Book Description
Birnbaum's Walt Disney World, the most respected and well-known name in travel guides, takes readers to the world's most popular tourist attraction. Since our guide is the only guide that's official, this book includes the most accurate information on prices, changes, and new attractions for 2005. Highlights include the lowdown on Disney's latest attractions, including Mickey's PhilharMagic, a 3-D film spectacular where Disney magic meets Disney music, and Wishes, the new nighttime fireworks extravaganza. Get the scoop on the World's newest lodging facility, the deluxe Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa as well as the newest value resort-the colorful and quirky Pop Century.
Customer Reviews:
The Perfect Book For The Perfect Trip !.......2006-01-23
Birnbaum's Walt Disney World is all you'll need to plan the perfect Walt Disney World vacation!
This book tells you everything you need to know from A - Z. After reading it, you'll feel like you just got back from Walt Disney World.
Birnbaum's Walt Disney World is perfect for first time visitors or for returning vacationers. It will help you pick a hotel, decide which rides to ride, where to eat and when to go. This book is a priceless vacation tool.
You will find because Walt Disney World is always changing that some of the information is outdated, just make sure you get the most recent edition. For instance, if you're going in 2006, get the 2006 edition instead of this 2005 edition.
This is a fabulous book!
Excellent Read, Great Information.......2005-09-17
I love this book. It was the very first guide that I read. However, it has to be taken in perspective. This book is even better en tandem with The Unofficial Guide. Then you have all the information you could possibly need. The Unofficial Guide provides much needed balance, to the official line. This book will get you excited and high as a kite about your trip- which is great. It will tell you about all the wonderful things there are to do and great opportunities that are largely missed. The Unofficial will then proceed to give you a reality check about them and help you set realistic goals and have realistic expectations. This helps so that you're not disappointed. I used these two guides plus the Passporter (for organization) and we had the best trip in the world. We went in August, stayed on property, got around without having to rent a car or wait in long lines in the heat. We saw people looking like they were gonna pass out from heat exhaustion, but we sailed through our trip like a breeze and can't wait to go again. I read Fodor's, Frommer's (excluding the Irrevernt Guide), the Everything Guide, Rita Aero's,Eyewitness (waste of paper), Hassle Free Disney and tons more thru the years- NONE of the others are needed. The best plans are in the Unofficial guide, the best maps are in the official, the best planner is in the Passporter. The others were not used and not needed and a big waste of money.
EXCELLENT INFORMATION.......2005-09-15
Book is #1 to me. So informative, a must have for first timers or people who have been time and time again.
Very good book, but wait for the 2006 edition........2005-09-03
This book has lots of useful information. The book is somewhat dated already. I realize that Disney changes frequently. If you are planning a trip for the end of 2005 or 2006 I would wait for the 2006 book to be released.
Christmas Vacation.......2005-08-20
Park ticket prices in the book were not the same as the actual purchase price. The book has good infromation for planning a vacation, especially at Christmas time.
Average customer rating:
- Good, but a bit too optimistic
- Rubbish
- A Calm but Caring Exploration
- The Market System: Understood Properly!!!
- Interesting reflections on the market system
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The Market System: What It Is, How It Works, and What to Make of It
Charles E. Lindblom
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
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Book Description
In this clear and accessible book, an eminent political scientist offers a jargon-free introduction to the market system for all readers, with or without a background in economics.
Customer Reviews:
Good, but a bit too optimistic.......2005-08-01
Charles Lindblom brings up several interesting issues about the Market System. While I agreed with the basic principles, I had the feeling that he sometimes oversimplified some issues and I was sometimes left with more questions than answers. Specifically, given the current environment of proposed nation building in the Middle East, I attempted (perhaps too ambitiously) to extrapolate his theories to this problem, and thus found Lindblom's explanation of the Market system as a peacekeeping force most interesting, and therefore also most troublesome.
I was hoping to find some understanding of how the implementation of a healthy market system "does not simply flourish in peaceful societies; [but also how] it helps to make those societies peaceful." Also I was interested in how Lindblom defines `peaceful', as I believe the USA may have one of the most effective market systems in the world, yet at least compared to Europe, and in fact many other countries like China with central planning, the USA is far from peaceful (high crime rates, riots etc.).
