Tag: Fourth Turning

A FOURTH TURNING PROPHECY

Check out this passage from The Fourth Turning and tell me these guys aren’t brilliant.

Recall that a Crisis catalyst involves scenarios distinctly imaginable eight or ten years in advance. Based on recent Unraveling-era trends, the following circa-2005 scenarios might seem plausible:

  • An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics.

The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – Page 273 – Written in 1996

MILLENIALS GET IT

As I perused my local paper this morning I glanced at the story about the North Penn graduation yesterday. Approximately 1,200 Millenials graduated and are moving on to their next step in life. I was about to skip to the next story when I saw the name Neil Howe in the story. The valedictorian’s speech to his class referenced our current Crisis as laid out by Strauss & Howe in The Fourth Turning. This 18 year old kid gets it. He understands these are dangerous times. He told his fellow classmates they are the new Hero Generation, as he referenced the last Hero Generation that did the heavy lifting and dying during the last Fourth Turning.

I know the old farts on this site do the usual bashing of the youth of today, but they are wrong. This country will only get through this Fourth Turning with a positive result if the Millenials are successful in handling the terrible ordeals that await them. I have three Millenials at home. I know their friends. These are good kids. Their eyes are open. They see how badly their elders have fucked things up. They have no choice but to fix it. They have no choice but to meet the immense challenges ahead. While the Boomers scream at each other and threaten to shut down the government and issue more debt to paper over a debt crisis, the Millenials are preparing for the next 15 years. They are faced with modern distractions (iPods, computers, TV, social media), but human nature does not change. They have not been properly educated by the Boomer run education system, but they understand crushing debt, no jobs, stagnant income, and rising food and energy costs. They know the country cannot run $1.5 trillion deficits for infinity without destroying the country. They are our last best hope.

We’ve been here before. The GI Generation has virtually died off, but the new Hero Generation is getting ready to step up. The old fogies who shit on this generation need to step back and understand history. This generation will step up, because they have to.

North Penn grads hailed as next greatest generation

By Linda Stein
Staff Writer

North Penn High School seniors celebrate as they take the fieldfor the Fifty-Sixth Commencement ceremony at the school on Wednesday evening June 15,2011. Photo by Mark C Psoras

TOWAMENCIN — A sea of newly minted North Penn High School graduates in blue caps and gowns marched into Crawford Stadium Wednesday under a softer blue sky.

Cheering and applauding family and friends clutched balloons and flowers. Some took pictures. Others smiled, waved and blew kisses as the 2011 graduates–more than one thousand strong–took their places on the field, ready to begin a new stage in their young lives.

In an inspiring speech, class Valedictorian Julian Pei spoke of the challenges that his generation faces with economic uncertainties and war abroad.

“Sometimes it feels as if our country is unraveling,” Pei said. “But we cannot fear these times, rather, we must embrace them. The word ‘crisis’ in Chinese is made up of two parts. The first character means ‘danger.’ Clearly we are facing some uncertain and possibly dangerous times ahead. But the second character means ‘opportunity.’

“I believe our generation faces some enormous opportunities in the face of crisis,” he said. Citing historians William Strauss and Neil Howe, Pei said that American history has 80 to 100 year cycles.

Current circumstances comprise a moment of crisis but “we are the ‘Hero Generation,’ mirroring the ‘Greatest Generation’ from about 80 years ago.

“In order for us to properly seize life’s opportunities and become unbeatable…we must be prepared to take on any challenge,” Pei said.

“Go out into the world knowing that the time is now to take the fist step in sculpting a new generation.”

Pei, who plans to go to the University of Pennsylvania, will study biology and finance.

The Lifecycle of the HERO Archetype
 
 
 
We remember Heroes best for their collective coming-of-age triumphs (Glorious Revolution, Yorktown, D-Day) and for their hubristic elder achievements (the Peace of Utrecht and slave codes, the Louisiana Purchase and steamboats, the Apollo moon launches and interstate highways).  Increasingly protected as children, they become increasingly indulgent as parents.  Their principal endowment activities are in the domain of community, affluence, and technology.  Their best-known leaders include: Gurdon Saltonstall and “King” Carter; Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.  They have been vigorous and rational institution builders.  All have been aggressive advocates of economic prosperity and public optimism in midlife; and all have maintained a reputation for civic energy and competence even deep into old age.A lifecycle outline:

  • As HEROES replace Nomads in childhood during an Unraveling, they are nurtured with increasing protection by pessimistic adults in an insecure environment.
     
