Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xv
Chapter 1 The World in 2050 1
A Preview of the Future 2
A Decrease in Productive Capacity 5
Squandering Prosperity 9
Chapter 2 The Original America Is the New Brazil 11
The Country of the Future 14
The Origins of America 20
The Mythic Brazil 24
A Difficult Dream to Realize 26
Can America’s Destiny Be Fulfilled in Brazil? 28
Chapter 3 How Brazil Became Endowed for Prosperity in a Collapsing World 35
The Impact of Topography 36
Yesterday’s Limitations as Today’s Strengths 45
Three Radical Changes 53
Predatory Government
Growth Imperatives Lead to Fiat Money and Runaway Debt
Energy Surges Alter Spatial Configurations of Economies
Chapter 4 Prosperity and Energy Density: The Hidden Role of BTUs in the Rise and Fall of Economies 67
Denser Energy Equals a Rise in Prosperity 68
Coal and Adam Smith 69
Going Forward or Backward?
The Phases of Extracting Energy 73
Phase One: An Abundance of Wood
Phase Two: An Abundance of Coal
Phase Three: The Original Petroleum Industry
The Shift from Coal to Oil and World War I 75
Peak Oil and Declining Money 79
Declining Energy and Systemic Collapse
The Real Symptoms of Peak Oil
The Competition for Prosperity 84
Expensive Oil Remains
A 665,000 Percent Increase in the Price of a BTU?
The SS Great Britain Sails Again 87
“Yes! We Have No Bananas”
Chapter 5 Malthus Again: Population Pressures, Global Cooling, and the Coming Dark Age 91
The Dynamics of Weather 93
Not Wrong, but Early 96
Waiting for Our Malthusian Moment 100
The Next Little Ice Age 104
“The Dog That Did Not Bark” 114
Putting Two and Two Together 117
A New Maunder Minimum 124
Dearth, Insanity, and Revolution 125
Chapter 6 Deficit Attention Disorder: How the Perverse Logic of Debtism Promotes the Illusion of Democratic Consensus but Devastates the Economy 131
How Debtism Changed the World 132
Debtism Helps Politicians Manipulate You 142
The U.S. Budget Deficits Would Make Greece Blush 144
Worse than the Great Depression 149
The Collapse of the Boom 156
Chapter 7 “Rome” Falls, Again: Economic Closure and Financial Repression as the United States Faces Bankruptcy 159
Slip-Sliding Down the Road to National Insolvency 160
The Destruction of the Middle Class
Pre-Industrial Growth Rates
Are You Ready for Taxes to Double?
Welcome to the Second Decline and Fall of “Rome” 167
The New Berlin Wall
Americans as the New Illegal Emigrants 172
Chapter 8 The Sunny Side of the Leverage Cycle: How Brazil’s Legacy of Hyperinflation Prepared It to Prosper in a Post-Dollar World 175
You Are in Steerage on a Sinking Ship 178
Stopping Runaway Spending 181
Important Lessons from Hyperinflation 185
Minimal Bank Capital Ratios: A Crisis Waiting to Happen
U.S. Reserve Requirements: A System Failure
The Political Roots of the Economic Crisis
How Brazilians Became the New Scots
Crash-Proofing the System Brazilian Style
America’s $104 Trillion Problem
Brazil and the Taylor Rule
Leverage and Growth 195
GDP Gains Based on Income Growth 196
Chapter 9 A Bounty of Water and Land: Brazil as History’s First Tropical Superpower 199
Brazil and Water 199
Sustainability
A World of Water Shortages
Renewable Water
Brazil Reinvents Agriculture 206
The New Breadbasket of the World Diversification
Irrigation
A History of Small and Large Farms
A Stunning Increase
Chapter 10 Reversing the Gap: Brazil as the World’s Emerging Energy Superpower 221
The Zero Sum Growth Game 222
Grim Prospects 226
Pulling the Plug 228
Submerging Economies 231
Rio Is the New Houston 233
Leading the Way in Renewable Energy 238
Let There Be Light 242
Declining Power after an Energy Transition 244
Chapter 11 Demographic Turbocharge: Brazil’s Coming Decades of Miracle Growth 247
China Takes a Dive? 251
Brazil’s Demographic Bonus 253
A Laboratory for New Products 257
A Real Cultural Melting Pot 258
Chapter 12 Back to the Future: What Could Go Wrong 261
Is Brazil Following the United States
Too Closely? 262
Weight 264
Effects on Health Care 268
Diversity Issues 270
Infrastructure 274
Corruption 277
Bureaucracy 278
Custo Brasil 281
Credit 284
Chapter 13 On the Outside Looking In: Making the Move toward Prosperity 289
Conclusions 290
Healthcare
Education
Military
“Plagiarize, Plagiarize, Why Not Use Your Eyes?” 298
Coming Soon: Financial Repression 299
“Revocation or Denial of Passport in Case of Certain Unpaid Taxes” From the Empire Settlement Act to Unsettling Choices 302
Looking at BRICs 304
Untapped Resources
Climate: Brazil Stays Warm in the Little Ice Age
U.S. Farmers Lead the Migration to Brazil
Making the Move 308
About the Author 311
Index 313