I found Lindblom's caveat that "the market system makes societies peaceful, but that is not necessarily efficient, equitable, or humane" perplexing. Does, as Lindblom claims, "higher income - and especially growing income - reduce frustration, conflict, and consequent mutual injury, making possible a peaceful and stable political order", and if so can this be projected at an international level to reduce incidents such as 911? Specifically, what can be done in a country like Afghanistan, with an arguably weak market system, which has been at the center of the `Great Game' for so long? Lindblom mentions the success of how "now conspicuously in Asia Q.E.D. The market system makes for social peace"; should Afghanistan attempt to follow the example export oriented example of the Asian Tigers, how would this be possible?
Charles brings up some good points, but probably should read Huntingtons Clash of Civilizations. I think the glass is only half full. And globalization is somehting which our current governmental bodies and supranational organizations are, not yet equipped to deal with. I fear it is a society that small, especially economically challenged nation states fear, perhaps rightly so? This is what will give rise to further clashes of civilizations but not peace.
Tom Anderson
Anderson Analytics, LLC
http://www.andersonanalytics.com
Rubbish.......2002-10-18
"Professor Lindblom's argument manifests a fundamental misunderstanding of the case for capitalism. Unless some people with money to spend wanted to read books critical of capitalism written by leftist intellectuals, our author would be unable to sell his book. But this does not weaken his claim to the money he is paid for the book: quite the contrary, that very fact is his claim to the money."
"Lindblom's abuse of logic in his argument goes further. Suppose one grants him that because the value of his book in large part depends on the preferences and actions of people besides him, he is not entitled to what people choose to pay him. It hardly follows that it is up to "society" to decide the issue. Lindblom has argued in this way: The value of what someone produces depends on the actions of everyone else, that is, on "the whole system." But this is to reify "the whole system" as if it were a separate entity with rights and entitlements of its own."
""Do you mean to tell me that in your society, other than a claim to liberty to work for wages and to hold and use assets if you can get any, no one has any claim on anyone else, on government, or on society other than what one can claim by offering something in return. . . . You call yourselves human beings?" (p. 114).
Clearly, the spaceman speaks for our author, who elsewhere bemoans the millions of people who would starve, were the market rule strictly applied. Would not all infants fail to reach adulthood, since they make no market contribution? "[T]he world would lie depopulated in a generation" (p. 120).
I venture to suggest that Lindblom has totally misapprehended the issue. The question is not whether people without assets or marketable skills should starve; of course they should not. But does it help these unfortunates to give them enforceable rights to sustenance? A legal enactment of this kind will not conjure into existence any resources, and these can be obtained only from the productive. Why will the poor fare better if they depend on the state to seize wealth from others, rather than rely on charity? Again Lindblom falls into the fallacy of thinking that a market society contains nothing but market transactions."
"Lindblom is for the most part content to repeat his arguments of fifty years ago. Perhaps in another half-century he will grasp what is wrong with them."
Quote: David Gordon,...
A Calm but Caring Exploration.......2002-03-14
"Think society, not economy." Thus Lindblom, our author, urges the reader to think about the market system in a more inclusive context than we ordinarily are wont to do. To what end?
Well, the subtitle of this book is "What It Is, How It Works, and What to Make of It." As he says early on: "For at least 150 years many societies have been trapped in an ill-tempered debate about market systems. Now we have an opportunity to think about these systems with a new dispassion and clarity. Market ideologues have learned that there is little to fear from communism... For their part, socialist ideologues have realized that aspiring for a better society is not enough. They have to face the complexities of constructing one."
One way of bisecting the population is by distinguishing those who see an imperfect world and want to perfect it from those who see an imperfect world and want to live in it as well as its imperfections allow. Charles Lindblom, a professor of economics and political science, is of the first sort. His viewpoints become clear as the book goes along, and he makes no bones about the imperfections of the various market systems and their supporting political systems. At the same time he is not an ideologue, and does not fall into the trap of yearning for a utopia of the right, or of the left.
