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Books

Utopia for Realists

Rutger Bregman's 2014 TEDTalk about universal basic income (a guaranteed stipend for every single person funded by a wealth tax) at the time seemed impossibly radical. A quarter of a million views later, the idea is being seriously discusssed by leading economists and government leaders the world over. Bregman's idealism is surprising and challenging and worth listening to. He provides examples of how his utopian ideas could…  More About: Utopia for Realists

Everybody Lies

All of us are touched by big data everyday, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are looks at what the vast amounts of information reveal about ourselves and our world. By the end of an average day in the early 21st century, human beings searching the internet will amass eight trillion…  More About: Everybody Lies

The Color of Law

The Color of Law describes how segregation in America—which continues to impact major cities and contribute to social strife—is the byproduct of government housing policies at the local, state and federal levels.

As a former columnist for the New York Times, research associate at the Economic Policy Institute and fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Richard Rothstein has spent years…  More About: The Color of Law

The Financial Diaries

The American Dream is backed by the belief that hard work and steady saving will ensure a comfortable retirement and a better life for one's children. But in a nation experiencing unprecedented prosperity, even for many families who seem to be doing everything right, this ideal is still out of reach.

The Financial Diaries draws on information from the U.S. Financial Diaries, which follow the lives…  More About: The Financial Diaries

Our Bodies, Our Data

Hidden to consumers, patient medical data has become a multibillion-dollar worldwide trade industry between our health-care providers, drug companies and a complex web of middlemen. This medical-data bazaar sells copies of the prescription you recently filled, your hospital records, insurance claims, blood-test results and more—stripped of your name but possibly with identifiers such as year of birth, gender and doctor. As computing grows ever more…  More About: Our Bodies, Our Data

Captured

U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse employs history, legal scholarship and personal experiences to provide an in-depth explanation of what’s gone wrong with the corporate influence game. He and his co-author Melanie Wachtell Stinnett expose multiple avenues through which our government has been infiltrated and disabled by corporate powers. Captured reveals an original oversight by the founders, and examines how and why corporate power has exploited that vulnerability: to strike fear…  More About: Captured

How to Be the World’s Smartest Traveler

One of our favorite consumer advocates, travel expert Christopher Elliott shares the smartest ways to travel in this tip-packed guide from National Geographic. Drawing on more than 20 years of experience as a consumer travel advocate, Elliott gives you the inside scoop on how to navigate the landmines of travel, with detailed advice on airlines, car rentals, cruises, hotels, the TSA and security, vacation rentals, passports and visas and much more!

We…  More About: How to Be the World’s Smartest Traveler

Weapons of Math Destruction

In Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, a former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life. This is about the "dark side" of Big Data.

This is the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much…  More About: Weapons of Math Destruction

Chain of Title

"Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud" reveals the story of the enormous foreclosure fraud that caused millions of families to lose their homes based on false evidence by mortgage companies. The lenders had no legal right to foreclose—they messed up the chain of title to the properties by failing to adequately review and sign the documents. The ensuing scandal implicated dozens…  More About: Chain of Title

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

"Evicted" is an eye-opening trip to the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee via the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the $20 a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of…  More About: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

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