Getting Me Cheap How Low-Wage Work Traps Women and Girls in Poverty

/in /by
“Low-income mothers toil overnight in warehouses assembling our packages, they ring up our groceries, they mother our children when we’re at work, and they care for our ailing loved ones. Are we ready to stand up for them?” —from Getting Me Cheap

Many Americans take comfort and convenience for granted. We eat at nice restaurants, order groceries online, and hire nannies to care for kids.

Getting Me Cheap is a riveting portrait of the lives of the low-wage workers—primarily women—who make this lifestyle possible. Sociologists Lisa Dodson and Amanda Freeman follow women in the food, health care, home care, and other low-wage industries as they struggle to balance mothering with bad jobs and without public aid. While these women tend to the needs of well-off families, their own children frequently step into premature adult roles, providing care for siblings and aging family members.

In Getting Me Cheap: How Low-Wage Work Traps Women and Children in Poverty (November 29, 2022, $27.99), sociologists Lisa Dodson and Amanda Freeman spent over a decade talking to low-wage workers. Based on years of in-depth field work and hundreds of eye-opening interviews, Getting Me Cheap explores how America traps millions of women and their children into lives of stunted opportunity and poverty in service of giving others of us the lives we seek. Destined to rank with works like Evicted and Nickle and Dimed for its revelatory glimpse into how our society functions behind the scenes, Getting Me Cheap also offers a way forward—with both policy solutions and a keen moral vision for organizing women across class lines.

Getting Me Cheap is essential for readers of Barbara Ehrenreich, Arlie Hochschild, Sophie Lewis, Kathi Weeks, and anyone with an interest in equality, feminism and labor.

Praise:

“This empathetic and eye-opening study leaves a mark.” —Publishers Weekly

“This formidable book insists we face the harm of wage poverty in women’s lives and see the real costs of relying on their cheap labor. The powerful stories of mothers’ determination to care for their children become a courageous call for solidarity and collective action.” —Ellen Bravo, activist and author of Standing Up: Tales of Struggle

“The United States has the highest percentage of low-wage workers of any country in the OECD aside from Lithuania—a disproportionate number of them women who provide services to better-off families. Freeman and Dobson take us inside their lives to reveal the price they and their families pay for the cheap labor they provide to others.” —Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap

“An insightful book that shines light on issues that should be better understood by any responsible citizen.” —Kirkus Reviews

“An urgent exposé and exploration of one of our most pressing social problems—hidden in plain sight. A must-read for anyone concerned about how to make America a more just and equal nation.” —Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage and author of One Fair Wage

“The lives that so many of us lead depend on the invisible labor of others, whose own needs are cast aside by our society. This brilliant book moves those essential workers—so many of them mothers—into the light” —Michael Eric Dyson, New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

“The stories shared in this volume speak for themselves, spotlighting the frustrations, needs, and hopes of the women featured.” —Library Journal

Excerpt:

In 2019, before the pandemic, the Brookings Institution released a report describing the low-wage workforce: the roughly 53 million Americans making an average of $10.22 an hour, or essentially poverty incomes. This is the part of the U.S. labor market disproportionately relegated to women, Black, Latinx, and immigrant workers. Over the two years that followed, as the pandemic unfolded, it was clear these same women would be the workers who suffered the most. Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, put it like this, in the spring of 2020: “The people getting hurt the worst are . . . the lowest paid people. It’s women to an extraordinary extent.”

At the time Powell made that statement, we had been listening to low-wage moms for years. So we were not surprised that the pandemic took the most from those who could least afford it. This is not new. Low-wage women work in food services, as grocery clerks and in retail sales; as cleaners and child-care workers; and in the rapidly expanding market for home health–, elder-, and personal-care work. The nation’s back-water jobs are largely filled by women—and disproportionately by Black and Brown women. While raising more than half of all kids in America, these women provide the services that higher-income people rely on to manage career and family demands. They work to uphold the comfort and well-being of the affluent but are left to care for their own children and families on poverty earnings.

As one woman put it to us years ago, “They get me cheap.”