Basically, he sees the market system as inducing cooperation and preempting violent interaction over a vast range of social interactions. That these take place mostly with money as intermediary does not remove them from the social sphere: it is, he claims, a false distinction to place economic interactions in some separable sphere from social interactions. The real distinction that the market system makes is quid pro quo: interactions between people involve an exchange - of goods for money, of favor for favor, of dinner at your house for (maybe much later) dinner at my house. But the invention of money and credit has made possible society-wide cooperation (the chain of cooperators to get this computer to my desk runs into the millions, or the hundreds of millions, of cooperating humans). For this the market system gets full credit.
But, as we know from the history of the Industrial Revolution (still going on in speeded-up form in some parts of the world), unfettered capitalism (the unregulated market system, in our terminology) is a harsh sorter-out of its participants into a few big winners (the entrepreneurs), a large number of more-or-less-contented employees, and a large number (although, unless the society is in imminent danger of revolution, not so large as the second group) of "losers" for whom the system offers little but grinding toil and early death.
Excepting such as Robert Nozick and Ayn Rand, most people feel the government has a legitimate role in curbing the excesses of the market system and protecting the citizens from each other within it. For it is a particularly transparent sophistry that all participants in the system come to it as roughly equally competent. To consider just one sort of inequality: many participants cannot do the arithmetic (don't even know that there is arithmetic they should be doing!) that would tell them whether they are getting a reasonable value when they buy something on time. Nor, say, do they understand the savage rate of compounding that credit card debt, left unattended, incurs.
The great political schism of our time is not religious, but free-market vs. government intervention. It can take a vast number of forms, and debate can get bogged down in symbolically important issues of little practical consequence while other more important effects are ignored. It is the virtue of this book that it adopts a more neutral terminology ("the market system") and is able to discuss and evaluate a vast range of issues on which sides are taken without demonizing one side or the other.
The weakness of this book is its inconclusiveness. It can't be helped. One can read a book about welfare reform, for example, and come away convinced of the author's prescription, because he has carefully stage-managed his argument to minimize or hide difficulties. Lindblom does not have that luxury: every issue really does have two sides. His general views are not in doubt: the market system is a very good thing; it needs government controls; government can, does, and should use the market system when it can it further the collective goals of the society.
But: how much freedom, of what sort, is enough? Is a command political system that employs market incentives just about as good as democracy? What possible alternatives are there to a market system? What can be done about corporations, these vast engines of production that are increasingly out of the control of the political system?
I enjoyed this book, although I'm not sure what I now know that I didn't already tacitly know. There were a few epiphanies, but they went by so quickly that I suspect I could profit much from a second reading. There are no pictures, charts, or bold-faced claims: the book has no visual aids to highlight its points. The prose is calm, and the arguments for or against a position are spare, with little or no supporting evidence. One reason for this is the high level at which the points are discussed: Lindblom is not making policy, but rather pointing out the wide range of possible answers to many of the vexed questions of the day. One cannot doubt the truth of most of what he says. The question is, what is one to do with it?
If one is a person of the second type, the answer is, nothing. But reformers should be given pause: Perhaps, after reading this book they may be persuaded to make their solutions less sweeping, in keeping with a new appreciation of the subtlety and richness of the problems of organizing a society around a market system that is intertwined with a political system.
The Market System: Understood Properly!!!.......2002-02-13
The main objective of Lindblom in this book is to elucidate the market system, not only in relation with the economic system but also in relation with the "social system", about what it does mean, how it does work, and what the alternatives it does have. Though the author is a supporter of the market system, he clearly demonstrates the efficiencies and inefficiencies, and accomplishments and failures of the market system in some important points for the society as a whole. At a point of time in history in which the alternative systems, including socialism, to market system have collapsed and the market rhetoric has pervaded all spaces of civic discourse, especially that regarding public sector management, Lindblom presents an excellent account of the market system that I believe will be very helpful to anybody who is interested in applying the market model to the public sector, and to anybody who believes (sometimes blindly) that the State is an impediment to the effective and efficient functioning of the market system.
The book is grouped into three parts. In the first part titled "How It Works" Lindblom examines the dynamics of the market system that lead to "great accomplishments". In the second part titled "What to Make of It" the author focuses on the operating rules of the market system, the relationship of the market system with and impact on democracy and culture. In the third part titled "Thinking About Choices" Lindblom envisages the alternative system to the market system that is expected to solve the problems of the market system. I will try to summarize some important points below.
