“Imagine some national (and probably global) volcanic eruption, initially flowing along channels of distress that were created during the Unraveling era and further widened by the catalyst. Trying to foresee where the eruption will go once it bursts free of the channels is like trying to predict the exact fault line of an earthquake. All you know in advance is something about the molten ingredients of the climax, which could include the following:
- Economic distress, with public debt in default, entitlement trust funds in bankruptcy, mounting poverty and unemployment, trade wars, collapsing financial markets, and hyperinflation (or deflation)
- Social distress, with violence fueled by class, race, nativism, or religion and abetted by armed gangs, underground militias, and mercenaries hired by walled communities
- Cultural distress, with the media plunging into a dizzying decay, and a decency backlash in favor of state censorship
- Technological distress, with cryptoanarchy, high-tech oligarchy, and biogenetic chaos
- Ecological distress, with atmospheric damage, energy or water shortages, and new diseases
- Political distress, with institutional collapse, open tax revolts, one-party hegemony, major constitutional change, secessionism, authoritarianism, and altered national borders
- Military distress, with war against terrorists or foreign regimes equipped with weapons of mass destruction”
The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
September 2015 marks the seventh anniversary of this Fourth Turning Crisis. The economic, social, cultural, ecological, political, and military distress propagates by the minute as the globe is besieged by economic turmoil, increased human suffering, and endemic corruption of the political and ruling classes. The Federal Reserve/Wall Street created global economic implosion was the spark which catalyzed this fourth Crisis period in U.S. history in September 2008. Neil Howe in a 2012 essay assessed the beginning of this Fourth Turning and why 9/11 was not the catalyst:
“Pending stunning new developments, I believe the catalyst occurred in 2008. It’s a date that is looking better and better as time goes by. The year 2008 marked the onset of the most serious U.S. economic crisis since the Great Depression. It also marked the election of Barack Obama, which could yet turn out to be a pivotal realignment date in U.S. political history. In fact, if I had to give the catalyst a month, I would say September of 2008. The global Dow was in free fall. Banks were failing. Money markets froze shut. Business owners held their breath.
9/11 will go down as one of the more famous crisis precursors in American history. A crisis precursor is an event that foreshadows a crisis without being an integral part of it. Other such precursors in American history include the Stamp Act Rebellion (1765), or Bleeding Kansas (1856), or perhaps the Red Scare (1919).”
The initial spark has triggered a chain reaction of unyielding responses by those in power, including: handing $700 billion of taxpayer funds to the Wall Street bankers whose reckless pervasive greed and fraudulent derivative products caused the worldwide conflagration, 0% interest rates for the last seven years, a quadrupling of the Federal Reserve balance sheet to $4 trillion through QE to infinity, government stimulus spending which increased the national debt from $10 trillion to $18 trillion in seven years, ongoing $600 billion annual deficits, using fraudulent accounting to disguise the insolvency of the Too Big To Fail Wall Street banks, and a conscious choice by corrupt politicians and captured government regulators to not prosecute one criminal banker.
None of these initial responses have solved any of our pervasive problems or averted further emergencies. Not only haven’t these responses resolved the intractable economic conundrums facing the world, but they have exacerbated the next round of monetary disasters rapidly approaching. Strauss and Howe predicted the initial catalyst event would not worsen into a full-fledged catastrophe because the powers that be would find a way to avert the initial danger and stabilize the situation “for a while”. The key point was those benefiting from the existing corrupt world order would do whatever it took to temporarily forestall a calamity which would result in their downfall, loss of power, and ultimate imprisonment. They have successfully delayed the regeneracy phase of this Fourth Turning by turning on the monetary debt spigot full throttle.
It is highly unlikely we will have a resolution to this Crisis period for at least another ten years, so if you think the worst is over you are badly mistaken. If the climax is somehow accelerated like the Civil War, it will likely result in bloody wars, with a horrific death toll. The five year lull can be viewed as the world passing through the eye of an immense hurricane. There will always be ebbs, flows and lulls within a 20 year long Crisis, as seen in previous Fourth Turnings.
The Boston Tea Party catalyst spark occurred in December 1773, but the fireworks didn’t get going until 1775 and the regeneracy Declaration of Independence event in 1776. The Civil War Fourth Turning had no lulls. The catalyst election of Abraham Lincoln to the regeneracy event of the First Battle of Bull Run was only nine months. The acceleration did not allow for cooler heads to prevail. The result was ghastly death and destruction. The 1929 Stock Market Crash catalyst was followed by a three year lull until FDR’s election and New Deal programs marked the regeneracy.
In my previous four part article Fourth Turning – The Shadow of Crisis Has Not Passed written early in 2015 I attempted to explain generational theory, provided evidence we are still early in this Crisis, pondered the potential clash between the citizens and our debased, dysfunctional, captured government, and contemplated the kind of war which will thrust the world through the gate of history towards an uncertain future. The misconceptions regarding generational theory and the Fourth Turning keep a vast swath of otherwise lucid thinkers from understanding the implications of generational mood changes which drive the cyclical nature of history. The cognitive dissonance and normalcy bias of most Americans blinds them to the lessons of history and leaves them vulnerable to the winter that has beset the nation.
