WILL A PROPHET ASSUME COMMAND?

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Posted on 4th November 2012 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

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“The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

Strauss & Howe wrote these words in 1997. They had predicted the arrival of another Crisis in this time frame in their previous book Generations, written in 1990. This wasn’t guesswork on their part. They understood the dynamics of how generations interact and how the mood of the country shifts every twenty or so years based upon the generational alignment that occurs as predictably as the turning of the seasons. The last generation that lived through the entire previous Crisis from 1929 through 1946 has virtually died off. This always signals the onset of the next Fourth Turning. The housing bubble and its ultimate implosion created the spark for the current Crisis that began in September 2008, with the near meltdown of the worldwide financial system. Just as the stock market crash of 1929, the election of Lincoln in 1860, and the Boston Tea Party in 1773 catalyzed a dramatic mood change in the country, the Wall Street created financial collapse in 2008 has ushered in a twenty year period of agony, suffering, war and ultimately the annihilation of the existing social order.

We have experienced the American High (Spring) from 1946 until 1964, witnessing America’s ascendancy as a global superpower. We survived the turbulent Consciousness Revolution Awakening (Summer) from 1964 until 1984, as Vietnam era protests morphed into yuppie era greed. The Long Boom/Culture Wars Unraveling (Fall) lasted from Reagan’s Morning in America in 1984 until the 2008 Wall Street/Federal Reserve spawned crash. The pessimism built to a crescendo as worry about rising violence and incivility, widening wealth inequality, and the splitting of the national consensus into extremes on the left and right, led the country into a winter of discontent. The Global Financial Crisis (Winter) has arrived in full fury and is likely to last until the late 2020’s. It will be an era of upheaval, financial turbulence, economic collapse, war, and the complete redefinition of society, as the existing corrupt status quo is swept away in the fury of powerful hurricane winds of change. History is cyclical and we’ve entered the most dangerous season, when the choices we make as a nation will have profound long lasting implications to the lives of future unborn generations.

The linear thinkers and so called progressives who believe that history charges relentlessly forward and human ingenuity overcomes all obstacles as the world becomes progressively richer, advanced, and humane ignore the lessons of history that have been re-written every 80 to 100 years for centuries. Generational theory is so simple that even an Ivy League intellectual economist, corrupt congressman, or CNBC anchor bimbo could grasp the basic concept. The four turnings in the ongoing cycle of history match a long human life. There is a reason we forget the lessons of the past. Those who remember the lessons die off after 80 years. The linear thinking status quo keep predicting an improving economy based upon their beliefs that the next fifteen years will proceed in a similar fashion to the last fifteen years. They refuse to acknowledge we’ve entered a new era that cannot be reversed to a previous point in time. Once you’ve experienced the harsh bitter winds of the Winter, you have to deal with months of depressing darkness, harsh conditions, and stormy weather before experiencing the return of the warm breezes of Spring. The tranquil days of autumn are long gone. This dynamic can be clearly visualized by comparing our economic situation in 2007, prior to entering this Fourth Turning, to our economic situation today:

End of Unraveling in 2007 versus fourth year of Crisis in 2012

  • In 2007, the unemployment rate was 4.6%; 146 million people, or 63% of the working age population, were employed; and 78 million Americans were not in the labor force. Today, after three years of “recovery”, the unemployment rate is 7.9%; 143 million people, or 58.8% of the working age population are employed; and 88 million Americans are not in the labor force.
  • Real median household income was $55,039 in 2007. It has fallen by 8.2% to $50,502 today.
  • BLS reported inflation has risen by 12% since 2007. True inflation has risen at twice that rate.
  • Median net worth in 2007 was $126,400. By 2010 it had fallen to $77,300, a 39% drop in three years. As of today, it may be a few thousand dollars higher as stock prices have risen and home prices have stopped falling.
  • In 2007 there were 5.7 million existing homes sold at a median price of $218,900. Today there are 4.3 million existing homes being sold at a median price of $183,900. Over 1 million of these home sales are foreclosures or short sales, as 30% of all the homes with a mortgage in the country owe more than their house is worth.
  • Federal government spending in 2007 was $2.73 trillion. Federal government spending today is $3.8 trillion, a 39% increase in five years. GDP in 2007 was $14.2 trillion. Today GDP is $15.8 trillion, an 11% increase in five years. Approximately 25% of the GDP increase is due to increased government spending.
  • Government entitlement transfers totaled $1.7 trillion in 2007. Today they total $2.4 trillion, a 41% increase in five years. Interest income paid to senior citizens and savers totaled $1.25 trillion in 2007. Today interest income totals $985 billion, a 21% decrease in five years. Wall Street bankers needed the money to pay themselves bonuses, so Ben Bernanke obliged.
  • The annual deficit in 2007 totaled $161 billion. Today, the annual deficit is $1.1 trillion. We add $3 billion per day to the national debt as a gift to unborn generations.
  • The national debt in 2007 was $9 trillion. Today the national debt is $16.3 trillion, an 81% increase in five years. The national debt will reach $20 trillion during the next presidential term. Normalization of interest rates to 2007 levels would result in annual interest expense of $1 trillion, or 40% of current government revenues.

There is nothing normal about our current economic situation. The unfunded liabilities at the Federal, State and local levels of government accumulate to over $200 trillion. Do the facts detailed above lead you to believe we can return to pre-2007 normal in the near future, or ever? Not only has the economic situation of the country deteriorated enormously, the very culprits who created the disaster are more powerful than they were before the global catastrophe caused by their criminal risk taking. The largest Wall Street banks control 74% of all the deposits in the country, up from 66% in 2007, and double the levels from the mid-1990’s. These bastions of capitalism wield all of the power in this country, dictating who wins elections, who writes the laws, and who benefits from the distribution of wealth. Only in a corrupt, crony-capitalist, citadel of kleptocracy could the perpetrators of the greatest theft of national wealth in the history of mankind be rewarded with taxpayer financed bailouts, the ability to borrow an unlimited amount of fiat currency at 0% from a Central Bank they control, write the new banking regulations and be applauded by their corporate mainstream media for becoming even Too Bigger to Fail. This Fourth Turning will ultimately come down to a clash between the people and the Wall Street filth.