This book is guided by the concerns and values that low-income women emphasized and circled back to repeatedly in our conversations with them. It is not a linear story or one molded by current partisan debates. Instead, it mirrors the lives these women described to us, multitasking and shape-shifting above all, to be there for their kids. We heard how they changed jobs, went back to school, joined the armed services, made residential moves, and at times sought public aid to supplement poverty pay. Across states and over the years, one thing never changed. Motherhood and kids always remained at the center of their lives.

About the Authors:

Amanda Freeman is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Hartford and a writer and researcher of motherhood and work. She lives in Westport, Connecticut, and Getting Me Cheap (The New Press) is her first book.

Lisa Dodson is Research Professor Emerita at Boston College. She is the author of The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy and co-author (with Amanda Freeman) of Getting Me Cheap: How Low Wage Work Traps Women and Girls in Poverty (both from The New Press) and Don’t Call Us Out of Name. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Getting Me Cheap: How Low-Wage Work Traps Women and Children in Poverty will be released on November 29, 2022, published by The New Press. It is currently available for pre-sale. To learn more, go to https://thenewpress.com/books/getting-me-cheap

On with the Butter! Spread More Living onto Everyday Life by Heidi Herman

/in , , , /by

Hekla Publishing recently announced the release of – On with the Butter! Spread More Living onto Everyday Life by Heidi Herman. Genre: Non-Fiction / Retirement & Aging / Self-Help / Motivational

This new book is filled with encouragement and ideas to add more vitality and activity into your everyday life. 

What makes Heidi’s new book unique is her inspiration and – in 2018, her 93-year old mother, Ieda, undertook a challenge to have 93 new experiences before her 94th birthday to prove you’re never too old for something new. After Heidi helped her Icelandic mom with that year’s adventure, they were working on turning the experience into a book when Ieda passed away. Heidi finished her mother’s photo journal of experiences but was inspired to go one step further and inspire others to live life with that same vitality. Heidi herself learned to be what she calls a ‘life adventurer’ and her new book “On With the Butter!” provides insight for readers to add vitality to their own life. It also incorporates her Icelandic heritage and the unique Scandinavian life philosophies.

Synopsis:

Carry on, keep doing what you’re doing, forge ahead, and keep moving. Icelanders have a saying for it: Áfram með Smjörið – on with the butter!

If you’re looking for new ways to add zest to your life or have free time in retirement, this book offers a wide variety of activities and challenges, along with inspiring and heartwarming stories. Discover ways to explore, play, take, chances, try new things, make a difference, and have more fun in life. You’re the activities director, and On with the Butter! is your guidebook.

So keep moving, keep doing, and keep spreading more living onto everyday life. After all, everything’s better with butter.

“This book was inspired by my mother, who lived her life to the fullest,” says Heidi Herman. “After my mom’s recovery from a stroke in 2016 at the age of 92, my mom began promoting the message of living life with vitality no matter what your age. I helped her achieve and log 93 new activities between her 93rd and 94th birthdays, just to show you’re never too old to have fun. ‘On with the Butter’ is one of the countless things I learned from my vivacious Icelandic mother. “Just keep moving” was her favorite mantra. She taught me by example to embrace life and live in the moment.” I thought of Mom as a life adventurer. She taught me to embrace life with exuberance. Well into her nineties, she inspired those around her simply by the way she lived. She was constantly active: writing books, traveling, visiting friends and family, and living each day to the fullest. And she was just one of the great role models I was blessed to have.”

Praise for On with the Butter:

“On with the Butter is a delight to read. There are so many good suggestions for anyone considering retirement or already retired. This is not a book like so very many that only consider money and financial matters. Just the opposite. A good retirement is about so much more and this book addresses that.” – Del Lowery, RetirementTalk.org

“A sunny self-help guide that aims to reveal the secret to an active and exuberant lifestyle.” – Kirkus Review

“Herman’s inspiring work offers a fresh perspective on living well at any age.” – RECOMMENDED by the US Review

“An inspiring book for us “retired” people. Fifteen chapters explore many avenues of life where we can find new challenges to enable us to: “Keep Moving, Keep Doing, Keep Living.” It’s a delightful, fun read… Everyone who is about to retire or is retired should read this book. You won’t regret it.” – Vic Broquard, Author & Retired Professor