The Fourth Turning is not a prophecy or some Nostradamus like predictions. It’s a logical theory based upon the average time span of a long human life and the four phases of that life: childhood, young adulthood, mid-life, and old age. The interaction of generations during their phases of life is what produces the profound mood changes throughout history. The dramatic events during the course of antiquity are less important than how society responds to them. The reaction is substantially determined by the season of the saeculum and the generational mood that aligns with that season. We’ve entered the Winter season, with bitterly cold days ahead and intense blizzard-like conditions forecast for the next decade.
The ignorance of linear thinking advocates regarding the cyclical nature of history is either due to their “progressive” public educational brainwashing or their intellectual inability to grasp the obvious. Our daily existence is cyclical with 24 hours in a day, 365 days in year based upon earth’s orbiting the sun, 12 months divided into four seasons, and the circle of life – birth through death is the ultimate cycle perpetuating life on this planet. There are dozens of astronomical, mathematical, religious, sleep, agricultural, social, economic and war cycles known to man. Martin Armstrong has a cycle theory predicting the collapse of government between 2016 and 2020. The Kondratiev Wave theory and Elliott Wave Theory are preached by “experts” and followed by millions. Of course, many of these “experts” are busy selling their predictions in newsletters to make a buck.
The thought leaders in academia, politics, business, and mass media perpetuate the myth of never ending linear progress created by technological advances and the ever increasing intellectual evolution of mankind. The hubris of these people is incomprehensible when viewing history. The myopic delusions of these arrogant egotists are easily shattered by the horrific regressions of history. Were the Great Depression and the 65 million people killed during World War II progress for mankind? Was Stalin’s murder of 20 million Russian peasants a linear progression? Was Mao’s Great Leap Forward murder of 45 million Chinese peasants really a leap forward? Was the death of 5% of the U.S. male population in the space of four years during the Civil War really progress?
Mankind and civilization do not advance in a straight line. Progression and regression alternate in a cyclical fashion. As generations die out, memories of the previous cycle are forgotten, and the mistakes are repeated again. Human nature does not change. Good, evil, greed, fear, bravery, honesty, arrogance, sacrifice, and truth intermingle to drive humans through the cycles of history.
Strauss & Howe were economists and historians who attempted to make some sense out of the seemingly convoluted twists of history. They deciphered a pattern which could be traced back for centuries based upon the age and alignment of generations throughout history. They never attempted to capitalize on their work by selling newsletters or peddling their predictions about the future. When they published their work in 1997 they couldn’t predict the exact events which would drive the next Fourth Turning, but they could estimate the general timing and the core elements which would drive the crisis: debt, civic decay, and global disorder. These areas were neglected, denied, and unaddressed during the Unraveling period from 1984 through 2008. To read their words now, eighteen years after they were written and eleven years before this Fourth Turning struck, is haunting, as they describe precisely where we stand today:
“As the Crisis catalyzes, these fears will rush to the surface, jagged and exposed. Distrustful of some things, individuals will feel that their survival requires them to distrust more things. This behavior could cascade into a sudden downward spiral, an implosion of societal trust.”
“But as the Crisis mood congeals, people will come to the jarring realization that they have grown helplessly dependent on a teetering edifice of anonymous transactions and paper guarantees. Many Americans won’t know where their savings are, who their employer is, what their pension is, or how their government works. The era will have left the financial world arbitraged and tentacled: Debtors won’t know who holds their notes, homeowners who owns their mortgages, and shareholders who runs their equities – and vice versa.”
The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
Regeneracy – Where Art Thou?
The regeneracy during a Fourth Turning is when a sense of urgency about institutional dysfunction and civic vulnerabilities coalesce the nation or large blocs of the homeland behind a strong leader to tear down the existing social, economic and cultural order and replace it with something different. The different can be better or far worse. The Declaration of Independence, First Battle of Bull Run, and election of FDR marked the regeneracy in prior American Fourth Turnings. They all occurred within four years of the initial catalyst. It is now seven years into this Fourth Turning and a clear regeneracy event has not materialized. This has been a frustrating development for those who are impatient to get this Fourth Turning moving at a quicker pace. But, each Fourth Turning will proceed at its own pace dependent upon events, the country’s reaction to those events, and the leaders we choose during the Crisis.
