Relentless and ominous, the drumbeat echoes across the land: Social Security is on the verge of bankruptcy. The warning has been repeated so often that it has become a dismal article of faith for the millions of Americans who pay Social Security taxes and expect to collect benefits someday. But it is flatly untrue. Social Security today is as financially strong as it has been in decades. Despite its relative good health, however, it is facing the most dangerous political challenge to its existence since its birth 70 years ago. The Plot Against Social Security explains who is really behind the efforts to "reform" this system and shows that the most frequently proposed fix -- diverting a huge portion of its assets into private investment accounts -- will damage it beyond repair, undermining retirement security for generations of Americans.
Award-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik documents the privatization lobby's ties to the brokerage and insurance industries that stand to profit from the proposed changes. He debunks the myths disseminated by Social Security's enemies, repeated by rote even by its friends and now accepted as gospel by many Americans -- including claims that the retirement of baby boomers will plunge the system into bankruptcy; that the $1.7 trillion in government securities held by the Social Security trust fund are worthless pieces of paper; and that workers can earn better returns on their payroll tax contributions by investing them privately than by leaving them in the system. Finally, he offers a clear set of remedies for those few elements of Social Security that do need repair -- proposals that will shore up the most effcient social insurance program in America's history rather than destroyingit in the name of reform.

The Plot Against Social Security: How the Bush Plan Is Endangering Our Financial Future

Business & Money

Hiltzik, Michael A.

Economics

HarperCol

Chronicles the lives and accomplishments of a group of eccentric computer technicians, brought together by Xerox, who created the first personal computer and the graphical user interface, and their contributions to the evolution of computer age. Simultaneous.

Dealers of Lightning: XEROX-PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age

Biography & History

HarperAudio

Dealers of Lightning is the riveting story of the legendary Xerox PARC--a collection of eccentric young inventors brought together by Xerox Corporation at a facility in Palo Alto, California, during the mind-blowing intellectual ferment of the seventies and eighties. Here for the first time Michael Hiltzik, a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, reveals in piercing detail the true story of the extraordinary group that aimed to bring about a technological dawn that would change the world--and succeeded. 
 Based on extensive interviews with the scientists, engineers, administrators, and corporate executives who lived the story, Dealers of Lightning takes the read on a journey from PARC's beginnings in a dusty, abandoned building at the edge of the Stanford University campus to its triumph as a hothouse of ideas that spawned not only the first personal computer, but the windows-style graphical user interface, the laser printer, much of the indispensable technology of the Internet, and a great deal more. It shows how and why Xerox, despite its willingness to grant PARC unlimited funding and the responsibility for developing breakthroughs to keep the corporation on the cutting edge of office technology, remained forever unable to grasp (and, consequently, exploit) the innovations that PARC delivered--and it details the increasing frustration of the original PARC scientists, many of whom would go on to build their fortunes upon the very ideas Xerox so rashly discarded. 
 More than just a riveting historical narrative, Dealers of Lightning brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters. Among them: 
<ul>
<li> Bob Taylor--the preacher's son from rural Texas who would be considered a prophet by some and a cantankerous egomaniac by others, whose fearless (and feared) leadership of a team of computer renegades made them the heroes of the embryonic Silicon Valley; </li>
<li> Jack Goldman--the Xerox chief scientist who convinced the stolid corporation to stake tens of millions of dollars on PARC while warning that the investment might not pay off for years--if it paid off at all; </li>
<li> Alan Kay--PARC's creative and philosophical soul, who suffered years of ridicule for envisioning a computer that could be tucked under the arm yet would contain the power to store books, symphonies, letters, poems, and drawings--until he arrived at Palo Alto and met the people who would build it; and </li>
<li> Steve Jobs--who, aided by Xerox's indifference to PARC's most momentous inventions, staged a daring raid to obtain the technology that would end up at the heart of the Macintosh: the machine that for a time helped Apple dominate an explosive new market. </li>
</ul>
 Dealers of Lightning is an unprecedented look at the ideas, the inventions, and the individuals that propelled Xerox PARC to the frontier of technohistory--and the corporate machinations that almost prevented it from achieving greatness.

Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age

Harper Business

Dealers of Lightning: Xerox Parc and the Dawn of the Computer Age

In the bestselling tradition of The Soul of a New Machine, Dealers of Lightning is a fascinating journey of intellectual creation. In the 1970s and '80s, Xerox Corporation brought together a brain-trust of engineering geniuses, a group of computer eccentrics dubbed PARC. This brilliant group created several monumental innovations that triggered a technological revolution, including the first personal computer, the laser printer, and the graphical interface (one of the main precursors of the Internet), only to see these breakthroughs rejected by the corporation. Yet, instead of giving up, these determined inventors turned their ideas into empires that radically altered contemporary life and changed the world.
Based on extensive interviews with the scientists, engineers, administrators, and executives who lived the story, this riveting chronicle details PARC's humble beginnings through its triumph as a hothouse for ideas, and shows why Xerox was never able to grasp, and ultimately exploit, the cutting-edge innovations PARC delivered. Dealers of Lightning offers an unprecedented look at the ideas, the inventions, and the individuals that propelled Xerox PARC to the frontier of technohistoiy--and the corporate machinations that almost prevented it from achieving greatness.

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hiltzik, Michael A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hiltzik, Michael A.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hiltzik, Michael A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Plot Against Social Security: How the Bush Plan Is Endangering Our Financial Future

Dealers of Lightning: XEROX-PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age

Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age

Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age