The Crash Course - An Honest Approach to Facing the Future of Our Economy, Energy, and Environment , Revised Edition

An intellectual history of American conservativism since the New Deal. The New Deal fundamentally changed the institutions of American constitutional government and, in turn, the relationship of Americans to their government. Johnathan O'Neill's Conservative Thought and American Constitutionalism since the New Deal examines how various types of conservative thinkers responded to this significant turning point in the second half of the twentieth century. O'Neill identifies four fundamental transformations engendered by the New Deal: the rise of the administrative state, the erosion of federalism, the ascendance of the modern presidency, and the development of modern judicial review. He then considers how various schools of conservative thought (traditionalists, neoconservatives, libertarians, Straussians) responded to these major changes in American politics and culture. Conservatives frequently argued among themselves, and their responses to the New Deal ranged from adaptation to condemnation to political mobilization. Ultimately, the New Deal pulled American governance and society permanently leftward. Although some of the New Deal's liberal gains have been eroded, a true conservative counterrevolution was never, O'Neill argues, a realistic possibility. He concludes with a plea for conservative thinkers to seriously reconsider the role of Congress―a body that is relatively ignored by conservative intellectuals in favor of the courts and the presidency―in America's constitutional order. Conservative Thought and American Constitutionalism since the New Deal explores the scope and significance of conservative constitutional analysis amid the broader field of American political thought. Cover 1 Title Page 5 Copyright Page 6 Contents 7 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 11 Part I How to Approach the Next Twenty Years 17 Chapter 1 The Coming Storm 19 Chapter 2 The Lens 23 Chapter 3 A World Worth Inheriting 27 Chapter 4 Trust Yourself 30 Conflicts of Interest 31 You Are the Ultimate Truth-Teller 32 Instincts Can Save You 32 Head and Heart 33 Part II Foundation 37 Chapter 5 Dangerous Exponentials 39 More on the Concept of Exponential Growth 41 Speeding Up 46 Making It Real 47 Surrounded by Exponentials 49 The Rule of 70 51 Your Exponential World 53 Chapter 6 Problems versus Predicaments 54 Chapter 7 An Inconvenient Lie 58 Chapter 8 Complex Systems 63 Systems—Open versus Closed 63 Economists—Closed Minds 66 Our Complex World 67 Chapter 9 Our Money System 71 Full Faith and Credit 74 How Hyperinflation Happens 75 Money Creation 76 A Quick Anecdote on People’s Understanding of Money 76 Back to Our Story 77 The Fed 79 Two Kinds of Money—One Exponential System 81 The Trouble with Future Claims on Wealth 83 Chapter 10 What Is Wealth? 85 The Hierarchy of Wealth 86 Money and Wealth 88 The Nature of Wealth 89 Part III Economy 91 Chapter 11 Debt 93 What Is Debt? 93 Levels of Debt 96 Debt Distorts GDP 97 Good Debt and Bad Debt 99 The Crisis Explained in One Table 99 The History of Debt 100 This Time Is Different 101 Too Much Debt 102 Debt’s Massive Assumption 103 How It Unfolds 104 Chapter 12 The Great Credit Bubble 106 What Is a Bubble? 106 Bubble History 107 Bubble Characteristics 109 A Bubble 50 Years in the Making 112 Withering Heights 114 Chapter 13 Like a Moth to Flame 116 The Moths 116 The Flame 118 Quantitative Easing 121 The Central Bank’s Reign of Error 122 Chapter 14 Fuzzy Numbers 125 Administrative Bias 127 Inflation 129 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 131 And All the Rest 133 Chapter 15 Crumbling Before Our Eyes 134 The Story of . . . Concrete? 135 Summing It Up 137 Part IV Energy 139 Chapter 16 Energy and the Economy 141 The Master Resource 141 Energy Budgeting 144 Net Energy 145 The Economy and Energy 152 We Live Like Gods 154 Chapter 17 Peak Oil 157 Petro-Realities 158 Bombshell! Saudi Arabia Fesses Up to Peak Oil 160 It’s Not “Running Out” 162 Find First, Then Pump 167 A Global Peak? 170 Oil and GDP 171 The Oil Production Output Gap 171 Peak Exports 173 The Ugly Power of Reverse Compounding 174 Chapter 18 Shale Oil 176 Shale Oil—Amazing Technology, but Expensive Oil 176 Shale Oil—Game Changer or Retirement Party? 