Profiteer Hostile Takeover 1

Since the early 1980s, governments worldwide have taken many measures to expand the role of markets. Recent political events reflect widespread disenchantment with neoliberal policies, but it remains doubtful whether populist leaders will deliver the market restraints that many of their voters expect. This book explains the resilience of marketization processes by highlighting the role of profiteers- namely those who, like the organizer of a cock fight, benefit from contests regardless of who wins. By setting up shop on the sidelines, profiteers accumulate resources that boost political efforts to maintain and expand the arena of competition. Evidence comes from the evolution of support for shareholder rights relating to takeover bids among key interest groups and political parties in three countries since the late nineteenth century..

Do you ever wonder if there’s a connection between the corruption scandals in the news and the steady decline in the quality of life for millions of Americans? Do you ever wonder what corporations get for the millions of dollars they pour into the American political system? Do you ever think the government has been hijacked by forces hostile to average Americans? Do you ever want to fight back? Millions of Americans lack health care and millions more struggle to afford it. Politicians claim they care, then pass legislation that just sends more cash to the HMOs. Wages have been stagnant for thirty years, even as corporate profits skyrocket. Politicians say they want to fix the problem and then pass bills written by lobbyists that drive wages even lower and punish those crushed by debt. Jobs are being shipped overseas, pensions are being cut, and energy is becoming unaffordable. And our government, more concerned about maintaining its corporate sponsorship than protecting its citizens, does nothing about it. In Hostile Takeover, David Sirota, a major new voice in American politics, seeks to open the eyes of ordinary Americans to the fact that corporate interests have undermined democracy, aided and abetted by their lackeys in our allegedly representative government. At a time when more and more of America’s major political leaders are being indicted or investigated for corruption, Sirota takes readers on a journey that shows how all of this nefarious behavior happened right under our noses—and how the high-profile scandals are merely one product of a political system and debate wholly owned by Big Money interests. Sirota considers major public issues that feel intractable—like spiraling health care costs, the outsourcing of jobs, the inequities of the tax code, and out-of-control energy prices—and shows how in each case workable solutions are buried under the lies of lobbyists, the influence of campaign cash, and the ubiquitous spin machine financed by Big Business. With fiery passion, pinpoint wit, and lucid analysis, Hostile Takeover reveals the true enemies of reform and their increasingly sophisticated—and hostile—tactics. It’s an essential guidebook for those of us tired of the government selling us out—and determined to take our country back. Also available as an eBook.

.

.

It all started about a decade ago, when the Portal suddenly opened up over the stadium right in the middle of a game. Cleveland just hadn’t been the same since, what with electronic devices pretty much useless—unless you were willing to spend a fortune in digital protection and redundancy equipment—and all the dragons, elves, gnomes, dwarves, gargoyles, etc. who’d come through the Portal to take up residence within the areas covered by the Portal’s magical field. For Kline Maxwell, City Hall reporter for the Cleveland Press, magic-based Cleveland had long since become the status quo. At least until a fellow reporter named Morgan came down with a case of eyeballs growing all over his body. The diagnosis: stay out of Portal territory and he’d be just fine. But that meant Maxwell and all the other reporters were going to have to take up the slack. And Maxwell hated the thought of doing “fuzzy gnome” stories. Still, he took his job seriously, and when he was assigned to cover a dragon’s death by crash-landing into the Cuyahog, he headed over to the accident site with only a modest number of curses. But what should have been a simple accident report soon led Maxwell in search of a much bigger story—one that would see him kidnapped by elves, framed for murder, holding secret meetings with dragons, and fleeing not only from the cops but from pretty much everyone….

College student Nate Black is a top-notch computer hacker. But he's long since stopped the kind of hacking that could put him behind bars. Under the guise of his user i.d., Azrael, he has never been discovered. That is, until Nate gets an anonymous email, after which nothing will ever be the same. He's abducted to an alien world, where magic is the rule, the gods are all too real, and a twist of fate makes him the most valuable pawn in a terrifying game of power..