 

Those in power today are using their ample wealth and control over the legal, economic and political systems to pretend that an epic crisis does not beckon at our doorstep. Propaganda and media spin cannot avert the brutally hard choices that must be made over the next fifteen years. The existing system is unsustainable. It can either be changed by choice or after a complete collapse. We haven’t reached the point of regeneracy yet when civic purpose begins to strengthen. The outcome of this presidential election will determine the next phase of this Crisis. Strauss & Howe described the normal course of a crisis in 1997:

“A CRISIS arises in response to sudden threats that previously would have been ignored or deferred, but which are now perceived as dire. Great worldly perils boil off the clutter and complexity of life, leaving behind one simple imperative: The society must prevail. This requires a solid public consensus, aggressive institutions, and personal sacrifice. People support new efforts to wield public authority, whose perceived successes soon justify more of the same. Government governs, community obstacles are removed, and laws and customs that resisted change for decades are swiftly shunted aside. A grim preoccupation with civic peril causes spiritual curiosity to decline. Public order tightens, private risk-taking abates, and crime and substance abuse decline. Families strengthen, gender distinctions widen, and child-rearing reaches a smothering degree of protection and structure. The young focus their energy on worldly achievements, leaving values in the hands of the old. Wars are fought with fury and for maximum result.” - The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

Clearly this country has not reached a common consensus and is split 50%/50% on most important issues. Debates about the role of government are waged with vitriolic passion, but the reality is that, as in past Fourth Turnings, the government has already assumed a greater level of power and control over our lives. The majority believe that government can protect them, provide for them, and pay their way. This is a delusion which will be revealed as fraudulent and mathematically impossible. The incompetent government preparation prior to Superstorm Sandy and the dysfunctional, bureaucratic and painfully slow response afterward are opening the eyes of many people. The decisions which are yet to be made are what kind of society shall we be and who will be required to sacrifice to achieve a positive outcome at the end of this Crisis. Turnings are driven by a mood change in the country and the constellation of generations at that point in time. The generations are now aligned as they always are during a Crisis:

  • Boomers entering elderhood
  • Gen-Xers entering midlife
  • Millennials entering young adulthood
  • Homelanders entering childhood

History does not repeat but it does rhyme, because of the cyclical nature of human experience. The specific events that drive this Crisis are unknowable, but the generational response to these events can be predicted with uncanny accuracy. Each generation will play its assigned role during this Crisis. The current generational configuration will propel events and create a feedback loop that will change the course of human history on a scale consistent with the Depression/World War II, the Civil War and the American Revolution.

“What will propel these events? As the saeculum turns, each of today’s generations will enter a new phase of life, producing a Crisis constellation of Boomer elders, midlife 13ers, young adult Millennials, and children from the new Silent Generation. As each archetype asserts its new social role, American society will reach its peak of potency. The natural order givers will be elder Prophets, the natural order takers young Heroes. The no-nonsense bosses will be midlife Nomads, the sensitive souls the child Artists. No archetypal constellation can match the gravitational of this one – nor its power to congeal the natural dynamic of human history into new civic purposes. And none can match its potential power to condense countless arguments, anxieties, cynicisms, and pessimisms into one apocalyptic storm.” - The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

The mood of the country continues to blacken. A simmering anger boils beneath the surface of an everyday façade of normalcy. The middle class majority is being squeezed in a vice, with the rich powerful plutocrats on Wall Street and in Washington DC stealing their hard earned net worth through financial scams, the gutting of our industrial base and a tax system designed to benefit those who write the laws on one side and the parasitic willfully ignorant underclass that is sustained only through the extraction of taxes from the working middle class on the other side. Our society has become a hunger games tournament, with the few benefitting while the many scramble to survive. The stench of class warfare is in the air. The generational resentment and rage is palatable as the Millenial generation has taken on a trillion dollars of student loan debt at the behest of the Federal government, Wall Street and older generations, only to graduate into a jobless economy. The generational contract has been broken, as the older generations will not or cannot leave the workforce due to their own financial missteps. Younger generations are being denied entry level positions, even as the older generations expect them to fund their retirements and healthcare. This presidential election will only exacerbate the anger, disappointment, bitterness and fury among the populace, no matter who wins.

Prophets & Nomads

Can generational theory predict who will win the presidential election? Probably not, but based upon historical precedent, during times of Crisis the country usually turns to a Prophet generation leader who provides a new vision and summons the moral authority to lead. This leader may not have the right vision or have the backing of the entire population, but he is not afraid to take bold action. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was despised by many, but he boldly led the country during the last Crisis. Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election with only 39.8% of the popular vote, but he unflinchingly did whatever he thought was necessary to achieve victory and preserve the union. Prophet leaders like Samuel Adams and Benjamin Franklin offered the sense of moral urgency required to sustain the American Revolution. Strauss & Howe give a historical perspective on Prophet generations.