178 Fledged on a Cliff 179 International Shale 180 Chapter 19 Necessary but Insufficient 182 Simple Math 183 The European Energy Disaster of 2022 186 The Reality—Time, Scale, Cost, Limits 187 The Nuclear Option 190 The Coal Story 193 The Alternatives—Solar and Wind 198 Biofuels 202 Natural Gas 204 Hydrogen 205 Conclusion 206 Chapter 20 Why Technology Can’t Fix This 207 Fact 1: Technology Does Not Create Energy 207 Fact 2: Transforming Energy Is Expensive 210 Fact 3: Energy Transitions Take Time 211 Why Technology Can’t Fix This 212 Part V Environment 215 Chapter 21 Minerals 217 Quantity and Quality (Again) 217 Economic Growth and Minerals 221 The End of an Era 224 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle 225 Gone with the Wind 225 Chapter 22 Soil 227 Do We Heat or Do We Eat? 227 The Important Difference Between Soil and Dirt 229 Exporting Nutrients 231 The High (Energy) Cost of Low-Cost Fertilizers 232 Soil Erosion and Desertification 233 Conclusion 234 Chapter 23 Parched 235 Running Dry 236 What Lies Beneath 237 Exporting Water—The Food Story 238 The Food Bubble 238 Energy and Water 239 The Future of Water 240 Chapter 24 All Fished Out 242 The Oxygen You Breathe 243 The Great Thiamine (B1) Mystery 244 The Bottom Line 245 Chapter 25 What Do You Mean We’re Running Out of Sand? 247 Part VI Convergence 249 Chapter 26 Where Have All the Insects Gone? 251 Chapter 27 The Bumpy Path to 2030 254 The Foundation 256 The Economy 256 Energy 257 The Environment 258 “Unsustainable” 258 Convergence: The Timeline 259 This Time Is Different 261 Part VII What Should I Do? 263 Chapter 28 The Good News 265 Technology 266 Food 267 Energy 267 Economy and Money 269 Population 270 A New Narrative 270 The Good News . . . 272 Chapter 29 Closing the Book on Growth 273 Chapter 30 What Should I Do? 276 Simpler, Harder, and More Expensive 277 Becoming Resilient 278 Re·sil·ience 279 The Bare Minimum 279 Where to Live 280 Insufficient, but Necessary 282 Set Targets 282 Being in Service 283 Step 0 284 The Importance of Community 284 What’s the First Thing I Should Do? 285 Chapter 31 Build Up Your Capital! 286 Home 287 Cry Once 288 Health 289 Nature Connection 291 Mastering Stress 291 The Spiritual Side 292 Wealth 293 The Great Wealth Transfer 294 The Scarcity Mindset 296 Protecting Your Monetary Wealth 297 Build Your Knowledge and Skills 298 Use Time Wisely 299 Community Capital 300 Local Culture Matters 302 Finding a Culture That Serves You 304 Conclusion 304 Appendix 307 Notes 309 Index 319 EULA 335 Discover how and why the world's crises are interconnected and what you can do to prepare for the next one The world is experiencing a series of crises. In The Crash Course: An Honest Approach to Facing the Future of Our Economy, Energy, and Environment , Revised Edition, veteran executive and strategist Chris Martenson delivers an incisive and eye-opening exploration that explains why the reader needs to understand that it is the interconnectedness of the various crises that matters most. From energy shortages to climate instability, financial crises, supply chain disruptions, pandemics, war, and crop failures, you'll discover the common factor that is driving them all and how to adapt to volatile new realities and safeguard your own personal wealth, health, and community. In the book, you'll find effective solutions for living with unpredictability and change, as well as: A workable framework for understanding the "how" and "why" of dramatic societal, environmental, and economic transformation A rich set of solutions, complete with examples, you can use to draw inspiration and motivation to act in your own life An expansive amount of new material, fully updated since the last edition A transformative and thought-provoking strategic playbook for managing increasingly unexpected events, crises, and revolutions, The Crash Course, Revised Edition is an essential resource for anyone concerned about their retirement savings, the world's environment, as well as anyone hoping to become more independent and self-reliant. "Energy crises. Financial market chaos. War. Climate instability. Crop failures and food shortages. Supply chain disruptions. Covid. These hot topics are an overwhelming soup of problems and predicaments. There are more to come. How do we make sense of them and what can we do to become more resilient? The Crash Course 2.0 provides a framework for understanding how all of these things are actually interconnected and, because of this, is both explanatory and predictive. The Crash Course 2.0 condenses and covers resilient solutions for the average person in four new chapters on"-- Provided by publisher