Neil Howe, in his 2012 essay pondered the regeneracy issue and described it more as an era than an event. It requires something dramatic that unifies the country or causes the people to break into separate unified factions.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that the regeneracy has not yet started. So how long do we need to wait for it? And how will we know when it starts? Those are good questions. I recently went back over The Fourth Turning to recall how we dated the stages of the each of the historical 4Ts. And I found that we were very explicit about dating the other three stages (catalyst, climax, and resolution) for each 4T. But we were always a bit vague about dating the regeneracy, treating it more like an era than a date. There is a reason for this. We may like to imagine that there is a definable day and hour when America, faced by growing danger and adversity, explicitly decides to patch over its differences, band together, and build something new. But maybe what really happens is that everyone feels so numb that they let somebody in charge just go ahead and do whatever he’s got to do. I’m thinking of how America felt during the bleak years of FDR’s first term, or during Lincoln’s assumption of vast war powers after his repeated initial defeats on the battlefield.
The regeneracy cannot always be identified with a single news event. But it does have to mark the beginning of a growth in centralized authority and decisive leadership at a time of great peril and urgency. Typically, the catalyst itself doesn’t lead directly to a regeneracy. There has to be a second or third blow, something that seems a lot more perilous than just the election of third-party candidate (Civil War catalyst) or a very bad month in the stock market (Great Power catalyst).
We are still due for such a moment. We have not yet reached our regeneracy. When it happens, I strongly suspect it will be in response to an adverse financial event. It may also happen in response to a geopolitical event. It may well happen over the next year or two. Given the pattern of historical 4Ts, it is very likely to happen before the end of the next presidential term (2016).”
As previously stated, The Fourth Turning does not predict what series of events will trigger a regeneracy. It lays out a generational framework regarding how generations will react to the events. As Howe points out, the regeneracy requires a 2nd or 3rd blow which seems even more perilous than the initial shock. His suspicion that it will be in response to an even worse financial debacle than 2008 and very likely to happen before the next election in 2016 appears to be dead on. The oblivious trusting masses will again be shocked and bewildered when the second devastating shock wave of this Crisis strikes in the next twelve months. The next global financial meltdown, caused by the Federal Reserve, along with central bankers in Europe, Japan and China, will create a fearful panic and an intense urgency for a strong self-assured leader who promises to rescue the nation from peril. The panic will coincide with the presidential election in November 2016.
The “Great Divider” Barack Obama squandered his chance to be the leader who united the nation when he proved to be nothing more than a captured political hack, bowing down to the corporate fascist establishment, while stirring wide spread resentment with his culture war rhetoric and inability to inspire confidence with his toothless hope and change sloganeering. His failure to reign in or prosecute the greedy sociopathic Wall Street criminals, his acquiescence to the military industrial complex by expanding our war mongering and sowing chaos in the Middle East, and his total disregard for fiscal restraint as the country’s long term financial picture rapidly deteriorates, proved that he would not be the Fourth Turning Grey Champion leader.
In retrospect, neither McCain nor Romney would have united the country, as they are both crony capitalist establishment figures. The mood of the country has darkened substantially in the last year as people are fed up with their deteriorating economic circumstances, sick of both political parties, and angry at the unrestrained illegal immigrant invasion on our southern border.
I’m beginning to believe the nation will not be unified behind a common cause when the coming financial eruption unleashes molten lava of chaos, punishing economic distress, civil strife, class warfare, race wars, and ultimately global war. As Strauss and Howe foretold, the establishment (aka corporate fascist military industrial surveillance state) has seen a sequential loss of popular trust as their blatant corruption, sociopathic stranglehold on the levers of power, and unrelenting greed have angered the critical thinking aware citizens of this country. The next leg down in this Greater Depression will sever the remaining trust, disintegrating any remaining support for the existing civic order. What comes next will be heavily dependent upon whether the 5% to 10% of liberty minded believers in the Constitution are able to gain the trust of the masses. The odds will be long, but no longer than they were during that bitter winter at Valley Forge in 1777-1778.
“It could be a series of downward ratchets linked to political events that sequentially knock the supports out from under the residual popular trust in the system. As assets devalue, trust will further disintegrate, which will cause assets to devalue further, and so on. Every slide in asset prices, employment, and production will give every generation cause to grow more alarmed. With savings worth less, the new elders will become more dependent on government, just as government becomes less able to pay benefits to them. Before long, America’s old civic order will seem ruined beyond repair.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
In Part 2 of this article I will ponder possible Grey Champion, prophet generation leaders who could arise during the regeneracy, try to assess which channels of distress are likely to burst forth with the molten ingredients of this Fourth Turning, and lastly make some guesses about potential climaxes.
I can’t wait to read this one! No time at present but I will before midnight. President Trump is going to make all this doom disappear by shear force of will!
With so many people in our culture so focused on what benefits them over what benefits our society as a whole, I personally doubt there is the ability to regenerate anything beyond a few pockets of community-minded groups. I see it everywhere: people are not willing to tolerate anyone else’s ideas if they vary from their own… while debate and argument are certainly valuable activities to engage in when trying to determine what is most likely correct or what is the best course of action, there is far too much effort wasted arguing with those who, in reality, would probably be best co-opted into a movement to salvage what you can of what all of us have lost.
