Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit In The Next Global Financial Meltdown, Second Edition

Table of contents

1. Cover
2. Title
3. Contents
4. Copyright
5. Executive Summary
6. Acknowledgments
7. Preface to the Second Edition of Aftershock
8. Introduction: Your Guide to the Second Edition of Aftershock
9. Part I: First the Bubblequake, Next the Aftershock
   1. Chapter 1: America’s Bubble Economy
      1. Because Our First Two Books Were Right, Now You Can Be Right, Too
      2. Didn’t Other Bearish Analysts Get It Right, Too?
      3. How the “Experts” Got It Wrong
      4. Predictions from Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson—We Trust These Officials with Our Economy
      5. Where We Have Been Wrong
      6. Leave ’em Laughing
   2. Chapter 2: Phase I: The Bubblequake
      1. Bubbles “R” Us: A Quick Review of America’s Bubble Economy
      2. From Boom to Bust: The Virtuous Upward Spiral Becomes a Vicious Downward Spiral
      3. Pop Goes the Housing Bubble
      4. Pop Goes the Stock Market Bubble
      5. Pop Goes the Private Debt Bubble
      6. Pop Goes the Discretionary Spending Bubble
      7. The Biggest, Baddest, Bad Loan of Them All
   3. Chapter 3: The Medicine Becomes Poison: Dangerous Inflation Ahead
      1. What Is Inflation?
      2. Printing Money Is Easy Short-Term Medicine for the Economy That Becomes Long-Term Poison in the Form of Inflation
      3. Why Don’t More People See the Threat of Inflation? Because Inflation Is as Hard to See as the Housing Bubble Before It Popped
      4. Many Experts Don’t See That We Are in a Bubble Economy So They Aren’t Worried About Inflation
      5. The Arguments against Future Inflation Don’t Hold Up
      6. How the Fed May Delay the Onset of Inflation
      7. Exactly When Will Inflation Begin?
      8. The Deeper Causes of Inflation
   4. Chapter 4: Phase II: The Aftershock
      1. The Dollar Bubble: Hard to See without Bubble-Vision Glasses
      2. Think Like a Foreign Investor: How Much of This Will They Take?
      3. The Government Debt Bubble Pops
      4. Aftershock: All the Bubbles Fully Collapse
      5. Where Did All This Begin? When Could It Have Been Stopped?
      6. The Six Psychological Stages of Denial
      7. Is There Any Scenario for a Soft Landing?
   5. Chapter 5: Global Mega-Money Meltdown
      1. The United States Will Suffer the Least
      2. Think of the World’s Bubble Economy in Two Categories: Manufacturing and Resource Extraction
      3. How the Bursting Bubbles Will Impact the World
      4. A Closer Look at China’s Current Bubble Economy: This Dragon Is More Smoke Than Fire
      5. If the World’s Bubble Economy Is Hit Harder Than the U.S. Bubble Economy, Won’t That Be Good for the Dollar?
      6. If the Rest of the World Is Collapsing, Won’t That Be Good for Gold?
      7. International Investment Recommendations
10. Part II: Aftershock Dangers and Profits
    1. Chapter 6: Covering Your Assets
       1. This Is Not a Down Market Cycle; It’s a Big Multibubble Pop, Pop, Pop
       2. Long Term versus Short Term
       3. Rule Number One: Get Ready to Exit Stocks
       4. Rule Number Two: Stay Away from Real Estate Until After the Dollar Bubble Pops
       5. Rule Number Three: Stay Away from Long-Term Bonds
       6. What about Municipal Bonds?
       7. Where’s the Best Place to Stash Cash?
       8. How Long Do I Have to Follow These Three Rules?
       9. Letting Go Is Hard to Do
       10. What to Do If You Sort of Believe Us, but Not 100 Percent
       11. What Else Can I Do to Protect Myself?
       12. What about Retirement?
       13. What about Bankruptcy?
       14. Remember, Your Net Worth Is Not Your Self Worth
    2. Chapter 7: Cashing in on Chaos
       1. Plenty of Profit Opportunities, but They Will Feel Quite Uncomfortable, Even Scary at Times
       2. Best Short-Term and Long-Term Aftershock Investments
       3. In the Short Term, the Key Is Protection, Protection, Protection!
       4. In the Long Term, the Key Is to Take Advantage of a Falling Stock Market and a Falling Dollar
       5. Be Careful with Commodities (Other than Precious Metals, Such as Gold)
       6. Gold Is a Great Aftershock Investment Because It Takes Advantage of a Falling Dollar, a Falling Stock Market, and a Falling World Economy
       7. What if the Environment for Gold Turned Positive?
       8. Will Gold Be Confiscated or Become Illegal, as It Was During the Great Depression?
       9. Leveraging Gold
       10. The Future Gold Bubble: The Biggest, Baddest Bubble of All
       11. How Will Other Investment Vehicles, Such as Life Insurance, Annuities, and Collectibles Perform?
       12. Putting It All Together: Aftershock in Action
    3. Chapter 8: Aftershock Jobs and Businesses
       1. This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Economic Slowdown
       2. The Capital Goods Sector (Autos, Construction, Major Industrial Equipment, and So On)
       3. The Discretionary Spending Sector (Travel, Restaurants, Entertainment, etc.)
       4. Some Limited Good News: The Necessities Sector (Health Care, Education, Food, Basic Clothing, Transportation, Government Services, and Utilities)
       5. Big Opportunities after the Bubbles Pop: Cashing in on Distressed Assets
    4. Chapter 9: Understanding Our Problems Is the First Step Toward Solving Our Problems
       1. If You Don’t Understand Why an Economy Grows, You Can’t Understand Why It Doesn’t Grow
       2. You Need to See the Big Picture Before You Start to Focus
       3. The Key Breakthroughs in the History of Economic Thought
       4. Economics Needs a Breakthrough Idea, like Continental Drift
       5. So Why Aren’t We Getting an Alfred Wegener or a Breakthrough Idea Like Continental Drift?
       6. Economists Have Become Academia’s Version of Financial Cheerleaders
       7. The Combination of the Demands to Get Tenure and the Rewards of the Good Life after Tenure Has Been a One-Two Punch to Creative Economic Thought
       8. Where to Now? Answer: Economics Needs to Move from Being a Set of Competing Philosophies to Being a Science
       9. Four Key Elements for Making Economics More of a Science
       10. Where Do We Stand Today in Making This Transition?
       11. The Economics Profession Does Not Want to Make the Transition
       12. The Solution to the Lack of Interest in Making Such an Important Change in Economics
    5. Chapter 10: Our Predictions Have Been Accurate, So Why Do Some People Still Dislike Them?
       1. It’s Not a Cheerleading Book
       2. It’s Not a Complex Book (Although It Is Based on Complex Analysis)
       3. It’s Not a Crazy Book
       4. It’s Not an Academic Book
       5. It’s Not Suggesting Armageddon
       6. It’s Not a Status Quo Book
       7. Us versus the Comforters: How Aftershock Stacks Up Against Other Bearish Books
11. Epilogue
12. Appendix: Are the Stock and Gold Markets Manipulated?
13. Bibliography
14. Index