“The book exemplifies many ideas on living an ordinary life yet finding unexpected pleasures and sometimes a daring adventure along the way. I resoundingly recommend On With the Butter for everyone who wants to consciously live their life and experience it to the fullest.” – Sunna Olafson Furstenau, Icelandic Order of the Falcon Recipient; Icelandic Culture & Heritage Advocate; President and Founder of Icelandic Roots; Past President and Founder of the INLUS; Past President of the INLNA

“On With the Butter” is a wonderful and inspiring book! Through Heidi’s Herman’s vibrant and engaging, and often humorous stories, intertwined with unique ideas and helpful information, she encourages curiosity, connection, and a call to action. This is an excellent book for those who are looking for an exciting next chapter, or even just a little more flavor, to their life! – Laura Haw, Adjunct Instructor in Aging Studies, University of Indianapolis

Excerpt from On with the Butter:

Introduction

“Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance.” —Epicurus, Greek philosopher

On with the butter (Áfram með smjörið) is an old Icelandic expression that means “carry on,” “keep doing what you’re doing,” “forge ahead,” or “keep moving.”

That sentiment was one of the countless things I learned from my vivacious Icelandic mother. “Just keep moving” was her favorite mantra. She taught me by example to embrace life and live in the moment. I have witnessed firsthand how people respond to that ideal and how they became motivated to do more themselves. Now that I know it’s something that many people strive to achieve, I’m even more grateful that this spirit is engrained in me.

We’ve all heard the popular expression YOLO—you only live once. We’re reminded to take advantage of the days we’re given, but how exactly do we do that?

Some people focus on finding happiness, and while that’s not a bad idea, the definition of happiness is different for everyone, so we have to figure out what makes us happy. To do that, we need to experience life in all its glory—the exciting and the mundane, the good and the bad, the happy and the sad. The search might lead to peace and contentment, purposefulness, action and excitement, higher knowledge, or caretaking.

We all seek these things to one degree or another, but there’s often one desire that becomes the primary focus. Before retirement, that focus is often our job or career. But after we retire, we discover that life changes and our primary focus seems to disappear. And that’s when the exploration begins again. That’s when we find new things that challenge us or just make us smile.

As we get older, it’s easy to become consumed with our health and taking care of ourselves. We may change our diet, take prescriptions to treat medical conditions, and focus more on physical fitness. But while we’re working so hard to increase our life span, what are we doing to appreciate and make the most of that time? Those are the questions On with the Butter invites us to entertain.

There are many books that offer advice on how to live healthier, how to be happier, how to age with grace and become physically fit. But while they’re all worthwhile pursuits, I’d always felt like one was missing. I now know that it’s the philosophy that my mom instilled in me—the curiosity and desire to experience life and the creativity to find many ways to do it.

I thought of Mom as a life adventurer. She taught me to embrace life with exuberance. Well into her nineties, she inspired those around her simply by the way she lived. She was constantly active: writing books, traveling, visiting friends and family, and living each day to the fullest. And she was just one of the great role models I was blessed to have. My father, who had his own version of living every day to the fullest, was another. He’d dropped out of high school, lied about his age to join the U.S. Navy, and was stationed in Iceland before his nineteenth birthday. Although he never had any higher learning or formal education, he became an ordained minister, general contractor, and self-taught architect. To me, he was a brilliant thinker and problem-solver.

So after Dad was diagnosed with stage three esophageal cancer, I was staggered. I struggled to accept that the larger-than-life dynamo had been knocked down to life- size. I was forty-six at the time, and as I watched one of my heroes undergo surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy in an aggressive battle to survive, my commitment to making the most of my own life became stronger. For six months, he fought to stay alive, and shortly after he turned eighty-nine, we got the incredible news that his cancer was in full remission. The energy that Dad had put into healing was now channeled into living, and it gave me a different perspective. I had always thought life is too short to be taken for granted, but I realized that life is also far too long to be squandered on unhappiness or boredom.

Although my life was full and I was content, I wanted to experience more. I wanted to revisit some of the things I once enjoyed and try things that I never thought I’d try. Thanks to my role models, I’d always been a “doer,” but my new view of life made me realize that I had also let a lot of fun opportunities pass me by. And I decided to stop that. I decided to take the “on with the butter” approach to my everyday life. And after I retired, instead of buying a rocking chair, I learned to fly.