Brand new in the action-packed Apotheosis epic Adam, an AI creation of an alien race, prepares to launch a conquest that has been centuries in the making, and if he succeeds he will rule over all humankind-over all sentient life-forms-as a God..

The last stand against the self-proclaimed God, Adam, has retreated to the anarchic planet Bakunin-a world besieged by civil war. Humanity's last hope lies with Nickolai Rajasthan, a Moreau who believes that the human race that created his kind is already damned beyond redemption..

It’s been nearly 200 years since the collapse of the Confederacy, the last government to claim humanity’s colonies. So when signals come in revealing lost human colonies that could shift the power balance, the race is on between the Caliphate ships and a small team of scientists and mercenaries. But what awaits them all is a threat far beyond the scope of any human government..

In this humorous and offbeat fantasy, magic is rarely perfect, heroes are rarely honorable, and you just might wake up in a body that's not your own… Frank Blackthorne's most recent heist did not end optimally. The sacrificial virgin survived, but the whole incident left Frank, a respectable career thief, on the run from a kingdom full of evil cultists eager to replace their sacrifice. So, when the Court Wizard of Lendowyn, Elhared the Unwise, comes to him intending to hire someone to save Lendowyn’s princess from an evil dragon in return for riches, glory, and help with the bloodthirsty cultists problem, Frank is rightfully suspicious. Frank is also not in a position to refuse. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Frank’s rescue fails—in an explosion of spectacularly misapplied magic. When the dust settles, all parties involved find themselves body-swapped. Frank is left stranded in the Princess Lucille’s body, halfway across the kingdom. The understandably angry Princess Lucille finds herself inhabiting the body of the dragon. In order to set things right, they will have to team up and face down thugs, slavers, elvish bookies, knights in shining armor, an evil Queen, and the hordes of the Dark Lord Nâtalc..

Opportunism combined with anti-Semitism led non-Nazi businessmen to acquire the largest German-Jewish companies in the period 1933–1935. These hostile takeovers were made possible by the Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank, which recalled loans previously extended to Jewish firms. Thereby Germany's largest banks obtained new loan fees, new supervisory board seats and became the house banks for the new Gentile-owned firms. The German judiciary did not defend Jewish property rights, because judges shared the same conservative mindset. Scholarship has previously not discovered this 1933–1935 paradigm because of a focus on Berlin government or Nazi Party actions, instead of the Jewish companies. In addition, a failure to distinguish between multi-million dollar enterprises and tiny shops caused scholars to emphasize the year 1938, when thousands of mom-and-pop shops became bankrupt..

This is the story of Nohar Rajasthan, a private eye descended from genetically manipulated tiger stock to become a moreau--a second-class humanoid citizen in a human world. Nohar retired from the private eye business ten years ago, and just wants to spend his remaining time in the peace and quiet of his wilderness homestead. Then a human lawyer asks him to take on a missing moreau case--and suddenly all hell breaks loose!.

.

Two novels in one volume. An omnibus edition of Dragons of the Cuyahoga and The Dwarves of Whiskey Island Kline Maxwell was a serious political reporter. He wasn't interested in working on "fuzzy gnome" stories, or any of the other unbelievable tales that should end up only in sensationalist rags. But twelve years ago a magical Portal had opened into Cleveland, a Portal that had ruined much of Cleveland's modern-day technology even as it released magical energy all over town. And suddenly there was a shift in the population as humans fled the burg while dwarves, elves, dragons, ogres, gnomes, mages, and every other denizen of the fantasy realm on the other side of the Portal began moving into town. And whether he wanted to or not, Maxwell had found himself covering stories that sometimes took him far from his political beat and into way too much danger both magical and mundane. Still, he took his job seriously, and when he was assigned to cover a dragon's death by crash-landing into the Cuyahoga, he headed over to the accident site with only a few curses. But what should have been a simple accident report soon led Maxwell in search of a much bigger story—one that would see him kidnapped by elves, framed for murder, holding secret meetings with dragons, and fleeing not only from the cops but from pretty much everybody!.

.

.

.