  • As teamworking HEROES replace Nomads in young adulthood during a Crisis, they challenge the political failure of elder-led crusades, fueling a society-wide secular crisis.
     
  • As powerful HEROES replace Nomads in midlife during a High, they establish an upbeat, constructive ethic of social discipline.
     
  • As expansive HEROES replace Nomads in elderhood during an Awakening, they orchestrate ever-grander secular constructions, setting the stage for the spiritual goals of the young.

The G.I. Generation (Hero, born 1901-1924) developed a special and “good kid” reputation as the beneficiaries of new playgrounds, scouting clubs, vitamins, and child-labor restrictions.  They came of age with the sharpest rise in schooling ever recorded.  As young adults, their uniformed corps patiently endured depression and heroically conquered foreign enemies.  In a midlife subsidized by the G.I. Bill, they built gleaming suburbs, invented miracle vaccines, plugged “missile gaps,” and launched moon rockets.  Their unprecedented grip on the Presidency began with a New Frontier, a Great Society, and Model Cities, but wore down through Vietnam, Watergate, deficits, and problems with “the vision thing.”  As “senior citizens,” they safeguarded their own “entitlements” but had little influence over culture and values. 

The Millennial Generation (Hero?, born 1982-?) first arrived when “Babies on Board” signs appeared.  As abortion and divorce rates ebbed, the popular culture began stigmatizing hands-off parental styles and recasting babies as special.  Child abuse and child safety became hot topics, while books teaching virtues and values became best-sellers.  Today, politicians define adult issues (from tax cuts to deficits) in terms of their effects on children.  Hollywood is replacing cinematic child devils with child angels, and cable TV and the internet are cordoning off “child-friendly” havens.  While educators speak of “standards” and “cooperative learning,” school uniforms are surging in popularity. 

 

CRISIS INTENSIFIES

The linear thinkers continue to be knocked for a loop. They do not understand the dynamics of a Fourth Turning. These people think the world continuously progresses. They think things will just settle down in the Middle East, Europe, China and the US. They think there are no consequences to the horrible decisions of our leaders and the pillaging of the common people by bankers, mega-corporations and politicians. They are badly mistaken.

Fourth Turnings ALWAYS sweep away the old order. Fourth Turnings are ALWAYS violent. Greece is just a preview. The intensity is increasing by the moment. And do not think for a moment that the video in the link below is not coming to America. It is inconceivable to the linear thinkers, but not to those with their eyes wide open.

Does this look like a decrease in intensity?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/8203692/Petrol-bombs-and-tear-gas-at-Greek-protest.html

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou offers to resign as austerity protests swell

Violence breaks out in Athens as thousands of Greek workers swarm downtown to protest a package of budget cuts and tax increases for the financially strapped nation.

Athens protestProtesters try to remove a fence protecting the Greek parliament during a demonstration in Athens. Thousands of demonstrators besieged the Greek parliament on Wednesday in a large anti-austerity protest marred by violence. (Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP/Getty Images / June 15, 2011)
By Henry Chu and Anthee Carassava, Los Angeles TimesJune 16, 2011

Reporting from London and Athens—

Angry protesters pushed the Greek government close to collapse Wednesday, putting Europe on notice that deep budget cuts to tame the region’s debt crisis face heavy public resistance and could crash on the rocks of national politics.

Thousands of people packed downtown Athens in an effort to block lawmakers from debating brutal austerity measures that European finance officials say are essential if near-bankrupt Greece wants their help to pay its bills. The gathering descended into violence — with some protesters hurling water bottles, rocks and firebombs — that took riot police hours to quell and helped spark a dramatic offer by Prime Minister George Papandreou to quit in favor of a unity government.

The volatile situation offered a stark example of the predicament facing the European Union as it tries to contain a debt crisis that has rattled markets for more than a year.

