See It Work · S0 · The Capture Economy · Appendix L
The Capture Ledger — the headline, footed
A big number is worthless unless it is footed. The book's headline — the gross annual US flow through capture-shaped stages — is $1.81 trillion to $2.62 trillion per year, and it is built line by line from measured and derived components with the arithmetic shown. This walkthrough foots it in front of you: eleven sectors up, five double-counts out, the damage class carved off, and a floor that survives the carve-out.
The number is a floor, not a scare figure — and reading it correctly matters. It is gross flow through these stages, not rent extractable from them: real work lives inside the pools and stays paid, and the verification-addressable slice is on the order of one-third of the gross. Get that wrong and you either dismiss the number or overclaim it. The evidence law keeps both errors out.
Appendix L · the footed build-upready
What this means for you
The headline is defensible precisely because it is footed and self-critical: it names its own residual overlaps, excludes everything directional, carves out damage, and still lands on a trillion-dollar floor. That is the evidence discipline the whole book models — a number you can recompute, not one you have to trust.
The build-up is arithmetic you can check, not a claim you must accept. Here is the footing:
de_duplication−$155–212B — five cross-sector double-counts removed
net_headline$1,810–2,618B/yr = the $1.81–2.62T stated
damage_class$46–145B externality damage — reported alongside, never inside flow
flow_only_floor$1.66–2.57T/yr — headline survives the carve-out
evidence_lawranges never points · directional never summed · gross flow, not extractable rent
The full priced ledger — every component's grade (MEASURED / DERIVED / DIRECTIONAL), range, and named regulator or study — is public in Appendix L and the living Capture Ledger. Check any single line against its source.
For the technical reader — the command, and how to verify it yourself
# one line · you do not need to run this read Appendix L / the public Capture Ledger
$1,966–2,830B raw − $155–212B de-dup, then carve out $46–145B damage # -> net headline $1,810–2,618B/yr; booked-flow-only floor $1.66–2.57T/yr
Full step-by-step is in Appendix RX: Hands-On Demonstrations in the book.
ⓘDeterministic demonstration. The conversation is a faithful dramatization of the exercise; the receipt is the artifact it produces — the same every time, because the system is receipted. (Representative of the demo's structure; the production page renders the captured run.) No output here is fabricated. A live "run it yourself" mode is coming.