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Planet Ponzi How politicians and bankers "stole your future. What happens next. How you can survive.

Mitch Feierstein

[TAM PRESS LONDON

• TORONTO

• SYDNEY

• AUCKLAND

• JOHANNESBURG

Contents Acknowledgments 1

.

The scheme

xi 1

Part One: Washington 2 3 4 5 6 7

The price of liberty Future-money in happyrland A hole as big as the world How to win friends and influence people The $50,000,000,000 egg After Beachy Head,--"

21 29 50 64 76 83

Part Two: Wall Street 8 9 10

n 12 13 14

A statistical anomaly A house for Joe Schmoe How to hide a neutron bomb in ten easy steps Collecting nickels in front of steamrollers I'm short your house A brief flash of reality Planet Ponzi comes to London

91 101 114 149 171 179 190

Part Three: The Wider World 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

The rise and rise of Planet Ponzi Giants unicycling on clifftops The aureus and the as Choosing second A van for Fukushima The man who ate a supermarket Doing a Caporetto Crunching the numbers

197 213 230 239 249 258 268 275

Part Four: Solutions 23 24 25 26

The end of days What is to be done? Gold, wheat, and shotgun shells Mr Smith goes to Planet Ponzi

•

299 303 315 327

Afterword

333

Notes " Index

343 361