Moral relativity has destroyed our ability to make good decisions about who should be on our team.
Hard to believe 17 years have passed since I read The 4th Turning. While I liked it, I don’t think I really credited it much for being insightful- probably a limitation of my age at that time and the general optimism that reigned in the late 90s.
However, as I have aged and passed into mid-life and bit beyond (49 years old now), I now have a much greater appreciation for how societies age and evolve, and I think Strauss and Howe have a deep understanding of the process. I am actually quite pessimistic about the what the new order is going to look like ten and twenty years down the road. If you look back over the previous cycles, one can say the periods that followed the regeneracy of the American Revolution, The Civil War, and World War II were better than what had prevailed in the previous High parts of the previous cycle (though some may argue with me about WWII). I think one can find similar processes in, lets say, The Roman Empire where turnings came and went, but the empire improved up to a high point, then a turning came and things got worse and worse for many, many cycles afterwards. I think we may well have passed by the apex of the present civilization and the dark ages are in front of us and closer than ever.
Looking out over the world as it stands today, I would guess the catalyst is going to be the collapse of the Gulf States in The Middle East, and the almost unimaginable carnage that is going to be the result, up to and including some sort of nuclear exchange at some point in the next decade or so.
What keeps me up at night is the ever growing, worldwide labor glut. If it were just in the US and the EU, I’d be less fearful, but now that China has planned to do away with its manufacturing class, there isn’t much hope. Outsourcing has been horrible for the American worker, but automation and robotics will be just as horrible for the Chinese factory worker. Here’s an example of what the Chinese central and provisional governments have in store for hundreds of millions of people in that nation of 1.4 billion people:
”As part of a major push towards automation, the first robots-only factory is being built in China’s Dongguan manufacturing hub, reducing human employees to a bare minimum.
The factory, owned by Shenzhen Evenwin Precision Technology Co., hopes to reduce its workforce by 90%, to only 200 human workers, with the introduction of a 1,000-robot workforce to take the human’s places, according to the company’s chairman, Chen Xingqi, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The automated workforce is just part of a major push to replace workers in Guangdong province’s Pearl River Delta area, where major manufacturing operations are suffering from a shortage of labor.
The province has plans to spend 943 billion yuan ($154 billion) in the region to replace workers with robots over the next three years, the South China Daily reported. In Dongguan alone, 505 factories have invested 4.2 billion yuan in robot workers since September, with an eye to replace 30,000 workers, according to the city’s Economy and Information Technology Bureau.
The push to automate is being subsidized by city governments who are handing out between 200 to 500 million yuan to both robot makers and to manufacturers who swap out human workers.
Guangzhou, the provincial capital, has set a goal of automating 80% of its manufacturing production by 2020.”
Expect automation and technology to do away with the need for human labor capital, not just in China, but also in the US, Japan and South Korea. With so many people in the future with next to no income, who will be able to sell anything to them or rent to them? It will be a vicious cycle. When the working class folks are broke, the merchant class folks will become broke right along with them.
As for the US, unemployment here is structural. We now have the highest number and percentage of working age males, out of the workforce, since records were first kept in 1948. That number of non-working males will continue to grow. Broke and desperate Americans may not be as acquiescent as those out of work Greeks. As the Fourth Turning article pretty much stated, guard gated communities will become a necessity for the wealthy rentier class in the US, as it already is in Mexico.
America has become tribal. Folks in some post industrial US cities are living in a state close to anarchy. This anarchy could some day spread to the suburbs. If there are large enough uprisings, the folks at Blackrock would be in a position, through ownership, to shut down the power grid and water systems. That would bring even further devolution, which will cement many of the America’s debt serfs into some kind of permanent form of underclass in a neo-feudal system.
Increased automation will make locally-produced goods more inexpensive than goods burdened by high shipping costs (eventually *any* shipping costs). This trend is just now gathering steam and demand is now starting the long, long decline for exporters. One-trick-pony nations that rely on exports, particularly of one major commodity, are going to feel the brunt of the pain. Say what you will about the ills of the American “service economy” but it is going to look awfully good after 2020.
Thanks Admin.
BTW, if instead of a grey champion you want a red champion, you know where to find me. I will be cowering under the same rock as usual – your writing has that effect on me.
The future will not mirror the past. Natural Disasters will exceed any past turnings. For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. The Lord said it, the experts ignore it. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.
Good job Admin ,as I have said before I wish I had your writing ability . I have been going back and rereading some of your earlier articles. You could put one hell of a book together. Just saying.
Rich – here is a little known truth, known generally only by employers. It is the key to understanding a great many things. Are you ready? Here it is.
EMPLOYERS DO NOT WANT TO EMPLOY PEOPLE.
Employees suck. The only reason someone employs a person is that they have no other alternative. Employees give employers endless headaches. They screw up. They whine. They do not come to work. They always want moar – moar money, moar leave, moar of everything except work – work is what they want less of.