“Prophet generations are born after a great war or other crisis, during a time of rejuvenated community life and consensus around a new societal order. Prophets grow up as the increasingly indulged children of this post-crisis era, come of age as narcissistic young crusaders of a spiritual awakening, cultivate principle as moralistic mid-lifers, and emerge as wise elders guiding another historical crisis. By virtue of this location in history, such generations tend to be remembered for their coming-of-age passion and their principled elder stewardship. Their principle endowments are often in the domain of vision, values, and religion. Their best-known historical leaders include John Winthrop, William Berkeley, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin Roosevelt. These were principled moralists, summoners of human sacrifice, and wagers of righteous wars. Early in life, few saw combat in uniform; later in life, most came to be revered more for their inspiring words than for their grand deeds.” - The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

 

 

Barack Obama was born in 1961. According to the Strauss & Howe generational distinctions, this makes him an early Gen-Xer. His life story matches that of the Nomad archetype. His chaotic early life, confused upbringing by an array of elders, frenetic alienated early adulthood as a community organizer, and his rise to power through his public speaking talent and pragmatic ability to achieve his agenda is a blueprint for a Nomad. Mitt Romney was born in 1947 and grew up during the American High. His childhood was idyllic and privileged. His moral Mormon youth as a missionary eventually devolved into his yuppie “greed is good” career at Bain Capital acquiring companies, making them more efficient (firing Americans & hiring Asians), and spinning them off, while siphoning millions in fees. He has tried to convince Americans to vote for him, based upon his business acumen and moral lifestyle, as the cure for what ails America. With the continued downward spiral of societal mood, record low trust in Congress and 60% of Americans thinking the country is on the wrong track, the odds should favor the Prophet candidate. The 40% of Americans who think the country is on the right track are a tribute to our awful government run public education system or are smoking crack.

The Barack Obama presidency has many similarities to the one-term presidencies of Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan. Both men were overwhelmed by rapidly deteriorating events, an inability to understand the true nature of the Crisis, and failure to inspire the American people to rally behind a common cause. Both men drifted off into obscurity and are overwhelmingly acknowledged as two of the least successful presidents. The men who succeeded them are ranked by historians at the top of the list, even though they are both despised by more libertarian minded citizens as proponents of big government solutions and control. Libertarians will not be happy with developments over the next fifteen years. This Crisis is an era in which America’s corrupt social order will be torn down and reconstructed from the ground as a reaction to the unsustainable financial pyramid scheme which is an existential threat to the nation’s very survival. Civic authority will revive, cultural manifestation will find a community resolution, and citizens will begin to associate themselves as adherents of a larger cluster.   

Barack Obama has fallen short as a Crisis leader, just as Buchanan and Hoover fell short. Buchanan also tried to maintain the status quo and not address the key issues of the day – secession and slavery. His handling of the financial Panic of 1857 led to annual deficits that exceeded 13% of GDP during his entire presidency. His legacy is one of failure and hesitation. Hoover was a technocrat with an engineering background who failed to recognize the extent of the suffering by the American people during the early stages of the Great Depression. It is a false storyline that he did not attempt to use the power of the Federal government to address the economic crisis. Federal spending increased by over 20% during his term and he was running a deficit when Roosevelt assumed power. Hoover was an activist president who began the public works programs that FDR expanded and dramatically increased taxes on the rich and corporations in 1932.

Obama inherited a plunging economic situation and proceeded to make choices that will make this Crisis far worse than it needed to be. He has failed miserably in addressing the core elements of this Crisis that were foreseen by Strauss and Howe over a decade before the initial spark in 2008. Debt, civic decay, rising wealth inequality due to the rise of our plutocracy, and global disorder are the underlying basis for this Crisis. Obama’s response was to run record deficits driving the national debt skyward, failing to address the unfunded entitlement liabilities that loom on the horizon, bowing down before the Wall Street mobsters and paying their ransom demands, layering on more complexity and unfunded healthcare liabilities to an already teetering government system, and extending our policing the world foreign policy at a cost of $1 trillion per year. A Crisis requires a bold leader who makes tough choices and leads. Obama has proven to not be that leader. Based on historical precedent and the rapidly deteriorating mood of the country, it would be logical for the country to select Romney, a Prophet generation leader.

No Escape   

“Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning the way you might today distance yourself from news, national politics, or even taxes you don’t feel like paying. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted. The Fourth Turning necessitates the death and rebirth of the social order. It is the ultimate rite of passage for an entire people, requiring a luminal state of sheer chaos whose nature and duration no one can predict in advance.” – Strauss & Howe - The Fourth Turning

No matter who wins the election, there will be no turning back. It isn’t Morning in America anymore. It is more like Midnight in America on a bitterly cold dark February night as the gale force winds begin to gust, foretelling the approach of an epic winter blizzard. There are no easy solutions. The opportunity to alleviate the impact of this Crisis was during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, and we made all the wrong choices. Now we will pay the price. An era of depression and violence will be ushered in by an economic calamity that will make 2008 look like a minor blip. The next president will still be presiding over a country divided 50%/50%, with little or no common ground on most of the key issues that must be confronted. But, as we’ve seen in previous Crisis periods, bold leadership and history making decisions did not require consensus or even majority support. Only 10% of the colonial population drove the American Revolution. Lincoln was despised by half the country and not exactly loved by everyone in the North. FDR’s popular support progressively declined during his four terms in office. It is the Fourth Turning events, not the nation, which elevates the person to the apex of power. The regeneracy of the nation will occur during the next presidential term.

“Soon after the catalyst, a national election will produce a sweeping political realignment, as one faction or coalition capitalizes on a new public demand for decisive action. Republicans, Democrats, or perhaps a new party will decisively win the long partisan tug of war. This new regime will enthrone itself for the duration of the Crisis. Regardless of its ideology, that new leadership will assert public authority and demand private sacrifice. Regardless of its ideology, that new leadership will assert public authority and demand private sacrifice. Where leaders had once been inclined to alleviate societal pressures, they will now aggravate them to command the nation’s attention. The regeneracy will be solidly under way.” – Strauss & Howe - The Fourth Turning

The Millenial generation is coming of age faced with the burdens of $1 trillion of student loan debt, a stagnant job market clogged by the Boomer generation that can’t afford to retire because they never got around to saving, ever increasing taxes to fund the promises made to their elders by politicians, and an unfunded entitlement liability of $100 trillion for healthcare and pension benefits they will never see. The mathematical impossibility of sustaining our economic system is absolute. It will require courage, sacrifice, fortitude and a dramatic shift of our egocentric selfish culture to a culture of sustainability and caring about future generations. We’ve made many bad choices over the last few decades. Choices matter. These are the times that will try men’s souls. The choices we make as a nation over the next few years will determine whether this Fourth Turning ends in a renewal of our founding principles or tragedy. Glory or ruin – the choice is ours.