My sincere hope is that this book, which is packed with ideas for embracing life with zest and exuberance, will arm you with what you need to do just that. You don’t have to live every day to the fullest, but I’m challenging you to live fully every day, whatever that means to you.

On with the butter!

About the Author:

Heidi Herman was born and raised in Central Illinois, but her passion and a common theme in her writing is her Icelandic heritage. After a 30-year career in business, where she authored magazine articles, white papers, and technical assessment reports, Heidi turned to fiction writing full-time, inspired by her mother’s example. In the winter of 2012, her mother, Íeda Jónasdóttir Herman, published a childhood memoir, which featured some of Iceland’s folklore. Heidi was immersed in childhood memories of the Scandinavian legends, lore, and imaginative stories. The myth of Iceland’s troll-like Christmas characters – Jólasveinar – sparked the imagination of many readers and led to Heidi writing her first book, “The Legend of the Icelandic Yule Lads.”

It was followed by two more books on Icelandic folklore: “The Guardians of Iceland and Other Icelandic Folk Tales” and “The Icelandic Yule Lads Mayhem at the North Pole.” In 2017, she co-authored and Icelandic cookbook, “Homestyle Icelandic Cooking for American Kitchens” with her mother, Íeda Jónasdóttir Herman, which won a US category in The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards that year. Heidi published her debut novel, “Her Viking Heart”, in 2018 and it was named the 2018 Foreward INDIES Book of the Year Gold Winner – Romance Category.

Her newest work, “On with The Butter: Spread More Living onto Everyday Life” was inspired when Heidi worked to complete her mother’s final work, “Never Too Late.” Íeda Jónasdóttir Herman (1925-2019) was 94 years old and had completed a year of new experiences to prove a person is never too old to enjoy life. That message, along with her mother’s example, led Heidi to write this new motivational book with ideas and encouragement on how anyone can find those activities and experiences.

Heidi currently lives in South Dakota but snowbirds south in the winter to Arizona. In addition to writing, she loves Scandinavian festivals, cooking, photography, travel, and exploring the outdoors. She is a member of the Women Fiction Writers Association and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers.

Readers can connect with Heidi Herman on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads. To learn more, go to www.heidihermanauthor.com

For more information, to request a review copy or an interview with Heidi Herman, please contact Kelsey Butts at Book Publicity Services at Kelsey@BookPublicityServices.com or (805) 807-9027.

Beyond the Tiger Mom by Maya Thiagarajan

/in , , /by
Beyond the Tiger MomBeyond the Tiger Mom: East-West Parenting for the Global Age is a new book by Maya Thiagarajan that explores how to blend the best of Western and Asian approaches to parenting and education.
How do Asian parents prime their children for success from a young age? Why do Asian kids do so well in math and science? What is the difference between an Asian upbringing and a Western one? Why do some Asian mothers see themselves as “tiger moms” while others shun the label? How do Asian parents deal with their children’s failures? Is it sometimes good for children to fail? These are just a few of the compelling questions posed and answered in this fascinating new parenting book.
Thiagarajan examines the stereotypes and goes beneath the surface to explore what really happens in Asian households. How do Asian parents think about childhood, family and education—and what can Western parents learn from them?
Each chapter ends with a “How To” section with specific tips for parents to aid their child’s educational development both inside and outside the classroom.
In Beyond the Tiger Mom, you will learn how to:
– Help your child achieve maximum academic potential
– Train your child to expand his or her attention span
– Find the right balance between work and play
– Help your child see failure as a learning experience
– Learn how to raise tech-healthy kids

 

Praise
“This thoroughly interesting book rests on the premise that Western and Eastern educational and parenting philosophies have vastly different strengths and weaknesses; therefore, parents on either side of the world can learn from each other… Beyond the Tiger Mom is an honest, thought-provoking read!” – Holistic Parenting Magazine
“Beyond the Tiger Mom is a brilliant book. Hard-hitting and brutally honest but also balanced, insightful, and funny. It avoids clichés and draws on years of research and personal multicultural teaching experience.” – Amy Chua, Yale Law Professor and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and The Triple Package: What Really Determines Success
“Maya Thiagarajan brings a unique East-and-West perspective, and a refreshing balanced discussion, to hot-button issues in child rearing. Her interviews and ethnographic analyses deliver a wealth of insights into Asian vs. Western parenting decisions on topics ranging from math drills to self-esteem.” – Katharine Beals, Author of Raising a Left Brained Child in a Right Brained World

