Neil thinks the Shit will hit the fan within the next 18 months. Take note. He is not the chicken little type. He’s a sober realist.
Submitted by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,
Neil Howe demographer and co-authour of the book The Fourth Turning returns to the podcast this week. In our prior interview with him, we explored his study of generational cycles (“turnings”) in America which reveal predictable social trends that recur throughout history and warn of a coming crisis (a “fourth turning”) based on this research.
Fourth turnings are characterized by a growing demand for social order, yet supply of it remains weak. The emergence of the surveillance state, a perpetual war machine, increased intervention in the markets by the central planners, greater government control of critical systems like health care and the Internet — all of these are classic signs that we are well into a fourth turning now:
In the fourth turning, the supply of order is still absent that the demand for order grows. So we now have a demand for order and no supply. That creates the unusual dynamics of a fourth turning — kind of like we had in the 1930’s. People suddenly feel that no one is in control and that enormous events are overtaking their society which no one of leadership age has any idea how to confront or how to manage. And it goes without saying today we look up to Gen Xers and Boomers and we see leaders who couldn’t organize their way out of a shoe box. I live in the Washington DC area and the government and Congress literally does nothing. All they do is argue and fight and nothing gets done in this city. It’s amazing, and a great testament to the power of institutional inertia that things keep moving forward in some manner. There is this great unsettled feeling we have that there is a rudderless ship that we’re on where no one knows where it is going. We see dangers that we seem paralyzed and unable to respond to.
History’s fourth turnings are full of Hobson’s choices, full of grim choices. I think that the what the Fed got into — back in 2000 as well 2009, 2010 and then with QE — they got into that with a feeling of they had no choice; this is crisis intervention. And crisis intervention became a habit. And ultimately we got here not because anyone kind of wanted it to happen, we just ended up here. And this is the same way it was back in the 1930’s: the same thing was true about the New Deal. The New Deal was nothing but a thorough perversion of market choices. The New Deal was nothing if not for the picking of winners and losers throughout the economy. Throughout the world at that time, that was an era of competitive devaluation. Global trade shrank down to a fraction of what it was back in the 20’s. Each country was making a decision which felt to it like survival, and nations were taking enormous collectivist measures with their economies as we were here in our own economy. And that is where we are today. I guess what I am saying is I am not surprised we are at this point. I just think that the full consequences of it have not yet been fully perceived, and I think they will be when the financial markets ultimately reflect the damage that has been done to the economy as a whole. And I think that will happen probably over the next year and a half — if it even takes that long.
Also, I should point out just as an empirical fact that the vast majority of the total wars that have been fought have been fought in fourth turnings. That’s a sobering thought. Certainly in American history :the American revolution, the Civil War, World War II — those are all fourth turning events. Fourth turnings tend to lead to crisis that calls forth a period or an episode of total cohesive organized collective public effort in response to a crisis. That may not involve war; it may simply be an organized response to an economic crisis. Or it may be war in a somewhat different form. When you look around the world today at the kind of global terror that we see in the world, we see forms of war which aren’t exactly the same as what we are used to in terms of earlier eras of war. It may be war, but war of a different nature, a different character. But what you can say is: the social feel will be very similar to what we have felt in previous periods of total war.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris’ interview with Neil Howe (51m:26s)
You’re going to hate me for this–
But holy mother of god that was boring. I like Chris Martenson and I’m even a subscriber to his website, I usually appreciate his interviews even if he is a lot of downscale from Max Keiser.
But they kind of went off into the ozone with disconnected talk of the Fed and capsulizing generations.
I remember perfectly well all my relatives going back a good distance, include my great-relatives who were born in the 1880’s. They were a part of my life. Who is this guy to tell me I have no clue about the Great Depression? Those were the people who raised me. I have a very good grasp of what came before me and how every stupid thing that ever happened before, and could and probably will happen again. Why would I suppose otherwise?
I’m also not a huge subscriber to the Turning theories and that every 80 years people forget everything that came before. Look at the Balkans, those people remember. Look at Russia, those people remember. I’m American, I came from from people who remembered and related it to me in great detail. – for fricking decades. (I was assailed with the evils of FDR into the 1980’s))
This conversation was all wound up about contemporary theories of markets and money and finance, and neither one of them touched on the idea that we have become disconnected from our humanism and our roots as inhabitants on a tempestuous planet. This is where the worst of our current conundrum lies; if there is no one to teach you how to build a house or raise turkeys or which side of the property gets southern exposure, how the hell will you ever be able to take care of yourself if need be?
The Fed and Peak Energy is one thing, taking care of yourself and your neighbors and getting along is another thing.
A lot of Pie In The Sky macro-gawking in the podcast. Can’t say that I would recommend it to anyone.