“Thus might the next Fourth Turning end in apocalypse – or glory. The nation could be ruined, its democracy destroyed, and millions of people scattered or killed. Or America could enter a new golden age, triumphantly applying shared values to improve the human condition. The rhythms of history do not reveal the outcome of the coming Crisis; all they suggest is the timing and dimension.” – Strauss & Howe - The Fourth Turning

The next stage of this Crisis is likely to be ignited by a downward spiral of societal trust caused by the next financial implosion, which is certain to occur. A world built upon debt, false promises, interconnected webs of deceitful derivatives, fiat currency backed only by the promises of lying politicians and captured central bankers, and a diminishing supply of easy to access natural resources, is hopelessly dependent upon the willful ignorance of the masses. As long as people want to be lied to rather than facing the truth, those in power can maintain the status quo. Once the jarring realization of reality overwhelms the propaganda and lies of the oligarchs, the battle for middle earth will begin. What will trigger the next phase of this Crisis? No one knows for sure, but based on the fault lines already evident, these are a possibility:

  • The inevitable breakup of the European Union with the consequences of massive bank defaults in Europe triggering worldwide bank defaults as the interconnected trillions of derivatives are lit like a string of firecrackers.
  • A sudden Greece like surge in interest rates on Japanese bonds results in a collapse of their debt ridden economic system, with reverberations throughout the world.
  • The Middle East tinderbox explodes as Israel attacks Iran and the law of unintended consequences takes hold. Alliances and treaties would draw Turkey into war with Syria and Iran. Russia and China could side against the U.S. Iran and their vassals would unleash terrorist attacks and disruption of Middle Eastern oil would drive prices over $200 per barrel, crushing the American economy.
  • A showdown on the debt ceiling and/or fiscal cliff results in a stock market crash, derailing the pitiful fledgling recovery created by Ben Bernanke’s QE to infinity measures.
  • A tipping point is reached with regards to the amount of debt that can be accumulated by our Federal, State and Local governments. A cascade of defaults could lead to a loss of faith in the U.S. dollar and a surge in interest rates. The defaults and increased interest on the national debt could lead to mass depression or in a worst case scenario – hyperinflation.
  • A large terrorist attack in one or more American cities would cause chaos, panic and fear, leading to more government control over our daily lives. This could trigger a counter response by those fed up with an overbearing government presence.
  • A catastrophic natural disaster or series of natural disasters would reveal the fragile nature of our just in time economic system. A breakdown of our logistical and infrastructure systems would lead to chaos and mass hysteria as the citizens who believed their government leaders would keep them safe, secure, warm, and fed realized it was all a sham. Their leaders were in it for the power and riches, not looking out for the best interests of the common folk.

No one knows for sure what will trigger the next leg down during this Crisis, but I can guarantee you that things will not be getting better in the near future. Don’t believe the mainstream media or politicians who tell us life in the good old U.S. of A will be back to normal in the near future. And those who predict a long slow gentle decline of the American Empire that can be managed by the oligarchs are badly mistaken. That is not how things roll in a Fourth Turning. Transformative change, chaos, desperate measures, and total war will propel our nation through this cataclysmic saeculum and a positive outcome is not assured. An armed conflict – class war, sectional war, religious war, or war for oil – will be waged at some point and fought to the finish. Fourth Turning wars do not end inconclusively. Each Fourth Turning war has resulted in greater destruction and more horrendous numbers of human casualties. The trials and tribulations that await this nation over the next fifteen years will challenge every living generation to play their roles and bravely confront the tasks needed to reach a new High, just as their ancestors did.

“History offers no guarantees. Obviously, things could go horribly wrong – the possibilities ranging from a nuclear exchange to incurable plagues, from terrorist anarchy to high-tech dictatorship. We should not assume that Providence will always exempt our nation from the irreversible tragedies that have overtaken so many others: not just temporary hardship, but debasement and total ruin. Losing in the next Fourth Turning could mean something incomparably worse. It could mean a lasting defeat from which our national innocence – perhaps even our nation – might never recover.” – Strauss & Howe - The Fourth Turning

For those who doubt generational theory and believe history is a linear path of human progress, I would point to the last week of chaos, disarray, government dysfunction, and misery of those who didn’t prepare for Superstorm Sandy, as a prelude to the worst of this Crisis. The lack of preparation by government officials and citizens, death, destruction, panic, anger, helplessness and realization of how fragile our system has become is a perfect analogy to our preparation for this Fourth Turning. The brittleness of our infrastructure and lack of redundancy in our systems has left us vulnerable to any large storm. Building mansions yards from a dangerous unpredictable sea is akin to allowing Wall Street bankers to create interconnected financial derivatives which will ultimately result in a great worldwide flood that will obliterate billions of wealth. Going decades without upgrading our power grid, transportation systems, or storm protection is akin to allowing our unfunded entitlement liabilities to accumulate to such an extreme level that it will be impossible to honor and the coming storm will swamp those depending on those promises. The lack of foresight by citizens in having food, water, and backup sources of power and heat in case of an emergency is akin to the millions of people that have lived the good life in debt up to their eyeballs while never saving for a rainy day or their retirement. When the rainy day arrives they panic and demand to be saved by an inept bureaucratic government.

Winter has arrived. The gathering storm is about to strike. Are you prepared?

