FIRST AND FOREMOST, I would like to thank my beloved wife, Alaisita, without whom I would not have been able to write this book. She kept me well fed, entertained, and on an even keel, and occasionally accompanied me down some pretty dark tunnels during these intense months of writing. I also owe an immense debt of gratitude to Wolf Richter, of the San Francisco–based business and financial website Wolf Street, for giving me a place to write and for teaching me so much about finance and economics as well as the importance of using and understanding raw data.
I am also hugely grateful to Yves Smith, Lambert Strether, and Jerry-Lynn Scofield at Naked Capitalism for making me feel part of their team and giving me editorial freedom to cover issues that many publishers dare not touch, including the dark side of vaccine passports. I also owe a big thank you to Larisa Tatge and Brianne Goodspeed for doing such a great job on the editing, and to Margo Baldwin for having the courage to publish this book.
Closer to home, my father, as always, has been a rock of support for both myself and my wife throughout this pandemic, despite living over 1,000 miles away. Thanks also to my mother for always being there and keeping me abreast of family news, and my mother-in-law, Sylvia, for encouraging me to start writing my own articles almost a decade ago. Lastly, a quick shout out to Gus, Gerard, and Dom for providing brief moments of distraction from the writing process as well as listening, stoically, to my odd, occasional rant, and Mimi for keeping me constantly abreast of the latest developments in Central Europe.