DeLillo creates an avatar of modern “cyber-capitalism” with Eric Packer, a black hole person of consumption and sex drive who has learned to apply patterns in nature to financial markets and has thusly become the richest man in the world. Over the course of the novel, foreshadowed by the man’s inability to restfully sleep, Packer destroys the world economy as he chases down his personal death drive and concomitant death phobia. Having set himself apart from the world - truly, the rich and powerful here come off as vaguely human aliens at best - he cannot reconcile his intuition of early death, the ultimate leveling force, symbolized by his asymmetrical prostate. It is this very inability to deal with asymmetry, and all messy random aspects of human behavior, that destroy Eric and the economic system he represents. This system creates zytoseconds, microseconds, infinitesimal divisions of time to be marshaled towards profit creation, all without acknowledgment of the bodies limitations to seconds, hours, years. We live in the light of already dead stars; the universe defies mortality in a way we cannot. Trying to reduce that to a balance sheet would leave anyone sleepless.