The EU has demanded painful spending cutbacks by Greece, Ireland and Portugal as the price of bailing out their cash-strapped governments. Spain and Italy also have passed major belt-tightening measures to avoid getting sucked into the euro mess.

But public opposition is growing in some of these countries, threatening to topple governments and to torpedo at home the collective solutions approved by EU leaders in Brussels.

In Athens, Papandreou’s Socialist government is seeking parliamentary approval of the austerity plan, including tax hikes, deep cuts in public-sector wages and a fire sale of state assets. Papandreou says the package is crucial if Greece wants additional bailout funds on top of the $146-billion lifeline promised by the EU and the International Monetary Fund last year.

But opposition leaders indicated Wednesday that they expected Papandreou’s resignation and the renegotiation of the bailout package.

After first offering to step down to make way for a government of national unity, Papandreou said on national television Wednesday night that he would reshuffle his Cabinet and seek a vote of confidence in Parliament.

“I have made repeated proposals to political parties for consensus. Today I renewed that attempt…. Despite my stance, the main opposition party handled this attempt like a public-relations drill,” said Papandreou, who is facing his lowest public approval ratings since taking office in 2009. “I will continue on the same path I charted.”

Outraged by previous budget reductions, thousands of Greeks have filled Syntagma Square in the heart of Athens over the last three weeks in protest. On Wednesday, the number ballooned to about 30,000 people, including members of the country’s two largest labor unions, which staged a 24-hour nationwide strike.

After three hours of scuffles, at least 12 protesters were arrested, shop windows around the square were shattered and thick plumes of tear gas hovered over the city, sending tourists scrambling for cover in side streets and alleyways.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” lamented Stella Stamati, 43, a government-employed chemist who joined the protest with three colleagues.

Many of the demonstrators had been inspired by recent peaceful mass protests in Spain, where thousands of young people camped out in a Madrid plaza for days to shake their fists at government austerity policies and to express their frustration over a high level of joblessness that has hit the young the hardest.

Last month, Spain’s ruling Socialists were routed in regional and local elections widely seen as a rebuke of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero‘s plan to slash state spending to bring down the public deficit.

In neighboring Portugal, voters booted the government in a general election last week out of unhappiness with the terms of the country’s bailout from the EU and IMF, which will require difficult structural reforms to the economy. The new government, however, has largely pledged to stick to the conditions.

For their part, Ireland’s new leaders are pushing hard for a renegotiation of the EU-IMF rescue package their predecessors had agreed to, further widening the cracks in the veneer of European unity.

Critics blame Germany, Europe’s paymaster, for having dithered over rescuing Greece last year, when the crisis looked more containable, because of political considerations at home. Many Germans oppose the use of their tax money to bail out their fiscally troubled neighbors.

Markets have reacted to Europe’s infighting and Greece’s woes by pushing borrowing costs for Athens to unheard-of highs. On Wednesday, the cost of insuring $10 million in Greek bonds rose to a record $1.725 million a year, according to data provider Markit. This week, the Standard & Poor’s ratings firm downgraded Greek bonds to the lowest rating of any of the 131 states on its books.

FOURTH TURNING GAINING ATTENTION

A gentleman from another Ivy League University that I have had email correspondence with sent me an interesting email this morning. He had been asked by a world renowned hedge fund manager to review and summarize Strauss & Howe’s Fourth Turning. The hedge fund manager was intrigued by the book and wanted another opinion from someone he could trust. Below is the review. It seems that the Fourth Turning concept is gaining traction among smart open minded people.

Sorry for the highly delayed opinion of Strauss and Howe’s “The Fourth Turning”. I spend enough time keeping up with daily noise that mowing through books is difficult. A quick clarification. I write up and post reviews of books I read, so this letter will assume a little flavor of that. I should add that my motivation to read the book was initiated by the drumbeat in the bear community, enhanced by Jim Quinn’s “Burning Platform” blogs based extensively on the premise of an impending Fourth Turning, and accelerated to the point of action by your interest in the book. (I am particularly intrigued that a guy managing tens of billions and benefiting enormously during what the authors call the “unraveling” would be so interested in such a book.) I especially enjoy reading books about the present (and future) that are not written contemporaneously (1996 in this case); it makes the resonances so compelling when they arise.