“Reflect on what happens when a terrible winter blizzard strikes. You hear the weather warning but probably fail to act on it. The sky darkens. Then the storm hits with full fury, and the air is a howling whiteness. One by one, your links to the machine age break down. Electricity flickers out, cutting off the TV. Batteries fade, cutting off the radio. Phones go dead. Roads become impossible, and cars get stuck. Food supplies dwindle. Day to day vestiges of modern civilization – bank machines, mutual funds, mass retailers, computers, satellites, airplanes, governments – all recede into irrelevance. Picture yourself and your loved ones in the midst of a howling blizzard that lasts several years. Think about what you would need, who could help you, and why your fate might matter to anybody other than yourself. That is how to plan for a saecular winter. Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted.” – Strauss & Howe - The Fourth Turning

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RE’s Daily Rant-3/3/2011

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Posted on 3rd March 2011 by Reverse Engineer in Economy |Social Issues

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Timing Matters

Daily Rant Archive

2/11/11, 2/12/11, 2/14/11, 2/15/11, 2/17/11, 2/18/11, 2/19/11, 2/20/11, 2/21/11, 2/23/11, 2/25/11, 2/27/11, 2/28/11, 3/2/11

 

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Of Two Minds

  

Rant Lite

Today’s rant examines the population dynamics of immigration to the FSofA prom the post Civil War Era to the Great Depression.

  

Quote of the Day

Revelation 6:8

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
 

 

  

 

 A Tale of Two Depressions

As the Great Depression progressed onward, the early collapse in RE prices made many Banks insolvent, which then precipitated the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

 

4 Amish Children Dead

Climate issues in Kentucky causing Die Off among the Amish

  

High Commodity Prices Leading to Global Food Crisis

“Without exception, genuine famines have political as well as agricultural causes. A crop failure is redeemable through cross-border flows of money or food, but where political conditions disrupt these flows; or worse, where food is provided or withdrawn as a mechanism of engendering political obedience, starvation looms.”

 

    

One of the important factors to consider on a Population level here in the FSofA during the Great Depression was what occurred BEFORE it and how the land got settled in the post Civil War years through the Great War and then the Roaring 20s.

First off, the “Sooners” of Oklahoma got their land for free after the Natives had been pushed off the land. These were generally immigrants from Europe, poor Swedes and Germans who homesteaded that land and began to farm it. Under the technology of the day, that land wasn’t really suitable for farming, it was Grazing land. They did not have the massive pumps to bring up the water from the Ogalala Aquifer in place yet. It really only took a couple of generations to deplete the land and set it up for the Dust Bowl. So all these 2nd generation poor immigrants on the poorest land would have been the first ones displaced and formed one itinerant army of Poor People once the Dust Bowl and the Depression set in.

The other army of poor folks were the Refugees from Europe who came over directly after the Great War. My Paternal Grandparents were in that Wave. Grandpa was Russian, Grandma was a Romanian Gypsie. This group of people formed the labor force building the Great Cities of the FSofA during the Roaring 20s. My Grandfather the Acrobat found good paying work on the High Steel in NYC. A smart guy and heavy drinker, he used his money to set up a Speakeasy in Brooklyn during the Prohibition years. My Grandma ran the Still producing fine Vodka and Sour Mash Whisky in the basement of the Brooklyn Brownstone they lived in, which he eventually bought also, for all CASH. I vaguely remember him telling me he bought it for $500. Said Brownstone was worth $100K even when I was in college. Probably worth $1M in the Boom years. He also bought land in Westchester county, then all farms, again for all CASH. When RE building collapsed in the Great Depression and he no longer had work walking the High Steel, his Speakeasy carried the family through, and frankly he did pretty well. He was a funny guy and the local Brooklyn Politicians all frequented his bar. There were guys Running Numbers out of the Bar, he took a Piece of the Action. Grandad was a smart Bizman, though not a very legally correct one. My father’s older brother ran a large Junkyard during the Depression years, he also did OK. My dad was able to go to College at Pace University majoring in Accounting just as WWII ended because they all made it through. Pretty well off actually. This of course is why I am here today writing from the Last Great Frontier. LOL.

My mom’s side did not do so well. They were Polish Jews who evacuated Europe just as the Nazis were coming to power. Her father, my maternal grandfather I never knew died shortly after coming to the FSofA of Tuberculosis. My maternal Grandmother kept the family going running a Rag Shop on the Lower East Side of NY, on Delancey Street. They did go through periods of great Hunger, but made it through on the food at the Soup Kitchens and did not starve to DEATH, although my mom was one Skinny 17 year old when my dad met her at a Dance in one of the Settlement Houses. Her brother wasn’t just skinny, he ended up with neurological problems which likely came from malnutrition.

Sadly of course, many others in the immigrant labor force during the years from 1917-1929 weren’t quite so smart and fortunate in how they used their decent wages for those 12 years as my Grandad, they didn’t have a Speakeasy to fall back on when the construction jobs disappeared and the Longshoremen jobs disappeared as Trade came to a grinding halt. The later immigrants from my mom’s side pretty much missed the boom entirely and were impoverished from the time they arrived here.

Together, once the Depression hit in full force in the 1930s, this was the other massive population of poor people besides the rural poor of places like Oklahoma. Basically all at the same time, once the jobs disappeared and poor land was no longer producing, ALL of these folks took to the road in one way or another looking for a Better Place and an Opportunity. For a Decade of time, until we entered WWII in 1941, no such opportunities existed for them anywhere. You see that in the Signs from the period, “Jobless Men KEEP GOING! We Cannot support our OWN!”

Whatever Die Off did occur here in the years of the Great Depression came from this group of itinerants, and this is why they for the most part are not remembered. They were mostly newby immigrants who had no other family ties here, nobody to remember them, how they lived and how they died. People who had family ties here, who were parts of small communities that survived and looked after there own mostly DID make it through, although of course not without much hardship. The ones who did actually die of starvation or starvation related disease, however many of them there were, were the most recent immigrants in the poorest of the poor situations.

As we look into the future here, History is likely to Rhyme in this regard. The folks here in the most precarious situation are the most recent Immigrants, particularly the Illegal immigrants. They are the ones who are going to first be cut off from the SNAP cards and told to “Move ON, because we cannot take care of our own”. How many of them are there? Estimates are around 20M I think, and for the most part this bunch of people are GONERS. Just like the friends and relatives they left behind in their home countries to escape the desperate poverty there.

