Pt. One. Utopian economics -- 1. Warnings ignored and the conventional wisdom -- 2. Adam Smith's invisible hand -- 3. Friedrich Hayek's telecommunications system -- 4. The perfect markets of Lausanne -- 5. The mathematics of bliss -- 6. The evangelist -- 7. The coin-tossing view of finance -- 8. The triumph of Utopian economics -- Pt. Two. Reality-based economics -- 9. The prof and the polar bears -- 10. A taxonomy of failure -- 11. The prisoner's dilemma and rational irrationality -- 12. Hidden information and the market for lemons -- 13. Keynes's beauty contest -- 14. The rational herd -- 15. Psychology returns to economics -- 16. Hyman Minsky and Ponzi finance -- Pt. Three. The great crunch -- 17. Greenspan shrugs -- 18. The lure of real estate -- 19. The subprime chain -- 20. In the alphabet soup -- 21. A matter of incentives -- 22. London Bridge is falling down -- 23. Socialism in our time.