To refresh your memory from your distant read, the book describes a scenario in which the saeculum (80 year generational cycle) is comprised of four societal cycles (a high or rebirth, awakening, unraveling, and crisis), each lasting about 20 years. A parallel analysis describes generational types that spend essentially a human lifetime proceeding through the societal four cycles in a sequence that depends very much on which cycle one is born into. There appears to be a perfect symmetry–every person experiences four cycles and every cycle has four different generations experiencing it, each at different stages of their lives. In practice, I found the societal cycles–the temperaments and actions of society at large–far more understandable than the generational archetypes. I think this asymmetry is caused by the authors’ looser definition of generations (more of them since WWII, for example). The premise that each turning has a personality that is a direct consequence of the personalities of preceding generational cycles–Turning 1 (rebirth) naturally leads to Turning 2 (awakening) which naturally leads to turning 3 (unraveling) culminating in Turning 4 (crisis)–is certainly provocative. The critical component of the thesis is not that bad things happen in cycles but rather society’s RESPONSE to the incessant wave of events (Black Swans) follows cycles. Another critical component is that these generational changes will arrive regardless of the minutiae of events, and they will do so rather abruptly. (Clearly, parallels with secular market changes are inescapable.)


First, the weaknesses. The book seems to suffer a little from trying to place inherently sloppy patterns into neat categories. This is not a major problem, but potentially a source of allergic reaction to some. The historical treatise describing previous studies of cycle theories published over literally two millennia (Kondratiev being the most familiar) was necessary but offered a slow start to the book. (It would have been a killer if I hadn’t read a lot of history over the last decade.) This historical treatise was especially tough in that, although I could buy into their assertion that the War of the Roses was a Fourth Turning, I could not begin to imagine the societal moods necessary to place it in the right context. By contrast, generational changes in the 20th century US fit like an old shoe. None of these issues are fatal, just the weakest links.


With that said, I found that “The Fourth Turning” seemed to dovetail nicely into a Worldview that I have been developing for over a decade. I had many times noted to friends and on blogs that kids growing up in the 80’s and 90’s couldn’t possibly understand that the World can be a cruel place; the world rotated on its axis without precessing. Also, EVERY generation concludes that the subsequent generation is all screwed up so surely there are generational rollovers. The description of the crisis era not just involving conflicts but conflicts leading to catharsis also seems to fit the facts. I thought they did a great job of describing the eras and personalities in the 20th century–an insightful stroll down memory lane. I am a huge fan of pithy quotes, so the enormous number of quotes used to describe temperament of the various eras hit the hot bone on me.


The money shot came in the last 100 pages of the book in which they predict (again, in 1996) the Fourth Turning (the crisis) would arrive in the 2005-2010 window. Of course, every period has events that could be construed as proximate triggers (not causes but triggers) for a turning as well as crises, but the authors’ description was hauntingly accurate. I don’t know if you remember this, but they mentioned the trigger as possibly a financial crisis (check), broken promises by government (check), suffocating student loans (check), boomers beginning to overtax the system (check), and then the most surreal statement of all “something so trivial as a tea party.” I read that last one about five times. These guys clearly understood the unsustainability of the factors that have shoved us into gold-based investments. The stated influence of Pete Peterson on their thinking was readily apparent. (My son just so happens to work for him.)


As I read the book, I found myself pondering the Fourth Turning and concluded that, if their generational model is correct, it has indeed arrived. I asked a colleague what the historians would label as the proximate trigger, and he said 9/11. I don’t think so. Could it be the financial crisis? Closer, but still not quite right in my opinion. I would say that the proximate trigger was the disastrously inadequate response to the financial crisis. Of course, I am not referring to a Krugmanesque monetary policy but rather to the complete absence of new safeguards and retribution. I suspect that authorities might go after many of your friends in the hedge fund world, but that totally misses the mark; you guys are expected to game the system. By example, prosecuting Rajaratnam (who I am sure is worthy of a few convictions) but not Gupta decidedly misses the mark. Gupta was the one who breached public trust in the system. The authorities had to clean up the system itself, and they have clearly failed miserably. There’s only one conviction resulting from the mortgage crisis and it was a guy who lied on a liar loan. Well duh! Of particular, importance, they didn’t just try and fail to clean up the system, they never even tried. I think society watched patiently and, only within the last few months, has started to get angry. (I just read an article by Jeff Sachs this AM expressing enormous anger over the crime wave that has gone unchecked.) This period in which we began to realize nothing has changed may be identified as the brief period in which, ironically, society’s temperament changed quite drastically. It will be marked as the onset of the Fourth Turning.


