| Preface: Why You Need this Book | xi | | Introduction | xvii | | | | | | Section One | | | Investment, Speculation, or Gambling? | 3 | | 1. | Even the Experts Can't Agree | 5 | | 2. | Risk: The Oxygen of Finance | 17 | | 3. | Gambling: The Illusion of Control | 29 | | 4. | Investment or Speculation? That Is the Question | 39 | | 5. | Booms, Busts, and Herd Mentality | 55 | | | Tulipmania | 58 | | | Mississippi Bubble | 62 | | | South Sea Bubble | 65 | | | Florida real estate bubble | 69 | | | Inflating the oil bubble of the '80s | 72 | | | Japan's economy: the '90s bubble | 76 | | | All that glitters is not gold | 78 | | | What happened to Asia | 80 | | 6. | The Mother of All Crises - Haven't We Learned? | 83 | | | | | | Section Two | | | Speculation: It's Good for You and for Our World | 107 | | 7. | Connecting Our World: Rails and Airspace | 115 | | | Railroad tycoons and robber barons | 116 | | | Howard Hughes: brilliant and tragic | 120 | | | When it absolutely has to be overnight | 125 | | | What about Virgin? | 130 | | 8. | Connecting Our World: Networks, Cyberspace, and Desktops | 137 | | | Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. | 140 | | | Bill Gates, Microsoft | 142 | | | Larry and Sergey, Just Google It | 144 | | 9. | Clicks and Mortar: e-Commerce | 151 | | | Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com | 152 | | 10. | Bricks and Mortar: From the Ground Up | 157 | | | General Mills - Mills without Middlings | 158 | | | Donald Trump | 159 | | | Sam Walton and Wal-Mart | 163 | | | | | | Conclusion: It's All about Speculation | 169 | | Endnotes | 175 | | Selected Bibliography | 183 | | About the Authors | 189 |
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