VISION WORKSHOP 2011-NYC
What are you going to do in 2011 to make it a better year than 2010?

You’ve heard about Treasure Maps and Vision Collages on Oprah, well, we’ve been doing them for over 15 years! Sign up now– this event sold out last year! Create a new story for 2011! Your capacity to re-energize your life depends on your ability to tell yourself a story that will reframe the past and propel you forward. Vision guides you through releasing old patterns and establishing new, effective choices to actualize your goals and propel you forward to the next level. Unleash your dreams and create a map to manifest your destiny!

In the powerful Vision Workshop, you will learn:

“This workshop is a phenomena, an oasis in the midst and chaos of everyday life, in which you can stop, clear the decks, and create a vision for a rich, rewarding life.” - Cathy Gins

Special guests: Grammy Award Winning producer and sound healer Barry Goldstein and Breath Work expert Nancy Walsh.

Event Schedule: Fri. 1/14, 7:30pm-10pm; Sat. 1/15, 10am-7pm; Sun., 1/16, 10am-6pm

Where: Children’s Aid Society, 219 Sullivan Street, NYC

Contact: 212.741.3358

Investment: $300 through Dec 17, $350 after December 17th– Payment Plans Available

Register online at www.joyofritual.com, or call for more information.

Shape your vision for the New Year and make effective choices that propel you forward!

No Comments »

The two titles picked by Ms. Winfrey are: A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, both of which happen to be available as beautiful classic paperback and hardcover editions with the original illustrations from Cosimo.

Cosimo now also offers the complete works of Charles Dickens in a 30-volume set (paperback or hardcover) at attractive prices for the book collector or looking for a special holiday gift. Find out more at the Cosimo Bookstore.

No Comments »

Danny Schechter, Cosimo author of the book Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal and director of the movie Plunder, the Crime of Our Time and the companion book The Crime of Our Time, has just written a new blog post with holiday reading suggestions about the economic crisis (cheery, we know, but still worth checking out). You can read more and find links to the books below. Happy reading!

GOOD HOLIDAY READS IN A DARK AND DEPRESSING TIME

My 12 Best Books of Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa About the
Economic Crisis That Has Defined Our Times

By Danny Schechter

Back in 2007, just as the markets began their meltdown, I started writing a book I called Plunder to investigate the then emerging economic calamity. I had a well-known agent representing me, and, at that time, had published ten books. My agent warned me that I was ahead of the curve but agreed that the subject couldn’t be timelier.

Before we were through, the manuscript went to and was returned by 30 publishers. I was told that there is only one person that a book like mine had to pass muster with, not an economist, not a book editor—but the book buyer who handles business books for Barnes and Noble. If she/she didn’t like it, forget it. (This was before the bottom dropped out of that company that was later nearly sold.)

So much for their business savvy. I guess Plunder was too much of an anti-business book for them then.

At that point, they were looking for “How to Get Rich” books and volumes with investment advice. Since I was not offering either, my warnings of the collapse ahead were off-message. No sale. Finally, a small press, Cosimo Books put it out. Sadly, with no real advertising budget or retail support, it wasn’t going to go anywhere. It was on the money in one sense—published just before Lehman Brothers went down.

Since then, as the crisis was acknowledged and legitimated, the subject was finally validated for the publishing world, perhaps as millions of people began asking, ‘What the F…? What the hell happened?’

To answer that question, a mighty stream of crisis books were commissioned and soon poured forth. Every publisher wanted one. Some authors blamed psychological factors. Others were technical to a fault and unreadable. Still, others trashed borrowers who bought homes they couldn’t afford. Many framed the problem in terms of Wall Street mistakes and miscalculations, and occasionally greed.

Wrote Satyajit Das, author of Traders, Guns & Money: “The number of books on the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has reached pandemic proportions—the World Health Organization (WHO) is investigating. With the decorum of vultures at a carcass, publishers are cashing in on the transitory interest of the masses (normally obsessed with war, scandal or reality TV shows) in the arcane minutiae of financial matters.”

Few indicted the system; fewer still focused on intentionality—crime in the suites, the subject I explore in my film PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time and the more detailed companion book The Crime of Our Time (Disinfo).

In the meantime, I tried to keep up with the hype and a flow that is still flowing.
Here are twelve books worth reading:

1. The Pecora Investigation: Stock Exchange Practices and the Causes of the 1929 Wall Street Crash This is the just reissued actual text of the US Senate Committee on Banking and Currency in the days before the Congress was bought and sold. Pecora had said “Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the banker’s stoutest allies.”