They must be watched at all times lest they steal you blind. They are lazy. They are expensive. They bring risk to you. They do not understand that the employer is the customer and they are the supplier, but believe that they are the customer and that employers should kiss their asses and thank them for doing that which they are paid to do. Not only do they believe that they should be thanked, they have come to expect it – especially the young.
Employees think they have a right to a “job”. And that means they also think that employers have an obligation to provide them jobs.
No one in their right minds hires an employee if there is any other alternative. No one.
Hell, I would smash my nuts between two bricks if by so doing it meant I did not need to hire employees. Think about that – hiring employees is more painful than a good kick in the gonads. And the pain of hiring someone can last for years. And besides being painful, it costs you money.
And so there it is. Anyone who thinks their employer is being benevolent and “employee friendly” is an idiot – employers act that way only so long as they need employees. It is all a lie – employers only say and do that stuff as long as they need employees. But the minute they can figure out how to dump their employees, then dump them they will, and then they will do a never-ending happy dance.
Employees bring this shit on themselves by being too painful to hire.
I love cowardly anonymous posts. DP, is dat you? You little goat fucker, I am surprised to see that your syphillis hasn’t killed you yet.
Excellent reminder of what awaits in the next phase of this 4th Turning. Thanks Jim…really liked this one!
Looks like you finally got around to that article on the 4th Turning. I’m just skimmed at this point but looks like a doozy soon to be seen all over the Internet. Good work, Jimbo.
I see there are some employees here who do not like the truth.
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Jimmy Q
Excellent post. I mean majorly good. I’m sendin the rest of this months SNAP benefits ter yer BO box as soon as me n Billy Jr go fer 1 more mountain dew n snickers run.
PS Yer uh dipshit when it comes ter bldg 7
“The 1929 Stock Market Crash catalyst was followed by a three year lull until FDR’s election and New Deal programs marked the regeneracy.”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but the above quote seems to suggest FDR’s New Deal was responsible for resolving the malaise of the Great Depression. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Am I misinterpreting the message?
Yes. The New Deal was a rebuilding effort, it was not the remedy. Like Carter, it was Hoover who initiated the recovery that Roosevelt got credit for.
Now at age 62 I feel as if I barely recognize the world I live in anymore.
I remember my grandmother and two great aunts whom I tries to shepherd in their late years in the 1970’s, and they said the same thing; they were living in a world they didn’t recognize anymore.
I don’t know how to change a world I hardly even recognize. I’m just trying to stay alive.
Loopy @ 10:14 pm .. so much truth contained in so few words.Damn well said.
+1000 Admin. We’re seeing a major tribe-up under the banner of Trump which tosses fuel and fire on the lie that in order to win, the Republican Party haso appeal to the center/moderatesand latinos.
Trump is a definitely a populist and how better to win an election than by being popular. If the majority says they’re against mass immigration , then only a moran would seek appeal by supporting increasign the migrant flow.
Then we have blacks like Farrakhan and #blacklivesmatters publicly calling for the murder of random whites and cops creating another catalyst borne out of a the self-preservation instinct which again is drawing whites closer as race.
With Trump as the symbolic white identity candidate on the right and Farrakhan , #blacklivesmatter ,La Raza and the LBGT/SJW shaking the left to the core, I think we’ll see even more rattled libs defecting to the Trump stump. It’s inevitable. Tribalism will play a huge role , as already is, in this 2016 POTUS campaign and there’s not a damn thing the Eastern GOP establishment can do to put the tribe back in it’s Big Tent box.
Interesting times as the Chinese say.
“Hell, I would smash my nuts between two bricks if by so doing it meant I did not need to hire employees.”
I’d rather hire employees and keep my nuts intact, but to each his own.
Anon, I’m waiting for you, the guy with all the 911 answers, to tell us just who crashed those planes into those buildings and committed suicide in doing so. Did they do it for money? Nah, because what good is money if you are too dead to spend it? So what was their motivation behind killing themselves?
The guy who is the author of the following quotes may have been the father of one of the main guys behind 911:
“Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions – it only guarantees equality of opportunity”.
“People need religion. It’s a vehicle for a moral tradition. A crucial role. Nothing can take its place.”
“What rules the world is idea, because ideas define the way reality is perceived”
Who benefited from 911?
These guys did:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
Jim, I diverge with you a little bit as to where we are at the moment, but I’m going to let you finish laying out your case before I chime in. You’re heading somewhere here, and it’s always informative. The two paragraphs starting with ‘barack obama the great divider are as succinct and devastatingly accurate appraisal of the man/boy I can remember
Rich – when you have hired as many employees as I have, the bricks start to look real good as an option.
Steve
Regeneracy doesn’t necessarily mean good. FDR’s election did not end the Depression. His New Deal programs made it worse, but the country was for the most part supportive as he won 3 more terms.