[hitting submit while peeking through my fingers and waiting for for the thrashing]
“Stanley says:
You’re going to hate me for this–”
Burn Him! Cleanse his sacrilege with fire!
Stanley,
Your comments have merit, and certainly more insight than the Fed dropping the word “patience’ from their forecast. You seem to be aware that you are not riding on the good ship lollipop and we at some point will have the SHTF moment.
While I greatly respect Mr. Howe for his large/big picture/pattern thinking, he still has deep roots in the delusions we are bombarded with.
Anyway, his quote, “… All they do is argue and fight and nothing gets done in this city. ..”
He is out of his mind, as is anyone that utters Washington is in “gridlock.”
Over the past 15 years, hell, going back to Newt and Bill, we have heard of this magical “gridlock” and inability to get things done.
LOOK AROUND! See all the CRAP? THAT was all “done!”
Patriot Act, USDA Act, Banking Reforms of all stripes, health care, student loans, bailouts, pay raises, more perks, more protections for themselves, more six and seven figure jobs for their offspring, ALL DONE.
It is a freaking MYTH that things are not being done.
They agree to put more nails in the middle class coffin, nearly every time they meet.
And we sit back and demand they do more?
Insanity surrounds me. Ye gods.
It’s crash and burn at some point.
Social Security recipients won’t be too happy with the fact their taxes have been spent elsewhere to get politician elected short term.
We are going back to soup kitchens and public housing and private schooling. When there is no confidence in the system the velocity of money turns violently down. There simply won’t be enough economic activity to support government largess.
My guess is the Amish and Mormons of Utah will find a way to survive. The rest will be at each other’s throats.
I plan to plant more than I can take care of again. I’m afraid to be caught with a small garden. That “no confidence” you mention Mark, is coming.
Well the middle class may be all but destroyed and the economy laid waste by the greedy bankster class, but at least we can still give thanks to a caring and component government for creating the environment where many millions of people are living far in excess of 100 plus years.
You go government!
” the Social Security Administration admitted last week that its rolls are filled with names of more than 6 million folks who are listed as 112 years of age or older.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/16/feds-shelled-out-125b-bogus-payments-last-year/#ixzz3Uf7agz7v
While I believe a break point will happen soon, I am starting to doubt it will be followed by a grand war. I think the Great American War Machine is breaking, the industrial military complex is losing influence. War hawks and propagandists are losing influence. I do agree we are closer to a more collectivists mindset and mandate. The say the Fourth Turning is also a mood, but I don’t sense that mood turning into mass violence. Millennials and Gen Xers by far are against going into another war. The Boomer warhawks on capital hill are vastly losing influence. And, I sense many Baby Boomer themselves know another great war would seal the fate of their retirements, that is not something they are willing to risk considering the U.S. is protected by bordering two oceans.
Stephanie, the Globalists know their propaganda is losing its punch, so they’ll stage one or several false flags to gin up support for another big war. Americans in the years leading up to the world wars didn’t want war, either, but the sociopathic leaders didn’t let that stop them.
@TE, those things you list as getting “DONE” by Congress are not the things Howe is referring to. He means the big problems such as transfer payments such as Social Security and the debt that keep getting kicked down the road.
I agree with you, however, that those things that DID get “DONE” are NOT what we wanted (re: NDAA, Obamacare, and Patriot Act).
Wars in the past have been fought via borrowing.
From whom will “they” borrow this time? The oligarchs hold title to everything, and Middle America is simply a vast collection of debtors. You don’t borrow from debtors.
Wars DO NOT ARISE when stocks are high. Never happens, folks.
The next war will occur when stocks have fallen long and far. I thought we’d have been there by now, but my timing has been abysmal.
That said, I worry that the next war won’t be an organized boutique war for the Military-Industrial-Complex’s owners’ amusement. This time it will be UN-civil. It will be racial/ethnic/color/class/language/YOU-NAME-IT.
We’ve been shuffled like a deck of cards, and when nadir in stocks (and the social mood they measure) arrives, the hearts will be hacking the diamonds, the spades will be shooting the clubs, the clubs will be offing the hearts, etc., etc., etc.
This war will be much more like the English Civil War….or Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia, or the Tutsi’s Rwanda. Low tech, high body count.
d.c.: interesting line of thought. Not sure it will happen as you see it, but interesting. What I cannot understand is the full frontal assault by the neocons, libs,and mainstream media on Russia. I just don’t get it. As has been pointed countless times its like if Russia destabilized Mexico or Canada and then set up bases there , like the U.S. wouldn’t react? We are living in strange times. Cheers!
P.S. I am of course refering to the Ukraine.
The astute reader comments are one of the reasons I read these articles. In this case, as so often, I learned as much or more from readers than the parent article. Thanks folk !