Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I How to Approach the Next Twenty Years
Chapter 1 The Coming Storm
Chapter 2 The Lens
Chapter 3 A World Worth Inheriting
Chapter 4 Trust Yourself
Conflicts of Interest
You Are the Ultimate Truth-Teller
Instincts Can Save You
Head and Heart
Part II Foundation
Chapter 5 Dangerous Exponentials
More on the Concept of Exponential Growth
Speeding Up
Making It Real
Surrounded by Exponentials
The Rule of 70
Your Exponential World

Chapter 6 Problems versus Predicaments
Chapter 7 An Inconvenient Lie
Chapter 8 Complex Systems
Systems-Open versus Closed
Economists-Closed Minds
Our Complex World
Chapter 9 Our Money System
Full Faith and Credit
How Hyperinflation Happens
Money Creation
A Quick Anecdote on People's Understanding of Money
Back to Our Story
The Fed
Two Kinds of Money-One Exponential System
The Trouble with Future Claims on Wealth
Chapter 10 What Is Wealth?
The Hierarchy of Wealth
Money and Wealth
The Nature of Wealth
Part III Economy
Chapter 11 Debt

What Is Debt?
Levels of Debt
Debt Distorts GDP
Good Debt and Bad Debt
The Crisis Explained in One Table
The History of Debt
This Time Is Different
Too Much Debt
Debt's Massive Assumption
How It Unfolds
Chapter 12 The Great Credit Bubble
What Is a Bubble?
Bubble History
Bubble Characteristics
A Bubble 50 Years in the Making
Withering Heights
Chapter 13 Like a Moth to Flame
The Moths
The Flame
Quantitative Easing
The Central Bank's Reign of Error
Chapter 14 Fuzzy Numbers
Administrative Bias
Inflation

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
And All the Rest
Chapter 15 Crumbling Before Our Eyes
The Story of . . . Concrete?
Summing It Up
Part IV Energy
Chapter 16 Energy and the Economy
The Master Resource
Energy Budgeting
Net Energy
The Economy and Energy
We Live Like Gods
Chapter 17 Peak Oil
Petro-Realities
Bombshell! Saudi Arabia Fesses Up to Peak Oil
It's Not "Running Out"
Find First, Then Pump
A Global Peak?
Oil and GDP
The Oil Production Output Gap
Peak Exports
The Ugly Power of Reverse Compounding
Chapter 18 Shale Oil

Shale Oil-Amazing Technology, but Expensive Oil
Shale Oil-Game Changer or Retirement Party?
Fledged on a Cliff
International Shale
Chapter 19 Necessary but Insufficient
Simple Math
The European Energy Disaster of 2022
The Reality-Time, Scale, Cost, Limits
The Nuclear Option
The Coal Story
The Alternatives-Solar and Wind
Biofuels
Natural Gas
Hydrogen
Conclusion
Chapter 20 Why Technology Can't Fix This
Fact 1: Technology Does Not Create Energy
Fact 2: Transforming Energy Is Expensive
Fact 3: Energy Transitions Take Time