Businesspersons and investors have been conditioned to anticipate that after a period of turbulence following the "Great Recession," conditions will return to "normal." For the preceding generation (from 1982 to 2007), "normal" was the economic "Great Moderation": a period of low inflation and low unemployment that brought on high growth in asset values. Those days are gone. This book reviews the major, and largely inescapable, trends that will make the next generation a more challenging investment environment in all developed economies: an aging population and an overextended government. California today captures the challenges that will be faced by the American economy over the next decades. After summarizing these trends, the book outlines investing strategies for individuals and companies can use this new environment. It provides an extended case study in how greater economic literacy can offer readers an advantage for understanding the opportunities, and threats, presented by long- term trends.

Drawing on two decades of research, Treisman analyzes the paradoxes in Russian politics and society, illuminating why the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. wasn't more violent, the repercussions of the Chechen wars, the "sacred place" vodka holds in the Russian imagination (and its pernicious effect on Russia's demographics), and how, 20 years after the fall of communism, relations between Russia and the U.S. remain so frosty. Yet as Treisman convincingly argues, most of the world's international problems--nuclear proliferation, Islamic terrorism, global warming--will be difficult to solve without Russia's help.