If Strauss and Howe have it right then it is clearly time to duck and cover. What I see going forward are (1) resource constraints (as discussed previously), (2) conflict with China (possibly in the cathartic final stages); (3) seemingly endless shock waves resulting from collapsing credit markets (seems like an easy call); and (4) the demographic problems and defaulted promises (clearly articulated by the authors.) As Stephen Roach once said, however, “the ultimate insult would be to call it right and play it wrong.” I don’t see any riskless moves at this point. Admittedly, the riskless moves are often the ones in which there is so much perceived risk that it is priced in and, thus, removed…but I still can’t see them yet. A guy named Chris Martenson told me that people often say buying gold in 2001 was so easy because it was obviously so cheap. We shared a laugh over that one. Being a contrarian is painful as hell (as you know).


After finishing a book, I scamper over to Amazon’s comments section to read what others thought. I especially like to read the negative reviews (one and two stars). It is clear that most of the negatives come from those who didn’t understand the most fundamental tenets of the authors’ thesis. Others took offense at the description of their own generation (especially the youngsters lacking some wisdom imparted by time). Some saw a political agenda. (I did not.) A slug of reviews posted right after 9/11 emanated  from people looking for some sort of explanation. Given that 9/11 was a bad event in the third rather than fourth turning, they were not going to find any. Still others simply could not grasp that the era at the time of posting could possibly give way to a new one, which represents precisely the authors’ premise that the turnings keep marching on and arrive without much warning. Of course, the five star reviews were people like me who found that the book got in their heads and rattled around a lot.


Hope this review offered some insight.

BOOMERS – YOUR CRISIS HAS ARRIVED (Oldie but Goodie)

I wrote this article at the depths of the economic downturn in February 2009. The stock market was in freefall and bottomed in March 2009, down 50% from its high. Obama had just assumed power. Oil was selling at $40 per barrel. I made a number of predictions. You can judge how well I did. I took a few shots at Boomers, but I was pretty easy on them. Anyone left on the site who doesn’t understand the Fourth Turning theory, will get a good education at the beginning of the article.

“There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations, much is given. Of other generations, much is expected. This Generation has a rendezvous with destiny.”  Franklin Roosevelt – 1936

President Roosevelt was correct. The generation he was speaking to was already dealing with the worst financial crisis in the history of the United States, the Great Depression. By 1945, over 400,000 of this generation had lost their lives. Another 600,000 men were wounded. Much was expected and much was sacrificed. Every generation has a rendezvous with destiny. The generation that won World War II passed the ultimate test and proceeded to produce the next generation, the Baby Boom Generation. Their rendezvous with destiny is underway. Will it be a rendezvous with history that results in World War III, the collapse of the Great American Republic, dictatorship, or a return to the original Constitutional principles upon which this country was founded? Many of you are probably thinking the idea of WW III, collapse or dictatorship is crazy. I’d respond with the wisdom of Kramer from the classic Seinfeld show.

Jerry:             “Oh you’re crazy”

Kramer:         “Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?”

Jerry:             “It’s impossible”

Kramer:         “Is it? Or is it so possible your head is spinning like a top?”

Jerry:             “It can’t be”

Kramer:         “Can’t it? Or is your entire world just crashing down all around you?”

As a student of history I’m drawn to the concept of cycles. It is comforting to think that history has recurring patterns and a natural rhythm. Trying to figure out why the major events in history occurred is complex, challenging and fascinating. When I read an updated 1997 article by Doug Casey in December on John Mauldin’s site called Foundations of Crisis, I was blown away. Mr. Casey had read the book The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe and made some forecasts of what would happen in the next few years. They were eerily accurate, including an airliner being purposefully crashed into a government building to trigger a crisis. After reading this article I’ve been trying to wrap my arms around the implications of their theory and the possible consequences for the United States. I know that an individual can learn from the past. I’ve always thought that poet George Santayana’s quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, is profound and worth studying.