Quite a bit of LUCK involved in when you were born, when you emigrated and where you emigrated to, both prior to the Great Depression and now as well. My Paternal Grandfather emigrated at the RIGHT time, and hitched a ride on the Prosperity that was the Roaring 20s. Vietnamese who emigrated here in the 1970s similarly are likely to make it through, having established themselves and having family networks to fall back on. My mother’s family is more like the recent immigrants from places like Pakistan and Guatemala. They will not fare so well.

The biggest difference I see between then and now is the difference in potential for rebuilding once the initial Holocaust takes its toll worldwide. Similarly, I do expect a World War and Conscription to commence, but in this case it is very hard to see how the factories hiring “Rosie the Riveter” will be able to both bring jobs to the women not conscripted and the folks too old to fight but still young enough to work on a production line or as a Manager. This because at the time of WWII, the OIL was available locally to run those factories, not so today. Today, that Oil must be IMPORTED from the War Zone ITSELF. I cannot see how enough Oil can be moved from that War Zone to the FSofA to BOTH ramp up the war production machinery AND continue to run the civilian systems we have here that have come to depend on it over the intervening years.

Austerity in the form of Gas and Food rationing in the WWII years was pretty tough, but this time round it has to be much tougher than that to keep fuel moving to the War Machine. I don’t think the integrity of the society can hold together under that much austerity, and moreover I don’t see it possible that enough Oil can be moved from the war zone to even keep the war machinery itself going very long. This adds up to systemic collapse of the Oil conduit entirely.

Once that happens, pretty much all the International War for Oil will stop and at this point all the Wars will be loal ones for local resources amongst the people currently living on particular patches of land around the globe. No rebuild of industrialized society, just further destruction until enough are dead so there are enough local resources for the survivors. It would be at this point you could attempt a rebuild on 1850s era technology, utilizing mostly Coal and scavenging parts from the Age of Oil. Call that a 50 year timeline, then another 100 years perhaps rebuilding with that technology until it also gives up the ghost.1750s after that fo another couple of centuries, back to the Stone Age after that.

There is ZERO on the horizon I can see that will stop this inexorable progression. Nuclear Plants will not do it, neither will renewable Hydro or Solar. However, as long as some people survive, the great experiment that is Human Sentience will continue onward, and then perhaps after all of this we can build a Better Tomorrow. Only time will tell.

RE

THE GREATEST GENERATION

16 comments

Posted on 14th November 2010 by Reverse Engineer in Economy

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JimQ’s recent moving and eloquent eulogy “Until We Meet Again” for his father got me to musing on the lifetime of the Greatest Generation, of which my parents were also a part.  My own father died a couple of years ago at the age of 82, and like Jim’s dad also served in WWII, enlisting at the age of 18 right at the close of the war and serving only briefly in the Navy as a cook on a Submarine.

This generation was born right at the close of the last 4 Turnings cycle into the maw of the Great Depression, but for those who survived that transition; for those who got on the bandwagon in one form or another, they enjoyed an ever increasing level of general prosperity in the FSofA where the horizons seemed limitless and where any boy could grow up from humble beginnings to become the CEO of a Multinational Corporation. Of course, MOST boys did not grow up to be that, most boys grew up and hitched a ride on the bus in one form or another at a fairly average wage in a fairly average job.  For Jim’s dad, he got a Lifetime Job with Atlantic Refining earning a decent Wage driving a truck for some 40 years or so, up to the age of 59.  For my dad, he went to Pace College in NYC on the GI Bill for his few months of service cooking on the sub and got a Bizness Degree, hooked up with the Republican Party for a while and through those connections and a knack for mathematics got selected for the Executive Training Program at Chase Manhattan.  Of the three guys selected for that program, one of them eventually became CEO of Merrill Lynch, another started his own Bank in New Jersey.  My dad remained a middle level apparatchik for Chase, spending his Glory Years in the 60s down in Brasil acquiring small Banks to bring under the umbrella of Chase.  After that he did a similar thing Down Under in Australia in the 70s, and came very close to becoming a Big Cheese CEO himself down there in the acquisition of one of the Banks, but he made one of his many marital mistakes and got dragged back to the FSofA by his wife of that time, declining the position.  He moved back to the US and took charge of the Systems Department at Chase in the main office, the precursor to today’s IT departments. He had a fairly magnificent office 2 floors below David Rockefeller on the same side of the building, which I got to see on the alternate Weekends he had custody of me in the Divorce Settlement.

Anyhow, as the 70s came to a close, many of the loans made to SA countries came back to haunt the balance sheets of TBTF banks like Chase Manhattan, and they went through a period of Downsizing.  My dad was offered a Golden Parachute to take an early retirement at the age of 50, which he took, along with many other middle level executives at the bank at that time.  Nothing like the multi-million dollar parachutes Pigmen get nowadays of course, but still a nice comfortable 6 figure Lifetime Annuity for giving approximately 25 years of his life for the greater glory and profit of Chase Manhattan and the Rockefeller family (members of which I met on many occasions through my boyhood years in Brasil, when my dad would host the visiting Elite for conferences with local Brasilian Banksters.    My  Pigman dad was very good with languages as well as math, and became fluent in Portuguese with just a few months of study prior to moving down there, so he served as interpreter for the Rockefeller group).

Anyhow, for both Jim’s dad and my own, they both got to retire in their 50s, though the Group Think here now seems to think that the French Rioting over their Retirement age being pushed back from 60 to 62 makes them unrealistic and greedy.  Times change, eh?  Here in the FSofA, we are certainly on the cusp of the retirement age being further pushed back from 65 to 68 or 70 to try to keep Social Security and various insolvent  Pension Funds solvent a bit longer, if that even works and they don’t collapse altogether.  I am already 3 years past the age my dad retired at, and I NEVER expect to retire.  I expect to pretty much work until I am completely unable to do anything productive.  After that, I’ll be taking that last Kayak trip out to sea or be giving myself up to the Bear as my ticket to the Great Beyond.