To Lindblom, "a market system is a method of social coordination by 'mutual adjustment' among participants rather than by a central coordinator" (p. 23). To better grasp the role of the market system in coordinating the society, the author advises us to focus on and think the society, not the economy. In the market system, millions of people think and act without a great mind's planning and intention (say, central planning bureaucracy in socialist systems). "The market system is not a place but a web, not a location but a set of coordinated performances" (p. 40). The important point Lindblom tries to accomplish is that "it is a mindless and purposeless market system that accomplishes the great tasks of social cooperation" (p. 40). The market system wheel is rolled by intended and unintended behaviors of the individuals, but it creates an efficient functioning that was dreamed but could not yet have been accomplished by centrally intended systems such as socialist system. Lindblom approaches social coordination and "peacekeeping" in close relation to each other. Because of scarcity, according to the author, there is an inherent danger that people find themselves in fight to each other for determining who will get what and in what amount. "The market system", with the help of its formal and informal rules, "produces patterns of behavior that themselves reduce mutual injury and keep peace in the society, quite aside from inducing people to obey the law" (p. 44). Although "the market system makes societies peaceful, but that is not necessarily efficient, equitable, or humane" (p. 44), Lindblom cautions.
Lidblom believes that although enterprises and corporations are of critical importance in the market system in making proximate decisions (that transform inputs into outputs), he adds a caution that "the more the coordination by corporate management, the less by the market system", and he goes on to say that "The corporation is indeed an alternative to the market system" (p. 78). Why? Because the corporation can become an "island of command in market sea", by vertically integrating its production and by horizontally diversifying its mix of goods and services In these cases, multilateral cooperation among participants in the market system transforms itself into the unilateral hierarchical decision making of corporate managers, a form of decision-making that is more different than the market system's mutual adjustment, more similar to the central planning system's top-down decision making. This is a very important point that attracts our attention to the vital role of the State in ensuring the proper functioning of the market system and assuring fair competition.
Lindblom examines a large number of operating rules that lead the market system to producing efficient results in the domain in which it is mainly responsible and able to. This operating rules ranges from "quid pro quo" to "efficiency prices". Though generally market system is seen "completely" efficient as compared to "witch government", Lindblom demonstrates how the market system creates and feeds inefficiencies (negative spillovers, income inequalities are some among many others) and fails in many points that necessitate the State intervention to keep the "civilized" society get across the road.
One point in the book that impressed me deeply is how the market system, through its elite, creates (that I can call "anomalies in democratic system") what Lindblom calls "undemocracy". Lindblom also wages an effective critique on "granting the enterprise a citizen's rights (corporation as citizen) and demonstrates (with examples) how this "grant" can give (or gave) way to serious problems for the democratic system. In sum, Lindblom believes that "a society has to pay heavily for its market system in some loss of democracy (p. 250).
The inefficiencies and dangers of the market system constitute no reason, according to Lindblom, to abandon the market system. The alternative to the market system is not radically different from the market system itself today in function, but it is a state-supported market system that is oriented to detecting the problems and providing the solutions that the market system fails to do.
This book is supra-excellent that I cannot portray within limited lines. I believe that Lindblom is a great mind and a beautiful writer. Highly recommended for anybody who thinks that s/he knows the market system very well.
Interesting reflections on the market system.......2001-09-29
Professor Lindblom approaches his study of the "market system" in a rather circumspect manner but ultimately the book informs. The first part of the book is largely instructive. He defines the market system as "a system of society wide coordination of human activities not by central command but by mutual interactions in the form of transactions." Coordination is for both "social peacekeeping" and cooperation. Markets are an arena for mutual adjustment and not simply or even mostly for competition as some would contend. He contrasts the flexibility of markets with the rules and authority of a command system. The state under girds the market system by providing for liberties, property and contract rights, policing, infrastructure, a monetary system, etc. The author furnishes the analogy: if the market system is a dance, the state supplies the dance floor. He is especially wont to point out the interpenetration of the market system with society and the polity. The market system is not some purely economic formulation like, say, the law of supply and demand.
