America has harvested most of its low-hanging economic fruit, argues economist Tyler Cowen in this provocative examination of why median wages have stagnated since the 1970s. Cowen identifies three sources of easy growth that powered American prosperity for centuries: free land, technological breakthroughs like electricity and automobiles, and smart but uneducated kids who could be transformed into productive workers through basic schooling. All three have been largely exhausted. The result is a plateau in living standards that politicians on both left and right have failed to acknowledge. Cowen, a professor at George Mason University and influential economics blogger, contends that recent innovations like the internet, while transformative for information sharing, have generated far less measurable economic value than the great inventions of the past. A refrigerator or flush toilet changed daily life more than a smartphone. He examines how government revenue depends on growth, why healthcare and education costs keep rising without corresponding improvements in outcomes, and how the financial crisis of 2008 was partly a symptom of reaching for returns that no longer existed. The book challenges both progressive assumptions about redistribution and conservative faith in deregulation, suggesting that neither approach addresses the fundamental problem. Readers seeking to understand why economic anxiety persists despite technological marvels will find Cowen's thesis clarifying, even if his conclusions about raising scientific status and expecting less from government prove controversial.