 

Maya ThiagarajanAbout the Author
A global citizen, Maya Thiagarajan has lived and worked in India, Singapore, and the US. She earned a BA in English from Middlebury College and a Masters in Education Policy from Harvard University.
Maya began her teaching career with Teach For America, where she taught at a public school in Baltimore City for two years. She went on to teach high school English at some of America’s most prestigious independent schools. After a decade of teaching in the US, Maya moved to Singapore and began teaching at The United World College of South East Asia (UWC).
Struck by the different approaches to education and parenting that she encountered in Singapore, Maya began to interview Chinese and Indian parents living in Singapore. Using her own experiences as well as the stories of parents whom she interviewed, Maya wrote a book titled Beyond the Tiger Mom: East-West Parenting for the Global Age.
In addition to teaching and writing, Maya also conducts workshops for parents and teachers on a range of education related topics.
Readers can connect with Maya on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
To learn more, go to MayaThiagarajan.info
For further information, to request a review copy, or to set up an interview or appearance by Maya Thiagarajan, please contact Kelsey Butts at Book Publicity Services at Kelsey@BookPublicityServices.com or 805.807.9027.

 

Whither Science? by Danko Antolovic

/in , , /by
whither science book cover
Whither Science? by Danko Antolovic is a series of essays that explore some of the questions facing modern science.
“In Whither Science?, we look at the history of science, question its practices and examine its potential,” says Danko Antolovic. “We examine the strengths and weaknesses of the scientific method, and we seek to understand the worldview that follows from it. Lastly, and most importantly, we inquire about the future of science and about the problems that science urgently needs to solve.”
Science and the scientific method have matured into a global endeavor, which influences all of contemporary life, and like other great human endeavors, science has its historical origins and intellectual foundations. It has a set of accepted principles, as well as current practices that do not always coincide with the professed principles, and it has choices to make for the future.
Whither Science? looks into the fundamental questions about the purposes, practices and future of science. These questions need to be asked because both scientists and the broader public, that is, all who benefit from science, should try to understand the social, historical and material consequences of science’s ubiquitous presence.
This book is written in non-technical language, and is intended to be easily accessible to general readers who are interested in science and its broader implications. It will also be of interest to scientists who seek to explore the intellectual context of their discipline.

 

