After decades covering war and disaster, bestselling author and acclaimed satirist P. J. O’Rourke takes on his scariest subjects yet—business, investment, finance, and the political chicanery behind them.

Want to get rich overnight for free in three easy steps with no risk? Then don’t buy this book. (Actually, if you believe there’s a book that can do that, you shouldn’t buy any books because you probably can’t read.) P. J.’s approach to business, investment, and finance is different. He takes the risks for you in his chapter “How I Learned Economics by Watching People Try to Kill Each Other.” He offers a brief history of economic transitions before exploring the world of high tech innovation with a chapter on “Unnovations,” which includes ideas for new products like “an app that gets rid of all apps, a no-app app, call it a ‘napp.’” He is baffled by bitcoin, which seems “like a weird scam invented by strange geeks with weaponized slide rules in the high school Evil Math Club.” He closes with a fanciful short story about the morning that P.J. wakes up and finds that all the world’s goods and services are free! This is P.J. at his finest, a book not to be missed.

Praise for P. J. O’Rourke

“The funniest writer in America.”—Wall Street Journal

“Whether you agree with him or not, P.J. writes a helluva piece.”—Richard Nixon

“P.J. O’Rourke is like S.J. Perelman on acid.”—Chris Buckley

“Shakespeare, Hemingway, they’re okay, I guess, but my next guest—he’s better . . . . [P. J. O’Rourke’s] writing really changed my life.”—Greg Gutfeld

“If [O’Rourke’s] wry essays have a mission statement . . . it’s this: Starchy Republicanism is really, really fun.”—New York Times Book Review

Excerpt

“Many ‘classical liberal’ and libertarian economists are skeptical about the Central Banks that issue fiat money. Not me. I like them. I want one. Of course I don’t want an enormous Central Bank like the Federal Reserve. Where would I put it? No, what I want is a small, handy ‘Central Bank of O’Rourke’ that would fit in the laundry room or in the mudroom between the dog kennels.”

“We’d like someone to develop an app that gets rid of all apps, a no-app app, call it a ‘napp.’”

“Crypto-currency adds a kind of unwelcome mysticism to the already baffling material and philosophical aspects of money. Some regard the blockchain with almost religious awe, as if it were the work of mythical ‘Geek Gods’ high upon Mount Laptopus.”