadership Wisdom is the powerful story of Julian Mantle, a hard-driving corporate player who, after suffering a massive heart attack one Monday morning, decides to embark on an odyssey to the Himalayas in search of the great truths for effective leadership in business and in life. In a tale that will change the way you think about leadership forever, Julian discovers eight timeless rituals practiced by every truly visionary leader, eight rituals that you, as a leader seeking to excel in these information-crazed times, can easily use to energize your team and elevate your entire organization to world-class levels of productivity, performance and passion.

Leadership Wisdom is a unique treasure of a book that will awaken the fullness of your leadership potential, transform your company and deeply enrich the quality of your professional as well as your personal life.

“When you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice.”
- Ancient Sanskrit saying

Does the gem of wisdom quoted above strike a chord deep within you? Do you feel that life is slipping by so fast that you just might never get the chance to live with the meaning, happiness and joy you know you deserve? If so, then this very special book by leadership guru Robin S. Sharma, the author whose Monk Who Sold His Ferrari series has transformed the lives of thousands, will be the guiding light that leads you to a brilliant new way of living. In this easy-to-read yet wisdom-rich manual, Robin S. Sharma offers 101 simple solutions to life’s most complex problems, ranging from a little-known method for beating stress and worry to a powerful way to enjoy the journey while you create a legacy that lasts. Other lessons include “Honor Your Past,” “Start Your Day Well,” “See Troubles as Blessings” and “Discover Your Calling.” If you are finally ready to move beyond a life spent chasing success to one of deep significance, this is the ideal book for you.

How often can you peek behind the curtains of one of the most secretive governments in the world? Prisoner of the State is the first book to give readers a front row seat to the secret inner workings of China's government. It is the story of Premier Zhao Ziyang, the man who brought liberal change to that nation and who, at the height of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, tried to stop the massacre and was dethroned for his efforts.

When China's army moved in, killing hundreds of students and other demonstrators, Zhao was placed under house arrest at his home on a quiet alley in Beijing. China's most promising change agent had been disgraced, along with the policies he stood for. The premier spent the last sixteen years of his life, up until his death in 2005, in seclusion. An occasional detail about his life would slip out: reports of a golf excursion, a photo of his aging visage, a leaked letter to China's leaders. But China scholars often lamented that Zhao never had his final say.

As it turns out, Zhao did produce a memoir in complete secrecy. He methodically recorded his thoughts and recollections on what had happened behind the scenes during many of modern China's most critical moments. The tapes he produced were smuggled out of the country and form the basis for Prisoner of the State. In this audio journal, Zhao provides intimate details about the Tiananmen crackdown; he describes the ploys and double crosses China's top leaders use to gain advantage over one another; and he talks of the necessity for China to adopt democracy in order to achieve long-term stability.

The China that Zhao portrays is not some long-lost dynasty. It is today's China, where the nation's leaders accept economic freedom but continue to resist political change.

If Zhao had survived -- that is, if the hard-line hadn't prevailed during Tiananmen -- he might have been able to steer China's political system toward more openness and tolerance.

Zhao's call to begin lifting the Party's control over China's life -- to let a little freedom into the public square -- is remarkable coming from a man who had once dominated that square. Although Zhao now speaks from the grave in this moving and riveting memoir, his voice has the moral power to make China sit up and listen.

The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns is Alan Greenberg’s remarkable story of ascending to the top of one of Wall Street’s venerable powerhouse financial institutions. After joining Bear Stearns in 1949, Greenberg rose to become formally head of the firm in 1978. No one knows the history of Bear Stearns as he does; no one participated in more key decisions, right into the company’s final days. Greenberg offers an honest, clear-eyed assessment of how the collapse of the company surprised him and other top executives, and he explains who he thinks was responsible. This is a candid, fascinating account of a storied career and its stunning conclusion.

"Whoever coined the adage about hindsight being twenty-twenty didn’t make any allowance for astigmatism or myopia. Whose hindsight? And from what distance? A picture clarifies or blurs with the passage of time, and whatever image emanates at a given instant is colored by the biases of the observer. Knowing that my perceptions of the fall of Bear Stearns are inevitably somewhat subjective, I’ve tried to make sense of exactly what happened when and how this or that development along the way contributed to the ultimate outcome. I’ve wanted to get a fix on the moment when we ceased controlling our own destiny—not out of intramural curiosity but because that loss of control resonated and replicated globally. For those of us who across decades gave so much of ourselves to Bear Stearns, what took place during a single week in March 2008 was a watershed in our lives. With sufficient time and distance, as the context expanded, we could recognize it as the signal event of an enormous disruption that the world will be struggling to recover from for years to come."