Month: February 2016

Author and Editor: Von E. Nebbitt, PhD Publisher: Columbia University Press – 234 pages Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram Members of some 1.2 million households in the United States live in public housing developments of various types, according to Wikipedia. Typically, these are high-rise and low-rise apartment buildings. These complexes are operated by state and local agencies, and are owned and funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). These subsidized apartment buildings have a colorful, complicated, and sometimes, notorious history, and this enlightening book helps you understand the historical developments by looking at the causes...

Authors: Lourdes Casanova and Julian Kassum Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan – 202 pages Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram Brazil was the world’s seventh largest economy in 2014 (latest figures available), with a gross domestic product of $2.353 trillion in nominal terms, according to the International Monetary Fund. The top three were the European Union, the United States, and China, which had a combined total GDP of $46.232 trillion or nearly 60 percent of total world GDP of $77.269 trillion consisting of 188 nations. The people of Brazil have been able to achieve fast growth. Its capable decision-makers, democratic institutions, enhanced...

Editors: Gerald P. Mallon and Peg McCartt Hess Publisher: Columbia University Press – 749 pages Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram In this book, the editors, both experienced educators and practitioners in the world of child welfare, have amassed a large number of writings by others in their field, including professors, researchers, consultants, advocates, and other professionals. Sixty-five people from all over the United States contributed to this book mainly by authoring its 40 chapters on a large range of subjects, including but not limited to: adoption, Alaskan and American-Indian Native children, birth mothers, child abuse, child protection, child welfare...

Authors: Evan A. Schnidman and William D. Macmillan Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan – 198 pages Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram Central banks, such as the United States Federal Reserve Bank and the Bank of Japan, to give two examples, manage a country’s money supply and thereby its interest rates. They hold the monopoly to make new money by physically printing it or creating it electronically.  The new money is then pumped in, or added into a country’s existing money supply, thereby increasing supply and lowering demand for it, which lowers interest rates.  Essentially, an interest rate is the price of...