Excerpt from Whither Science?:
The Age of Heroes
Foundational stories of the origins of peoples and cultures always exalt the past in order to validate the present, but we know that the here-and-now never quite measures up to the grand mythical past from which it supposedly descended. Heroic bygone days always give way to a mundane present, and not even the greatest historic rulers of ancient Greece had quite the stature of the legendary kings of the house of Atreus, or of Achilles and Odysseus, Homeric heroes of divine lineage. The latter heroes, for all their courage and wile, were in turn not the equals of their predecessors, the mythical gods who, in the beginning, shaped the world in blood-drenched acts of creation.
Our contemporary techno-scientific culture, which is close to being the global culture, has no foundational myth written in a great epic and chanted down the generations, but it does have a popularly accepted foundational narrative, which is retold in countless books on popular science, and which aims to explain science’s origins and validate its purpose. In this essay, we will briefly relate this narrative, and we will examine its transition into present-day science, a contemporary human endeavor for which the narrative still functions as the story of origin.
At the risk of being somewhat Eurocentric, by science we mean a systematic and uncompromising application of rational empirical inquiry to the material world. Of course, empirical inquiry is as old as the human kind, but its transformation into a fundamental outlook on the world, that is into “science,” took place in the 16th and  17th century Europe. Men who stand as symbols of that awakening are mainly the early astronomers: Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei; in popular imagination they live on as Promethean figures who defied authority and brought the gift of light to humanity, and some of them, like Prometheus himself, did so at great personal cost.
European Enlightenment of the 17-18th century, and the Industrial Revolution, stretching through 19th century, is the Age of Heroes of classical science. This is the time of larger than life figures, “fathers” of scientific fields: Newton (mechanics and calculus), Boyle and Lavoisier (chemistry), Kelvin (thermodynamics), Darwin (evolution), Faraday (electromagnetism); mathematicians Leibniz, Euler and Gauss also belong here. And so on: our purpose is not to produce a full list of credits, but to sketch out the popular narrative, incomplete as it inevitably is. The later part of that period, the 18th and 19th century, could also be called more prosaically the Age of Progress: many of the scientific names and discoveries from that time enjoy little popular recognition, but that was the period in which the breakthroughs of the heroic age matured into a way of life and formed the foundations for today’s technology-based society.
Early 20th century saw another, late heroic period, belonging to atomic physics and the theory of relativity; in popular imagination, this period in science’s history is represented by the slightly idiosyncratic visage of Albert Einstein, and by the mushroom cloud. The foundational narrative of science, as we outline it here, ends with the Second World War and the development of the atom bomb. This is the time when heroic ages come to a close, and science comes under the sway of earthly rulers, of history, and of politics.
Now, it is certainly true that scientific progress provided useful help to state power well before the atom bomb, and in any case heroic ages are always more allegorical than factual. But the development of the nuclear weapon is a historical marker of the changed status of science in society, since the magnitude of the bomb’s power made it clear that the very survival of nation states would depend on the national prowess in that application of empirical inquiry that we call science. Science would from then on be co- opted, managed and circumscribed by political powers.
Intellectual status of the scientist changed at the same time: he would no longer be the autonomous, intellectually esteemed and perhaps marginally irrelevant pursuer of esoteric quests, and would become society’s artisan, maker of useful things. Again, history is gradual, but two historical episodes serve as useful markers of that change:
Toward the end of the Manhattan Project, a sizable group of scientists who were involved in the development of the bomb, led by Leo Szilard, petitioned the United States government for restraint in its use. They were summarily ignored, and the bombing of population centers in Japan went ahead. The shiny new weapon that they had provided was not theirs to dispose of or haggle about – they were the craftsmen, not the decision makers.
After the war, Julius Robert Oppenheimer, a highly prominent scientific figure in the Manhattan Project, was accused of “communist sympathies,” investigated, and disgraced. Historians may argue about the merits of the charges, but this certainly was a cold- hearted destruction of a man who had contributed much to the technological basis of America’s nascent superpower status. Whether intentionally or otherwise, the Oppenheimer episode made it clear who was dispensable and who was not, in the emerging techno-scientific order.
Ironically perhaps, the fate of Oppenheimer wasn’t even a novel one. Long before him, mythical inventor Daedalus also discovered that skill and mastery over matter did not guarantee power, or even protection, in the world of men: disregarding his good service, the story tells us, Minos of Crete imprisoned and abused him in a fit of anger. He, Daedalus, was an artisan, maker of useful things; Minos was king.
Significance of the foundational narrative that we outlined above reaches beyond popular science classes. Today, the practitioner of science is almost without exception an employee of a larger corporate entity (a university or a company) or of a national government. He is hemmed in by the tangible constraints of his terms of employment and funding, and by the less tangible ones of departmental, institutional and funding politics. He labors in a crowded field, in which there are increasingly fewer stones left unturned, and he climbs the ladder of corporate seniority until he retires.
Since scientific development is fundamentally important to the well-being of modern societies, it is easy to see the benefits of exalting this decidedly un-adventurous walk of life with the help of a heroic foundation story. In the eyes of the supporting public, and in those of prospective practitioners, present-day science is the heir and descendant of the heroic achievements that dispelled the darkness of superstition, changed our image of the universe, and wonder-worked what we today know as the industrial world. And so it is, but we should examine the heir on his own merits.
Incidentally, science proper isn’t the only one claiming heroic validation. Industry based on science is eager to convince us that the past isn’t really over: heroic times are still with us, we are told that we now live in the “digital” age, and its tycoons are quick to claim the title of “genius,” closest modern equivalent of demigod. We should feel uneasy about these latter-day claims to heroic-age continuity: when king Alexander of Macedon elevated himself to divine status, that was an embarrassing overreach of a great man; when emperor Caligula did the same, it was the delusion of a fool.