Starfcker
Your boy Trump will be discussed in Part 2. It’s now looking like a 3 part article. Once I get going it’s hard to stop.
Wow, that was a sobering first read of my morning. Haven’t had a sip of coffee yet, but I’m awake now.
As always, well written, succinct and unfortunately for all of us- spot on.
That’s why I love this place. I read constantly. Hard to find sources of truly original thought and analysis. so much plagerism and okie dokie passing as journalism these days. After the first debate, only two guys got it right, jim quinn and ezra klein (what?). Try not to fawn on trump too much, it might go to his head.
This is pretty good. http://blog.dilbert.com/post/128776840091/trump-engineers-a-linguistic-kill-shot-for-fiorina#ixzz3lQ63ZMu1
Lipoh, I don’t have employees. I have subcontractors. Some of them are my tenants. When I’m not paying them, I have to hope that someone else is paying them. Some of the subs I hire actually have their own vehicles, and some still have their driver’s licenses. All of the subs I hire speak English. However, not all those, who work for the subs I hire, are fluent in our native tongue.
The subs have their own workman’s comp. I don’t pay for their Social Security or Medicare. Sometimes the subs show up on time. Sometimes the subs become ghosts and don’t show up at all. When they don’t show up, I don’t pay them.
All that said, there is something far worse than having to hire employees, and that is having to hire attorneys. Do you know the difference between a prostitute and an attorney? A prostitute will stop fucking you once you are dead. If I could spend the rest of my life never having to pay an attorney, accountant or doctor, I would be a happy man.
Rich, don’t discount the accountants, if you find a good one, they will make you money.
I’m beginning to believe the nation will not be unified behind a common cause when the coming financial eruption unleashes molten lava of chaos, punishing economic distress, civil strife, class warfare, race wars, and ultimately global war.
Of course it won’t be unified.
The last 3 Turnings/Crisis, this Republic was more or less homogenous – over 90% white of Euro blood and overwhelmingly Christian. There were common bonds between folks, whether they knew they existed or not.
Now? Now we have a Tower of Babel, filled with squabbling tribes all looking for a handout, each trying to be the Most Special Snowflake and gain protected status…
When shit blows up, it won’t matter how fuckin Special they are… the circle of retribution and payback will probably find them. Certain geographic areas might have some cohesion, but overall? Heh… keep dreaming…
Starfckr , “outragists”…good one..have to remember that. ..SJWs are getting destroyed in Social media….if you haven’t already picked up a copy, I highly recommend Vox’s lastest SJWs Always lie. Get armed …the SJWs are going down.
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police Kindle Edition
by Vox Day (Author), Milo Yiannopoulos (Foreword)
Does the end of US imperialism start today?According to King Noble with cowardly lion doo it does.
Via:http://knuckledraggin.com/2015/09/oh-this-could-get-interesting/
Crap. I’m really getting sick of agreeing with Llpoh.
I wouldn’t want to hire employees either in this era. Yes, they are entitled. Yes, they can sue you. Yes, they are selfish.
As I see more of the $15 minimum wage brigade I am actually on the other side of the argument. Outside of corporate shills and fraud, it is the employers who take all the risks. What is the employee risking by working for somebody else?
The wage debate is a useless debate and insulting. So, the Fed devalues the dollar with inflation by printing funny money but it is their employer’s fault their rents, food, and gas prices inflated?
” Not only do they believe that they should be thanked, they have come to expect it – especially the young.”
The one part I disagree with you about is the young people part. They didn’t come up with that idea. Their life long employee parents along with tenure teachers came up with that shit.
I would like to slap my generation and the liberal hippy professors for this social justice “privilege” crap. It’s not “privilege” it’s called FREEDOM.
rich says: “Anon, I’m waiting for you, the guy with all the 911 answers, to tell us just who crashed those planes into those buildings and committed suicide in doing so. Did they do it for money? Nah, because what good is money if you are too dead to spend it? So what was their motivation behind killing themselves?”
————————————————-
72 virgins awaiting them in “heaven”. Why anyone would want to fuck a virgin is beyond me. Give me a well experienced hooker over a virgin every time.
Rise Up, I’m with you on that, but Anon is alleging that it was persons other than the Saudis who took those planes down. I want him to tell me who those other ‘persons” were, and what their incentives was to destroy themselves along with everything else that was destroyed that day.
“The pessimists believe that the cosmos is a clock that is running down; the progressives believe it is a clock that they themselves are winding up. But I happen to believe that the world is what we choose to make it, and that we are what we choose to make ourselves; and that our renascence or our ruin will alike, ultimately and equally, testify with a trumpet to our liberty.” G.K. Chesterton
I’m on board with that. I’ve not read S & H, but I believe what I’ve learned of them here has given me what I believe is a fair understanding of their ideas (thanks Mr. Q). Interesting material, thought-provoking insights, but I’m chary of all sweeping theories of history and this one is no exception. I guess I belong to the Wednesday group on the old Micky Mouse Club, when Wed. was “Anything Can Happen Day”, except that I apply that to every day in every week of every month of every year and so on. Just because a theory is apparently logical does not necessarily mean it is correct. All rivers flow to the sea is on its face an eminently logical statement, but it isn’t correct.