A key claim by purists is that the market system establishes efficiency prices, or the correct price based on the free interactions of all buyers and sellers. The author squashes that notion. There are any number of inefficiencies and compulsions that undermine claims of efficiency. Among them are so-called spillover effects or externalities, transaction termination, manipulation of buyers, inequality of resources, inequality of market position, arbitrary pricing by monopolies or governmental interference - to name a few. In addition, the author identifies "prior determinations" as distorting efficiency prices. Custom, laws especially those of inheritance, and historical accident distribute assets and skills that distort and taint current market transactions.
The author spends some time examining the quid pro quo basis of the market system. The general rule for entering the market system is that any request for benefits or goods is invalid without an equivalent market offer. Traditional societies have generally acknowledged at least some claim to society's output by virtue of membership. But market systems turn inhumane quid pro quo into a moral virtue. The author points out that the concept of community allows for "love thy neighbor," but in market societies one has no neighbors. Critics contend that the market system affects personalities rewarding small-mindedness, cunning, and deceit over wisdom. Yet the author is more inclined to view market behavior as an example of role ethics and not to be deplored.
Perhaps the major concern of the author concerning the market system is the disproportionate power granted to elites in a market system and the subsequent impact on freedom and democracy.
Clearly entrepreneurs and corporations and to some extent governmental elites are the movers and shakers of market systems. Market and political elites constantly bombard the public in one-way communication with their messages for purposes of controlling and manipulating the public's market and political behavior making a mockery of the much proclaimed "consumer sovereignty." Elite control and hierarchical arrangements are made to seem natural in an ostensibly democratic society.
Governments offer any number of inducements to corporations: tariff protections, loans, cash and land grants, purchase of goods, patents, tax concessions, information and research services, subsidized advertising, etc. School systems are geared to corporate needs. But those concessions to market elites are clearly a case of the exercise of political inequality.
In addition, it is problematic for democracy when rights usually conferred on real, living citizens are granted to institutions such as the fiction that corporations are legal persons. He contends that institutions should be constrained to pursue assigned purposes and no others. For corporations that would include rights to buy and sell and manage a workforce. As it is, corporations play the role of oversized, unfairly empowered citizens. Utilizing public funds, that is, sales receipts, and organizational resources, corporations engage in overt political and philanthropic activities at a level that overwhelms normal citizen participation and influence.
If the market system distorts democracy, why is it that no democratic state has turned away from the market system? According to the author the assault on the public's mind by market and political elites has produced "a remarkably high degree of conformity of thought endorsing or accepting the market system."
Free-market ideologues tout the freedom of the market system. But in the face of "distracting and obfuscating" communications from elites, is it possible to exercise free choice. Some have suggested that such manipulation actually degrades mental acuteness, and though sympathetic the author finds that to be an overstatement. The unfreedom of workplaces also brings into question the claim of the market system as being freedom enhancing. In the author's words: "People at the end of the 21st century may look back with astonishment on our era's discrepancy between democratic principle and autocratic practice in the corporation."
In the end, the author though noting the considerable problems of the market system remains confident that the market system can best deliver the benefits to society as first defined. He points out that every market society can choose varying degrees of control over spillovers, monopoly, corporate powers including political powers, managerial authority in enterprises, investment, and distribution of income and wealth. Purchase, subsidy, tax, and related devices can be used by the state to make the market system livable.
Undoubtedly, free-market types will not find much to enjoy in this book. Others may contend that the author was unwilling to drive the final nail into a system that he clearly finds to be problematic. But the book is a very interesting study of the market system.
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Analyses in Macroeconomic Modelling (ADVANCES IN COMPUTATIONAL ECONOMICS Volume 12) (Advances in Computational Economics)
Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0792385985 |
Book Description
Macroeconomic Modelling has undergone radical changes in the last few years. There has been considerable innovation in developing robust solution techniques for the new breed of increasingly complex models. Similarly there has been a growing consensus on their long run and dynamic properties, as well as much development on existing themes such as modelling expectations and policy rules. This edited volume focuses on those areas which have undergone the most significant and imaginative developments and brings together the very best of modelling practice.