 

Danko Antolovic About the Author
Danko Antolovic is a scientist and technologist whose professional activities and publications have included research in quantum chemistry and computational modeling of molecules, research in solar energy for space applications, design of systems for image analysis and robotic vision, and development of wireless communication technology. He received his doctorate and master’s degree in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University, and a master’s degree in Computer Science from Indiana University.
Danko is the author of a monograph on wireless technology, “Radiolocation in Ubiquitous Wireless Communication” published by Springer in 2010. In addition to Whither Science? his non-technical writings include a recently published essay on the philosopher René Descartes, “Descartes’ Menagerie of Demons,” and an upcoming novella based on the Greek myths about the legendary inventor Daedalus, in which Daedalus retells the myths as his own life story.
Danko currently resides in Bloomington, IN. In his free time, he enjoys reading folk tales, fantastic and slightly surreal stories, and occasional science fiction. Readers can connect with him on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
For further information, to request a review copy, or to set up an interview or appearance by Danko Antolovic, please contact Kelsey McBride at Book Publicity Services at Kelsey@BookPublicityServices.com or 805.807.9027.

 

The Minimum Wage Millionaire by Bill Edgar

/in , /by
The Minimum Wage Millionaire: How a Part Time After School Job Can Change Your Financial LifeThe Minimum Wage Millionaire: How a Part Time After School Job Can Change Your Financial Life, by Bill Edgar, was published April 2014 and is available for sale on Amazon.

 

Synopsis:
The Minimum Wage Millionaire is a must read for teenagers and parents of teenagers who want to learn about how money works. The book presents a practical approach to accumulating wealth for teenagers who are just starting to earn income with a part time job. Using simple analogies to unravel complex financial concepts allows the young mind to grasp why it is important to invest early and how to start with their first paycheck. Following a simple plan for only six years, they will have a small nest egg that will grow into about one million tax free dollars by the age of 65.

 