Stephanie Shepard says:
Crap. I’m really getting sick of agreeing with Llpoh…
…I would like to slap my generation and the liberal hippy professors for this social justice “privilege” crap. It’s not “privilege” it’s called FREEDOM.
@Stephanie… are you married? My son is 21, shows career promise, and thinks like you do… and while he isn’t looking for a life partner/wife/MOTHER OF MY GRANDCHILDREN, I am.
In remembrance of those sacrificed on 9/11 by the masters of the New Amerikan State, I would like to suggest one possible regenerative event. It is clear that anger, usually misdirected, is building in the American population. As the thin comfort zone that protects the middle class continues to shrink and more and more people fall into a desperate day to day struggle, this anger will only increase. Class and race conflict will ensue probably to no end but the further empowerment of those very elements in society that are bringing the country to its knees. As Strauss and Howe point out, for the most part we don’t know who we are dealing with, who is our banker, our employer, who runs the invisible government behind the visible government. Within those murky depths, we may safely assume operate those individuals who have most profited from the decline of the general welfare.
This is where 9/11 comes in. Most people can easily grasp the absurdity of the official account of 9/11 and conclude that our present leaders, by acquiescing to the cover up, have failed us, almost to the point of treason. As Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out, enough people in power have benefited from the panoramic lies surrounding 9/11 to have turned a blind eye to the implications of the false narrative. A little cognitive dissonance is a small price to pay for that house in the Hamptons. As the ever wasteful, non productive police state justified by the crimes of 9/11 continues to erode the real prosperity and security of the country, it is possible that cracks of light might open up in the walls of ignorance surrounding the American population. Even for most of the better off members of society, supporting the status quo is paying diminishing dividends. Perhaps we will reach a point where so many people realize how badly we’ve been had, that understanding 9/11 and demanding justice will no longer seem like provoking an uncontrollable upheaval but rather, hold out the promise of preventing one. We are being dragged to destruction by criminal elements within the government like those Nazis who started the fire in the Reichtag Building. I don’t see how we can restore our freedoms and prosperity if we allow ourselves to be ruled by a criminal cabal. The burgeoning chaos across the world shows that these folks are not going to just take their stolen wealth and retire.
The film posted here, Decade of Deception, and the work of many qualified citizen investigators makes it clear that we already have a number of prime suspects in the Bush administration, among right wing elements in Israel, certain Saudis etc. As with any crime investigation, the question is always: Who benefits? I believe an acknowledgement of what happened on 9/11 could be the catalyst for regeneration. Any leader who would face this issue honestly would get my vote. The culprits all deserve a fair trial and we deserve our country back. Just writing this scares me, but one ancestral grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence and lost his wife to harsh conditions in a British prison and his home to the torches of the redcoats. Like my ancestor, I’m sick of being afraid of my own government.
My company is still expanding at breakneck speed. We have plans to continue doing so well into 2016-2017.
I feel like I’m the only one with my head pulled out of the sand looking around. Everyone I know keeps saying the same thing, “work hard and stay with the company, your pension will be great.”
How do they know this? Well, because in the past 10 years we’ve had precisely three employees retire that qualified for the pension plan and THEY got paid through the nose.
When I exhibit mild disbelief that I will ever see any of that money I’m pretty soundly routed from the conversation by a bevy of people who have to believe that the money will be there for them. Their entire livelihood is dependent on a private corporation taking care of them. Good luck guys, thats all I have to say.
Me? Well, I don’t have enough land to be self-sufficient, but we are doing what we can. The vegetable garden goes in this fall, and we started canning/jarring this summer to learn the ropes.
I don’t know how bad the shit will hit the fan this turning, but I doubt I’ll escape it unscathed.
Maybe I should do what my brother did, and move out of the country.
“What comes next will be heavily dependent upon whether the 5% to 10% of liberty minded believers in the Constitution are able to gain the trust of the masses. The odds will be long……..”
Long odds, a lot of grief and death, makes me so sad for my children and grandchildren, truly fucking sad..
I had an very good employee and friend that turned into a crack addict and lost everything, two rental houses, show car, his house, his wife, his son, his job and the trust of everyone he knew.
He told me an addict will do whatever to keep that high and will not seek help until they are living in a ditch near death. They will lie, cheat, steal and basically deny there is a problem until they hurt so bad they want to die.
I think a lot of Americans today are like the addict and the politician is the drug, they need us a heck of a lot more than we need them yet the majority keep looking for (drugs) solutions from the very people who caused the problems in the first place.
They just want to feel good and keep feeling good.