The crucial issue is whether societies as a whole are capable of learning from the past or are they condemned to the inevitable cycle of history. Can an individual change the course of history? Was World War II inevitable, even if Adolph Hitler had been killed during World War I? Is there anything that can be done to avert the cyclical crisis that seems to arrive on a consistent basis throughout history? Is our destiny already preordained? Mr. Strauss and Mr. Howe wrote the following words in 1997:

Based on historical patterns, America will hit a once-in-a-century national crisis within the decade…’like winter,’ the crisis or ‘fourth turning’ cannot be averted. It will last 20 years or so and bring hardship and upheavals similar to previous fourth turnings, such as the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression and World War II. The fourth turning is a perilous time because the result could be a new ‘golden age’ for America or the beginning of the end. It all will begin with a ‘sudden spark’ that catalyzes a crisis mood around the year 2005.

I don’t have a preconceived notion of our country’s destiny, but I’m getting a bad feeling about the track we are on. The last thing in the world I want to see is my three boys being forced into a war caused by a bunch of clueless 60 year old political hack morons in Washington DC fulfilling their destiny to cause the once in a century national crisis. Based on the foolish actions of most politicians in Washington over the last thirty years, I fear for the future of our country. I don’t think the politicians in Washington comprehend the state of affairs. I sense the mood of the country turning. Fear, anger and disillusionment are the prevalent themes. Change is coming, but it is not the change that Barack Obama campaigned for. It will be forced upon us by circumstances beyond any one person’s control. While we are hurtling towards our summit with destiny, Congress continues its path of pork barrel spending, short term solutions, party politics, and condemning our children and grandchildren to a lower standard of living. The “leaders” of this country are using the tried and true method of using fear to ram through their $900 billion tax on future generations. President Bush used the same fear tactics to launch his invasion of Iraq. I see a similar success story with the coming stimulus package. Maybe the coming crisis will ultimately lead to Great Leaders rising to the occasion.

THE FOURTH TURNING

Strauss and Howe believe that history is marked by 80 to 100 year cycles which match the lifespan of most human beings. These cycles are discernible by four generations of 20 to 25 years that show remarkable consistency over history. I’m sure this theory will anger the individualists out there. They are not saying that everyone within a generation acts alike, but are shaped by joint experiences and time period in history. According to Strauss and Howe:

Turnings last about 20 years and always arrive in the same order. Four of them make up the cycle of history, which is about the length of a long human life. The first turning is a High, a period of confident expansion as a new order becomes established after the old has been dismantled. Next comes an Awakening, a time of rebellion against the now-established order, when spiritual exploration becomes the norm. Then comes an Unraveling, an increasingly troubled era of strong individualism that surmounts increasingly fragmented institutions. Last comes the Fourth Turning, an era of upheaval, a Crisis in which society redefines its very nature and purpose.

They are able to trace these turnings back to 1500 with remarkable consistency. They have broken U.S. history into the following cycles of history: Revolutionary Cycle (1701-1791), Civil War Cycle (1792-1859), Great Power Cycle (1860-1942), and the Millennial Cycle (1943-2???). Within these cycles are four distinct generations, that have a consistent persona because their parents had similar views, they listened to the same music, read the same books, were taught the same curriculum, were bombarded with the same marketing messages, and experienced the same set of unique experiences. Even though every Baby Boomer is not alike, the sheer size of this generation of 76 million people has left a dramatic imprint on history. The shared experiences of this cohort are clearly visible as they have marched through the cycle of history. The four typical generations within a cycle as described by Strauss and Howe are:

Prophet/Idealist

A Prophet (or Idealist) generation is born during a High, spends its rising adult years during an Awakening, spends midlife during an Unraveling, and spends old age in a Crisis. Prophetic leaders have been cerebral and principled, summoners of human sacrifice, wagers of righteous wars. Early in life, few saw combat in uniform. Late in life, most prophets come to be revered as much for their words as for their deeds.

Nomad/Reactive

A Nomad (or Reactive) generation is born during an Awakening, spends its rising adult years during an Unraveling, spends midlife during a Crisis, and spends old age in a new High. Nomadic leaders have been cunning, hard-to-fool realists, taciturn warriors who prefer to meet problems and adversaries one-on-one.