Excerpt from The Minimum Wage Millionaire:
Chapter One – Why Write a Book on Money for Teenagers?
When it comes to building wealth, the most powerful force you have on your side is time. As the days and years pass, the opportunity to build wealth by leveraging time slowly dwindles. The idea for this book came from the realization that often times kids start working their first job at sixteen, likely just a minimum wage, or near-minimum wage, job, but they haven’t been taught how to accumulate wealth. I wasn’t.
In high school, I had some basic accounting, and I learned how to balance a checkbook. We did some stock market games to learn a little about investing, but no class I took ever laid out a plan for success in a capitalist society. No class I took talked about the “Rule of 72,” or compounding return on investment over time, or tax advantaged investment accounts.
But all of those things I just mentioned are critical to understand in a free market capitalist society. They are critical to understand from the moment that you earn your first dollar. It doesn’t matter how wealthy or poor your parents are, it doesn’t matter what background you have, all teenagers in the United States, after reading this book, can set themselves on a path to build a staggering amount of tax-free cash. With just a little bit of knowledge about how money works, and the discipline to follow through, you can be in control of your financial destiny.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I have not taken advantage of the time I’ve had to accumulate wealth. Worse than that, I realize that as the years have passed and other financial obligations of adulthood have grown, setting aside extra money becomes more and more elusive. I have to acknowledge some hard facts about my own bad money habits—bad habits that stopped me from building wealth. I have to reflect on wasted opportunities and bad decisions. Finally, I have to draw some tough conclusions about the consequences of not saving and investing.
But it doesn’t have to be that way for you. After reading this book, you will have both knowledge and youth on your side. You will have an action plan on how to start accumulating wealth now. And the possibilities before you will be endless. But let’s talk about where bad money habits start.
Why?
Because I’ve sucked at money. I mean, if blowing a paycheck were a sport, I’d be Muhammad Ali—the greatest of all time. As a kid, I didn’t know any better, but it starts a pattern.
When I got my first job as a paperboy at 12 years old, I immediately took the money from my first paycheck down to the Ben Franklin, a few blocks from my house, and bought a bottle of Coke and tons of baseball cards. On the way home, I stopped at Mickey’s for a Chicago-style hot dog with all the fixings and some fries. By the end of the week, all the money I’d made was gone. Back then, it wasn’t much, but today—if I’d just invested part of that somehow—I’d have enough to buy a small island in the Bahamas. I was too young to know it, but that was my first big missed opportunity.
If that’s not painful enough to look back on, I’m sad to say it didn’t stop there. When I started my first real job in high school (bagging groceries), after work, the arcade ate quarter after quarter. And then there were movies (I thought everyone went to see Raiders of the Lost Ark 20 times!), gas for the car, games for Atari, and the occasional burger, french fries, and Coke. It all added up.
Paycheck after paycheck was burning a hole in my pocket. I wasn’t saving or investing anything, but at least I had to stop when there was no money left. Credit cards would later solve that problem. After college, I moved to California, bought a new car, new furniture, new wardrobe, and lots of new grown-up toys. I started getting my hair cut at a trendy salon with a French name, moved into an apartment in the “hip” part of town with a pool table and a pop-a-shot.
You know what’s truly sad? It took me a LONG time to learn from my mistakes. As I got older, people warned me to start saving. I can remember my dad getting near retirement age and shaking his finger in my face at the dinner table on Thanksgiving, saying “You’d better invest your money for retirement, or you’re gonna end up working until you die!” but I ignored him. The years rushed by, and then, with my net worth still bobbing near zero, my wife and I got pregnant with our first baby.
As I sat in the hospital in Chicago—never again. I must change. I must be a good example. I can’t let them suffer the same mistakes I made. I started saving like crazy in my company retirement plan. And that lasted for a few years, but the economy changed, and I was not prepared. I was unemployed for a while—longer than I ever imagined. The mortgage, the bills, it consumed far more than the unemployment check.
I began working a part-time job for minimum wage at the local big box store, but unlike my teenage years, the meager paychecks didn’t help much with all the bills. As the Great Recession continued, I eventually cashed out the retirement money, penalties and all, so I could keep paying the mortgage. It still wasn’t enough. In the end, I lost it all, the house, the savings, and Best Buy even stopped by to get their TV back. I was sick to my stomach.
Listen. I honestly wasted all my opportunities to build wealth and have the choices, the options, to retire rich, so that I don’t have to work until I die, so that I can spend my time with my family. Now, knowing how easy it is to get there if you start early and seeing the principles in this book work for so many people, I’m ashamed of my past actions. But you don’t have to have my same regrets.
So how does a guy who lost everything know so much about creating wealth? That’s a valid question, and I’m glad you asked. Learn from your mistakes. As you grow up, you’ll likely hear that over and over from your parents, teachers, and coaches. It’s what I’ve had to do myself. Learn from my mistakes. So the rest of this book is about what I’ve learned.
In life, there are no do-overs. I can’t go back and make things better for me. But for every teenager out there, hope springs eternal. If this book can make an impact on just one kid (besides my three beautiful daughters), I’ve accomplished more than I could possibly imagine. I’ve created this book is to help you understand what an amazing opportunity you have right now. Time is on your side, and every day that goes by, you lose a little bit of your opportunity. Don’t make that mistake. Don’t make my mistake. In the following chapters, I will lay out for you exactly what you need to do to build wealth.
I warn you, it won’t come quickly, and it won’t be easy all the time. In fact, there will be moments in your life when you question whether or not what I’ve told you is true. You’ll want to go back to your old ways and you’ll have pressure from friends to spend, spend, spend!
When in doubt, just remember, the tools you’re using are the same principles that thousands of people have used time after time to become the wealthiest people in the world. You’re in good company.
My great hope is that you’ll realize just how incredible an impact a little bit of savings and planning will have on your life. If you can just avoid my mistakes and save smart, you can really, truly become a minimum-wage millionaire.

 

author Bill EdgarAbout the Author:
Bill Edgar is the author of The Minimum Wage Millionaire: How a Part Time After School Job Can Change Your Financial Life. He is passionate about helping youth understand how to become wealthy. He lives in Elburn, Illinois, with his three nearly teenage daughters (who will all be required to read his book). Connect with Bill on Goodreads and Twitter.
To schedule an interview with Bill Edgar or request a review copy of The Minimum Wage Millionaire, please contact Book Publicity Services at info@bookpublicityservices.com.