@TPC… when we bought this piece of ground (38 plus acres after we added the 3 acres with the stilt house aka treehouse on it), many people were incredulous that we were moving from suburbia to the hills like we planned. I have always believed that we may not survive the collapse. However, what we have stored away for my son and/or for those we trust is intended to help someone rebuild something worth living for.
That is, in the end, all we can do. Standing on that Promise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=15&v=bEUOF2_WQHo
Maggie- Awwww…
If your son thinks like me you are going to have some argumentative grandchildren. I wouldn’t recommend adding fuel to the fire lol.
@Stephanie… good answer. However, in spite of being overwhelmingly proud that the young man in question is doing well “on his own,” I am also quite relieved to not have him here making me debate with him all the damn time.
Even this photograph his boss asked me to take so that he could set up a Linked In account was taken against his will as he left to go to work one morning.
What he needs is someone as smart and as bullheaded as he. “Says his MOM.” (That’s his standby comeback is when I tell him it is time to stop arguing with me.)
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Ha, ha…you captured pure annoyance in that photo!
I doubt debate my mother much. She pretty much ignores me. The only “hot button” debates we both resign to saying “I’m done talking to you” involves Israel and Iran. But that is generational differences.
But when it comes to arguing that is all her handing work. She let me have immense freedom of choice growing up including whether or not I would go to school. Her problem now.
“But when it comes to arguing that is all her handing work.”
*Handy work.
Gah, Admin! Can we get a comment section upgrade that allows for edits???
@card802
You are so (sadly) right. Everyone is waiting for the solution to come through the next election or the next big event or the next Constitutional challenge.
And they are exactly like addicts.
I almost can’t read these Fourth Turning articles anymore, no matter how well they are written.
They read too much like tomorrow’s headlines and I feel like somebody stuck in their car when a tsunami comes in.
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Quinn published in Marketoracle UK got me hooked on this website several years ago. Admin is not always right but almost always thought out. That is except when he is on a shit throwing rant.
@Lloph & Steph
I tried to explain the difference between losing your job and losing your business to a parent at the ice arena once. He was a school teacher who kinda got it some times – he admitted that he was employed because other people produced things and that when it came right down to it he did’t produce much. On the flip side he would argue that employers fleece their employees and take advantage of them and that losing your job was just as devastating as losing your business.
I had to explain to him that losing your job means you have to find another one. Losing your business means finding another job, a house, a car and paying back debt until you are too old to enjoy life anymore or declaring bankruptcy. I’m not sure he got it.
I went through a purge with my company last year and turned over about 70% of my staff because of a lack of mathematical proficiency. Most of the people who left (some voluntarily and some not) were nice enough but didn’t get that their pay checks were dependant on the company’s health – wages are by far my largest expense and if you don’t control it the company won’t make money in which case I will simply liquidate its assets and go to work for someone else. Why would I assume so much risk for nothing? They didn’t get it. They are now working elsewhere. I presume they are earning what they are worth.
The way I see it is that the vast majority of humanity cannot do simple math or accounting. If they could – the world would likely be a better and different place.
The difference of losing a job vs. losing a business.
If you lose your job you find another one, maybe a better one! You lose your business you lose your job as well as your employees lose their jobs. Now multiple people are competing for the same jobs in the same industries. Some will find employment and others will go on welfare. Now the person original person who just lost a job now will have to pay more taxes to support those who went on welfare. Boom!
Technology is the real game-changer in this Fourth Turning….it not only will most likely speed up the progression of events, it also brings in all new manner of “Black Swans.”
The way in which we live our lives–eat, travel, get information, communicate, etc., literally EVERY aspect of our lives–is incredibly dependent on technology which was either in its infancy or did not exist 80 years ago. The way in which we live each live our lives–in aggregate this sums to “society” and “culture”–has changed more in the last 80 years than in all the thousands of years of civilization that came before.
My Dad emailed me the other day, worried about a possible EMP happening this month. I gave him some basic ideas to prepare for such an event. Do I think it likely? Not at all. But it is POSSIBLE. And that thought alone staggers me. It literally COULD happen in One Second, any second. Such a instant game-changer has never been possible. In fact, there WAS a massive EMP at the kickoff of a Fourth Turning (in 1859)–but it amounted to nothing more than a few telegraph wires being fried and a lot more people getting to see the Northern Lights.
Even without Nuclear War or EMP, technology is a major game-changer in this Fourth Turning. Mass media was barely getting underway the last time around–and think, just frickin’ radio enabled the greatest Tyrants in history to gain power (Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot et al)–now think of all the propaganda outlets available to today’s psychotic Tyrants.
On the bright side, of course, no revolutionaries in history have had a tool like the internet. The ability for “little people” like Jim Quinn, for instance, to get a message of truth out to a broad, diverse and geographically spread audience has never been available. It guarantees nothing, of course, but at least gives us a chance to fight the war of ideas BEFORE real wars get hot.