Hero/Civic

A Hero (or Civic) generation is born during an Unraveling, spends its rising adult years during a Crisis, spends midlife during a High, and spends old age in an Awakening. Heroic leaders are considered to have been vigorous and rational institution-builders, busy and competent in old age. All of them entering midlife were aggressive advocates of technological progress, economic prosperity, social harmony, and public optimism.

Artist/Adaptive

An Artist (or Adaptive) generation is born during a Crisis, spends its rising adult years in a new High, spends midlife in an Awakening, and spends old age in an Unraveling. Artistic leaders have been advocates of fairness and the politics of inclusion, irrepressible in the wake of failure.

This concept of 100 year cycles consisting of four generations is very logical to me. It all seems so theoretical and quaint until you realize that if they are right, we have just entered The Fourth Turning, a period of upheaval, crisis and enormous societal and possibly worldwide change. This is not a normal cyclical recession and bear market. There are much larger forces at work. Washington politicians are so consumed with their short-term election politics, power plays, enrichment of supporters, and letting lobbyists write our laws, they are incapable of seeing the real gathering storm that is about to engulf them. They go about their day to day horse trading and fooling the public with rhetoric, while a crisis of epic proportions is looming just over the horizon.

100 YEARS TO LIVE

The recent song by the group Five for Fighting called 100 Years reflects the 100 year cycle that all humans live through.

15 there’s still time for you
Time to buy and time to lose
15, there’s never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live
I’m 33 for a moment
Still the man, but you see I’m a they
A kid on the way
A family on my mind
I’m 45 for a moment
The sea is high
And I’m heading into a crisis
Chasing the years of my life

The lyrics heading into a crisis couldn’t be truer today. We are only on this earth for 100 years. Why shouldn’t every person want to leave the earth a better place than they were born into? Instead, the world has periods of advancement and periods of regression, periods of peace and periods of war, periods of awakening and periods of crisis.

The last 150 years in American history as segmented by Strauss and Howe is charted below. Each generation experiences the four turnings at a different time in their lives. An appreciation of past turnings may give us clues to what will befall our country in the next 20 years.

Great Power Saeculum
Missionary Generation Prophet (Idealist) 1860–1882 The indulged home-and-hearth children of the post-Civil War era. They came of age as labor anarchists, and campus rioters. In the 1930s and ‘40s, their elder elite became the “Wise Old Men” who enacted a “New Deal” (and Social Security) for the benefit of youth, led the global war against fascism, and reaffirmed America’s highest ideals during a transformative era in world history.
Lost Generation Nomad (Reactive) 1883–1900 The Third Great Awakening was a period of religious activism in American history from the late 1850s to the 1900s. It affected pietistic Protestant denominations and had a strong sense of social activism. It gathered strength from the postmillennial theology that the Second Coming of Christ would come after mankind had reformed the entire earth.
G.I. Generation (aka Greatest Generation) Hero (Civic) 1901–1924 As young adults, their uniformed corps patiently endured depression and heroically conquered foreign enemies. In a midlife subsidized by the G.I. Bill, they built gleaming suburbs, invented miracle vaccines, plugged “missile gaps,” and launched moon rockets.
Silent Generation Artist (Adaptive) 1925–1942 Grew up as the suffocated children of war and depression. They came of age just too late to be war heroes and just too early to be youthful free spirits. Instead, this early-marrying Lonely Crowd became the risk-averse technicians and professionals—as well as the sensitive rock ‘n rollers and civil-rights advocates—of a post-crisis era in which conformity seemed to be a sure ticket to success.
Millennial Saeculum
Baby Boom Generation Prophet (Idealist) 1943–1960 Basked as children in Dr. Spock permissiveness, suburban conformism, Sputnik-era schooling, Beaver Cleaver friendliness, and Father Knows Best family order. They came of age rebelling against the worldly blueprints of their parents. Youth pathologies worsened—and SAT scores began a 17-year slide. In the early 1980s, many young adults became self-absorbed “yuppies” with mainstream careers but perfectionist lifestyles. Entering midlife (and national power), they are trumpeting values, touting a “politics of meaning,” and waging scorched-earth Culture Wars.
13th Generation (aka Generation X) Nomad (Reactive) 1961–1981 Survived a “hurried” childhood of divorce, latchkeys, open classrooms, devil-child movies, and a shift from G to R ratings. They came of age curtailing the earlier rise in youth crime and fall in test scores—yet heard themselves denounced as so wild and stupid as to put The Nation At Risk. In jobs, they embrace risk and prefer free agency over loyal corporatism. Politically, they lean toward pragmatism and non-affiliation, and would rather volunteer than vote.
Millennial Generation Hero (Civic) 1982–200? As abortion and divorce rates ebbed, the popular culture began stigmatizing hands-off parental styles and recasting babies as special. Child abuse and child safety became hot topics, while books teaching virtues and values became best-sellers. Today, politicians define adult issues (from tax cuts to deficits) in terms of their effects on children.
New Silent Generation Artist (Adaptive) 200?– This generation is the first to be born in a digital world and is currently in grade school. This new generation is being molded from the outset to be unique, with a focus on advanced second-hand interactive learning techniques. The result being Gen Z children are exposed to an environment that is heavy on stimuli, and weaker in interpersonal relationships.

