Summary

While the rest of his family was dropping off Ama, Andrew was in his Phoenix dorm room, selecting the five pairs of sneakers and comedy albums he planned to take with him. His last day of college, he attended his economics lecture--on time for once. His professor, an adjunct (part-time instructor) named Kalchefsky, dumped a box of beanie babies onto the table at the front of the room and gave a rant in which he made numerous racist references to China. As the professor lectured, Andrew realized that he would now have to actually work for a living, as opposed to living off his family's wealth.

During the lecture, the professor discussed the American Dream, the delusion of the real estate market, and a Chinese mathematician named David X. Li, who he claimed came up with a formula that financial institutions came to...