b'Granthams assumption that mathematicians and financiers would have an easier time questioning the ludicrous unsustainability of compound growth is curious. Ive seen repeatedly, in conversations with many folks, that the ordinary specimen of Homo sapiens has a much better visceral understanding of the fallacies of finance than do financiers and sophisticated investors. Is this surprising? After all, the emperor is the last one to realize that his new clothes dont exist. Exponential Growth and his first cousin, Compound Interest, are mythic in their ability to overwhelm the social and environmental sensibilities of even the most sophisticated investors. Exponential Growth and Compound Interest are the perfect demigods for a rootless people.Americans susceptibility to myths of limitless economic growth has its roots in our particular brand of rootlessness. Slavery, Manifest Destiny, the Frontier Mentality, the Trail of Tears, the Gold Rush, On the Road, suburbia, Apollothe American social fabric has since the beginning been woven of removal, immigration, conquest, pioneering, mobility, individualism, entrepreneurship, competition and restlessness. Wall Street has institutionalized, fiduciarized and enshrined these cultural traits. 54'