   So far, in today’s crisis there has been only ONE real Senate hearing, by Senator Levin questioning ONE deal by Goldman Sachs who denied everything until the bank reached a $550 MILLION settlement without admitting any wrong-doing. Clearly we still need a new Pecora-like investigation, not a tepid Congressional inquiry commission.

2. Matt Taibbi: Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking AmericaAs Rolling Stone readers know, Matt is a bold reporter and brilliant stylist turning his rage into brilliant prose and giving no mercy to the Goldman Sachs gang.
3. Nomi Prims: It Takes a Pillage: An Epic Tale of Power, Deceit, and Untold TrillionsAn elegant writer, Nomi knows the financial world up close because she’s ‘been there and done that’ with high paying stints at Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs. You can see her brilliance in my film, PLUNDER. Her book goes much deeper.
4. Les Leopold: The Looting of America: How Wall Street’s Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do About It Les is a passionate and compelling writer, teacher and activist. He has been steeped in union politics and knows how to fuse analysis and agitation.
5. Joseph E. Stiglitz: Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy Siglitz is the economist’s economist, a Nobel Prize Winner, an insider turned fierce critic of our economic crisis. He has the credentials and THE critique and a much needed global perspective.
6. Howard Davies: <The Financial Crisis: Who is to Blame ? I picked this book up at my alma mater, the London School of Economics, which Davies now directs. This is straight down the middle without dismissing more radical insights. He even references my critique of media complicity.
7. Randall Lane: The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane A colorful personal account by a gonzo editor who covered the madness for Wall Street pubs. Sample: “Historically, Wall Street has been like one giant extended High School (A boy’s High School). The jocks become trader—large, aggressive men who succeed in the pits based on heft and testosterone. The nerds went into banking, crunching numbers and pumping out spread sheets to determine the efficacy of deals.”
8. Yves Smith: ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism Yves is a rock star in the business of critical economics. A financial industry professional, she defected to the “light side” and founded the must read website, NakedCapitalism.com. This book skewers government policy, the economics “profession” and Wall Street fraudsters.
9. Steig Larsson: The Millenium Trilogy The late Swedish journalist-turned-popular-writer has produced three volumes of best-selling action thrillers with intelligent plots. I cite his work here because he and the character he created, Mikael Blomkvist, were investigative reporters in the financial realm. Larsson describes Blomkvist’s contempt for his fellow financial journalists based on morality: “His contempt for his fellow financial journalists was based on something that in his opinion was as plain as morality. The equation was simple. A bank director who blows millions on foolhardy speculations should not keep his job. A managing director who plays shell company games should do time.”

   “The job of the financial journalist was to examine the sharks who created interest crises and speculated away the savings of small investors, to scrutinise company boards with the same merciless zeal with which political reporters pursue the tiniest steps out of line of ministers and members of Parliament.”

   His books are more than storytelling. They are also a cry for more truth in media.

   And, since I try to practice the investigative protocols of journalism in this sphere, may I call your attention to the republication of one of the greatest American classics of taking on corporate power?



10. Ida M. Tarbell may be gone but her work is not forgotten, especially her classic, two volume blistering The History of The Standard Oil Company I was privileged to write the introduction for the Cosimo edition. She wrote this muckraking blockbuster in 1904 and remains relevant, and an example of the best of us.
11. For a left critique, try Michael Chossudovsky and Andrew Gayin Marshall, Editors: The Global Economic Crisis The Great Depression of the XXI Century from the Canadian-based global web site I contribute to.
12. Barry James Dyke: The Pirates of Manhattan: Systematically Plundering The American Consumer and How To protect Yourself Against It The one financial book I book I saw “blurbed” by Jay Leno.

So, this is my “cheaper by the dozen” for 2010. I am sure I have overlooked some great work so it is hardly the “end-all” and “be-all.” Many of the new financial books out there are written by journalists for leading newspapers and magazine, as well as mainstream economists, many of whom missed the crisis when they might have warned us about it.

And, while many of us wait for the promised Wikileaks take down of a major bank, many authors and journalists still fail to tackle the really essential issues.
Hopefully, some of the books I am recommending will fill some gaps in your knowledge.

Danny Schechter is also on The Progressive Radio Network every Friday at 1pm. Last week he talked with Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi to discuss his new book Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking AmericaGriftopia (listed above), “The dramatic story behind the most audacious power grab in American history.” You can check the show out here.

Check out Danny’s website atPlunderthecrimeofourtime.com Comments to danny@mediachannel.org

No Comments »