For Jim’s dad, upon returning from WWII he was able to buy a nice little house in a new suburb of Philadelphia, and by living through the growth years following WWII and maintaining a Lifetime Job with Atlantic, he was able to pay off that mortgage in 1985.  My mom (dad’s first wife) also paid off her mortgage on the house he put a down payment on as part of the Divorce Settlement back in the early 70s.  He bought that house on a 25 year mortgage for $30K, which at the top of the RE Bubble sold for around $300K, but mom missed that top and sold it for $200K in the late 90s.  She took that money and put it into “safe” CDs, eschewing the big returns possible in the Stock Market through the last decade for Safety. She lost nothing when the market crashed in 2008, but on the other hand she made nothing while the market exploded from 1998  to 2008.  Basically a wash there. She lives now on what little interest she gets from that, her Social Security and a Pension from her years of working for the CA State Franchise Tax Board as a Secretary in their NY office, her last job she held after the divorce for about 15 years until the age of 65.  While married to my dad for the first 15 years of her adult life, she was just a Homemaker in the Ozzie and Harriet paradigm of the 1950s-60s.  She was nowhere near as educated as my dad, nor anywhere near as smart as he was either.  She was however an extraordinarily beautiful girl at the age of 19 when they got married.  Going to work nearing age 40 with only a HS education was for her a very difficult transition, but a necessary one if she was to be able to keep the House, because the Alimony alone would not make all the payments.  She managed to do it, and she managed to pay off that house.  She is finishing the last days of her life at the moment still barely independent in a small apartment she rents near my sister in Springfield, MO, though my sister and I talk about moving her to a retirement home, even though decent ones would suck up most of the money she has in CDs, along with her Pension and SS .

My mom often told me stories of the Great Depression.  Her parents were immigrants from Poland in the early 1900s, Polish Jews who were fortunate to leave before the Holocaust came in the 1930s-40s. They lived on the Lower East Side of NYC, on Delancey Street.  In the worst years of the Great Depression, when my Maternal Grandfather could not find any work at all, they survived running a Rag Shop selling used clothing, the store in which my mother grew up.  He died long before I was born, a broken man, and like my mom did later after the divorce from my father, my Grandmother on that side of the family kept four kids dressed in rags alive through the worst years of the Great Depression on her own, running her Rag Shop.

My father’s parents also were immigrants, not from Poland but from Ukraine and Russia.  They weren’t  Jews, they were Gypsies. They also manged to avoid the Holocaust, where Gypsies went down in numbers quite close to the Jews of the time.  They were both young acrobats, part of a traveling Circus which was in Spain in May of 1917.  That for those of you who do not know your history this is when the Bolshevik Revolution went down.  They resolved not to return to their homelands, but to emigrate to America.  My Paternal grandmother was only 14 at the time, my grandfather only 17 and they weren’t married yet.  My Grandmother was with her family, who were also part of the Circus, and they had enough money saved up to be able to book steerage on a Freighter bound for America.  My Grandfather was on his own, no family,  and he did not have money enough to book passage.  He told my Grandmother he would come and find her in America when he could get there.  She BELIEVED him.  She told him she would wait for him FOREVER.  She was 14 years old and in love.

It took my Grandfather about a year to make it to Lisbon from Barcelona where he bid Goodbye to his true love, walking most of the way.  He worked odd jobs as a farmhand and did street performances throwing backflips to keep going. He stole food at markets and broke into shops and warehouses, climbing walls during the night and cutting through roofs and skylights to break and enter.  He was a criminal for that year, but he never got caught.   He was 100% on his own, and he had only one goal in his head.  Make it to AMERICA to find my Grandmother.  He slept in Barns with the Cows and along the side of many roads in a small tent.   He had been told by friends that ports in Lisbon were very lax in security, and that there were many freighters leaving that port bound for America you could stow away on. In the middle of the night, with just the clothes on his back and some dried meat and a bag of flour held with his teeth, my grandfather the acrobat climbed the anchor chain of an American Freighter and stowed away for two weeks on the voyage to America in the Anchor Locker.  He swam ashore in the middle of the night also, bypassing Immigration at Ellis Island.  He was an Illegal Alien, in addition to being a Criminal Burglar.  He wasn’t ashamed of it either.  He did what he HAD to do to SURVIVE, and to make it to America and fulfill his PROMISE to my Grandmother.

It took my Grandfather another 2 years after that to find my Grandmother. He talked to every Gypsie and every Jew he found who had some connection to Circus.  Circus families are a relatively small group, and eventually he found one who knew where my Grandmother and her family were living.  He knocked on the door of the Tenement building on Delancey Street they were living in, my Grandmother answered the door, and they were married a week later. IMAGINE THAT MOMENT.  Imagine it.  That is the CRUX of the Fourth Turning, a Rebirth from the Depth of Despair.

How much of this story is true?  I don’t know, but it’s the way my Grandfather told it to us when I was a boy.  Knowing my Grandfather had the same tendencies toward Romanticizing life that I do, I expect it wasn’t quite so Cinematic as he made it sound, but I do believe most of it.

My Paternal Grandfather did better through the inter-War period between WWI and WWII than my mother’s parents did.  Despite having no Papers, he was able to easily hook up a job as a Construction Worker on the Skyscrapers being built up in NYC through the Roaring 20s.  He was young, strong and utterly FEARLESS.  He had been walking the Wire from the time he was 5 or so, and walking the High Steel was no problem at all for him. Nobody wore clip-on belts in those days with carabiners, you either had the guts and balance necessary to walk free on the girders or you did not. Many men fell to their deaths from the High Steel.  High Steel workers at the time included many Navajo and Lakota, it was a dangerous profession and Native Americans were more comfortable working at great heights than most White folks.  I first got to know Native Americans from friends of my Grandfather from his early days in the FSofA. They all came to visit at the house in Westchester County he built in 1945 on 10 acres, complete with High Wire and Trapeze in the backyard.  I learned to flip and twist and get chucked around by my Aunts and Uncles in that backyard.   I landed on my head more than few times, which might explain why I am so deranged these days. LOL.

