Book excerpt: No matter how one looks at the economic and environmental woes plaguing America, in essence they are simply costs of all kinds-costs that keep escalating and accelerating at the same time. Housing foreclosures, rising energy and food prices, unaffordable healthcare, accumulating credit card debt, bailouts, devaluation of the U.S. dollar, budget deficits, rising unemployment, products built with planned obsolescence and obsolete technologies, global warming, depletion of natural resources, nuclear wastes, wars-all of these represent costs, either recurring, periodic, catastrophic, or of some other type. What can we do about the plague of cost? We should - and can - get rid of it for good. But how can we do this when everything has a cost of some kind? By implementing the concept of a zero-cost economy, as presented in this book. This blueprint can serve every country in the world, regardless of its specific economic and environmental conditions. The ultimate goal of a zero-cost economy is to create a cost-free and a carefree economy-Carefreeism, defined as economic security in a carefree economy. Carefreeism serves the general economic interests of all groups of people, from impoverished to the superrich, without being politically tainted by any political party. It is environmentally compatible as well as universally applicable concept. Therefore, the main goal of a conscious and responsible government, whether state or federal, should be to follow the concept of a zero-cost economy, immediately and rigorously, if the human race ultimately is to enjoy general economic security and prosperity in peace.