We include specific sections on (I) Solving Large Macroeconomic Models, (II) Rational Expectations and Learning Approaches, (III) Macro Dynamics, and (IV) Long Run and Closures. All of the contributions offer new research whilst putting their developments firmly in context and as such will influence much future research in the area. It will be an invaluable text for those in policy institutions as well as academics and advanced students in the fields of economics, mathematics, business and government. Our contributors include those working in central banks, the IMF, European Commission and established academics.
Average customer rating:
- Interesting, but not the best.
- Crazy book
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The THIRD AND POSSIBLY THE BEST 637 BEST THINGS ANYBODY EVER SAID
Byrne
Manufacturer: Scribner
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Binding: Board book
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ASIN: 0689118228 |
Book Description
With two other books full of witty, outrageous, and observant quotes, Robert Byrne still had more to report. Here is the third collection in this intriguing array of clever ripostes, insouciant double entendres, and pearls of wisdom, as uttered by comedians, writers, showmen, philsophers, teachers, politicians, athletes, and more.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting, but not the best........2004-05-27
There are some good quotes in this book, but there are more that are not. The "Best things anybody ever said," should be changed to "Interesting Quotes."
Example:
~Quote~
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." A. Hitler
I don't see how the above quote from his book is considered "Best things anybody ever said."
He even has some of his own quotes in the book. The book is funny in some ways and serious in other ways. Also, the pages are not numbered.
Crazy book.......1999-07-14
This is the best book to read to your friends outloud. It is so funny. All the people that are quoted are funny or incredibly proufound. Well worth a read.
Book Description
"This collection contains some real gems!"
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
From Golda Meir to Erma Bombeck...from Aldous Huxley to Abbie Hoffman...from Oscar Wilde to W.C. Fields...from Queen Victoria to Mae West...from Aristotle to Idi Amin....here are the 637 best things anybody ever said--on God, Life, Death, Murder, Stupidity, Narcisism, Birth, Youth, Sex, Love, Marriage, Horses, Greeks, Romans, Politics, Literature, Drink, Presidents, and a great deal more.
Customer Reviews:
A must-have for your collection.......2007-01-25
I thoroughly enjoy this book. I have since acquired volumes 2, 3, and 4 and am going to pick up 5 when I'm able. I have also given "The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said" (a compendium of volumes 1 though 4) as gifts to a number of people, including my pastor and some of my childrens' teachers.
Many of the quotes require a deep wit, and often the quotes that are the best are completely lame until one understands the context (for example, Amy Carter's quote of "No", which was given when she was asked if she had a message for America's youth.) Robert Byrne also will string quotes together to make "virtual conversations" between historical figures (such as Plato and Hemmingway).
An awesome companion to this is "Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words" (by Josefa Heifitz Byrne, I believe) which shares a similar style of insightful humor, but is applied to a dictionary of words one would be hard-pressed to fit into any conversation.
Not Impressive.......2004-11-19
Of course, the title tells one that this book is not long on quantity, but implies that it's very high on quality. Not true IMHO. I found only 2 or 3 really good ones and a few marginal ones. The best included:
#322: I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. Bill Cosby
#498: Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf. Lewis Mumford
Book Description
An irreverent, but informative collection of 637 aphorisms and observations uttered by the witty, vicious, philsophical, political, historical, and artistic--and anyone else that said something terrific. There's something for everyone in this clever collection.
Customer Reviews:
Other 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said.......2000-12-14
This book combines a display of witty and funny remarks by well, basicly anybody. It would also be quick start to get you up in the morning to read one of these 637 quotes.
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Fifth 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
Robert Byrne
Manufacturer: Fawcett
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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ASIN: 0449223124
Release Date: 1994-05-01 |
Book Description
Robert Byrne, America's #1 phrasemeister, is back--continuing his lifelong quest for the quickest quips, the sharpest retorts, and the brightest truths! And once again he hits the mother lode, offering up 637 perfect gems to sure to delight and enlighten you....
"My husband thinks that health food is anything he eats before the expiration date."
RITA RUDNER
"The reason there are two senators for each state is so that one can be the designated driver."
JAY LENO
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