The house Grandpa built most recently sold for $3M in 1997.  Not money anybody in my family got, it was sold when Grandpa died in the mid 60s.  Not sure what it sold for then, probably less than $100K.   He made a good living in his time working the High Steel, and saved his pennies. He used that money to open a Speak Easy in Brooklyn in the Prohibition years, and used the proceeds from that to buy the land in Westchester to build his house on.  My dad grew up in his Speak Easy turned Bar during the Great Depression, getting to know the local Politicians, and that is how he came to work for the Republican Party after graduating Magna Cum Laude from Pace College, which later got him the job with Chase Manhattan after WWII came to a close.

Looking backward in time at the Greatest Generation and the Generation that preceded them through both Jim’s genealogy and my own, you can see the 4 Turnings and their outcomes in vivid relief. In the time of our Grandparents, they managed to survive through their own Wits and Inner Strength and with much Luck through the great turmoil of History of their 4th Turning. Jim’s Grandpa had 2 horses shot out from under him, he easily could have been hit by one of those bullets himself and Jim would not be here.  My Grandad easily could have taken a tumble from the 50th story of Skyscraper, and I would not be here.  For our parents, they were lucky enough to be born at the very BEGINNING of the cycle, to have the succor of their parents through the harshest years of their childhood in the Great Depression, and to board the Great Train of Prosperity through their Adult Years through the next 3 Turnings.  They got the benefit of a VERY long period of retirement as well.  Good grief, my dad was Retired for more than 30 YEARS, more than 1/3rd of his lifespan. This is NEVER going to happen again.  It was an artifact of the accessing of the Thermodynamic Energy of Oil through that cycle, and nothing like this is likely to ever again present itself to Homo Sapiens.  Prior to Oil NOBODY besides Hereditary Rulers or Illuminati could live for 30 YEARS without working, and even that wasn’t too likely. Yet many people believe this is a God Given right, to retire at age 60-65 or so.  It is highly unlikely that most of us who manage to make it to 65 will be retiring in the future.  What the Greatest Generation got was a One Time Gift from the thermodynamic energy of Oil. Jim’s Dad and my Dad were extraordinarily LUCKY to have been born precisely at the time of the last Fourth Turning, precisely at the time the therodynmic energy of Oil was being accessed. Nothing like their lives will EVER exist again.  It was an anomaly, and is not reproducible under any current technology.

The IMAGE many have in their minds if they were born much past 1960 or so is one of ever increasing Prosperity, where the pain and sacrifice made by those who lived through the last 4th Turning has gone out of their living memory.  Really, even amongst Baby Boomers who had parents and grandparents alive to tell them stories of this time, the ever increasing prosperity made those stories seem like Old Wives Tales, such things could NEVER happen again, certainly not in AMERIKA!  But of course they can, it’s a very regular mathematical function based on Compounding Interest, and now we are faced once again with the very same situation my Grandfather faced back in 1917 and Jim’s Granddad experienced in WWI when he got two horses shot out from under him.  The DIFFERENCE here is one of Emigration Possibilities.

Jim’s Grandad emigrated from Ireland, my Grandad emigrated from Russia, both arrived on the shores of America, a land still open for much Growth as the Oil Age came to pass.  Jim’s father hitched a ride as a Truck Driver distributing Oil product, my Dad hitched a ride distributing Illuminati Money as a Bankster in South America. We both got very good educations as a result, though of course our Politics are very different these days because of differing ways we reacted to and lived within the 3rd Turning of the cycle.  Jim followed the Path and became what he is, a financial officer for the UofP.  I rejected the Path, walked away from Wall Street on one cool September Morning in 1981 and eventually became what I am, a Teacher living on the far edge of Human Civilization here on the Last Great Frontier.  Neither one of these choices is incorrect, they are just choices you have to make based on the parameters you are faced with.   Of course, as things spin down here, my expectation would be the choice to remain nearby the Big Shitty of Philadelphia and the 30 Blocks of Squalor isn’t quite as sustainable as the choice to move to the far edge of human civilization in the Matanuska-Susitna River Valley of Alaska, but I could be wrong on that one of course.  I’ll live with the choice if I am wrong. As it goes so far however, things look a good deal better up here in Alaska than they do in Philadelphia. LOL.

For the Young People, this time is DIFFERENT than the last 4th Turning, when Jim’s Grandad and my Grandad ESCAPED from Europe and built new lives for themselves and their families in the FSofA.  In 1915-1925 the Industrial Revolution was just taking hold, and the FSofA had a HUGE supply of easily accessible Oil to tap within its boundaries. Where would the Young Person of today seek to escape to?  No place is really growing anymore, no place readily will accept Immigrants, no place is a haven for the poor and disenfranchised massed yearning to be FREE.  The best you can do is travel out to the far edge of human civilization and hope not to be a near term victim of the conflagrations to come.  Freedom will be near to non-existent in the foreseeable future as the Police State expands.  The only REAL freedom remains in your mind, and must wait for the Collapse of the Conduits before it can grow again in the real world.  The final collapse is quite some ways off still, the collapse of the monetary sytem will only bring on an even more onerous period of neo-feudalism that supercedes the current corporate fascism of Capitalism. A very ugly period of history that will be tough to survive for most people.  You may survive it by becoming very meek and acquiescing to rules laid down upon you, or you may survive by exiting as far as you can to the periphery, but in either case to survive you will have to make compromises until the Conduits fail epically, which they will.  When they do, all bets are OFF. Take No Prisoners time.  Get MAD, then get EVEN.  The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth.  Right AFTER the Meek get very, VERY Angry.

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You.

RE