Sources: Wikipedia & The Fourth Turning

THE FIRST TURNING – THE HIGH (Spring)

The American High in the 20th century began in1946 with unconditional victory in World War II. According to Strauss and Howe:

A HIGH brings a renaissance to community life. With the new civic order in place, people want to put the Crisis behind them and feel content about what they have collectively achieved. Any social issues left unresolved by the Crisis must now remain so. The need for dutiful sacrifice has ebbed, yet the society continues to demand order and consensus. The recent fear for group survival transmutes into a desire for investment, growth, and strength–which in turn produces an era of commercial prosperity, institutional solidarity, and political stability. The big public arguments are over means, not ends.

The mood of the country after World War II was joyous. America was left as the sole global power. Its industrial power was unsurpassed. Europe, Japan and the Soviet Union lay in shambles. The country settled into a period of prosperity and conformity. America was brimming with confidence.

We were confident that our democratic principles could be spread throughout the world. The American High lasted from the Truman presidency through the Kennedy presidency. As the youthful President Kennedy took office in 1961, anything was possible. We could put a man on the moon, defeat communism, and eradicate poverty. The symbol of this period would be the Disney World ride Carousel of Progress, a sterile world inhabited by animatronic people. This time period also gave life to the Baby Boom Generation. Their mouseketeers ears and Leave it to Beaver lives of the 1950’s were brought to an abrupt confidence shattering end with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.

THE SECOND TURNING – THE AWAKENING (Summer)

The Fourth Awakening of the great American Republic began in 1964. This episode is known as the Conscious Revolution. Strauss and Howe describe these phases in history:

An AWAKENING arrives with a dramatic challenge against the High’s assumptions about benevolent reason and congenial institutions. The outer world now feels trivial compared to the inner world. New spiritual agendas and social ideals burst forth, along with utopian experiments seeking to reconcile total fellowship with total autonomy. The prosperity and security of a High are overtly disdained though covertly taken for granted. A society searches for soul over science, meanings over things. Youth-fired attacks break out against the established institutional order. As these attacks take their toll, society has difficulty coalescing around common goals. People stop believing that social progress requires social discipline. Public order deteriorates, and crime and substance abuse rise. 

The upheaval of the 1960’s took the country by surprise. The Vietnam War, assassination of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, campus riots, Kent State massacre, drug use, and promiscuous sex marked a vivid departure from the High. The older establishment was outraged by the personal liberation youth culture. Baby Boomers rebelled against everything their parents stood for. The Cultural Revolution was shocking to the older generation. Previous Awakenings in U.S. History were religiously based. The 1960’s and 1970’s were a tumultuous period that tore the fabric of American life apart. Instead of being led by mainstream religions, this Awakening was led by a Baby Boom generation that had been coddled and spoiled by their parents. Instead of turning to religion, they turned to self actualization. They became the self absorbed “Me Generation”.

The New Age teenage hippies of the 1960’s grew into selfish adults, more concerned by their professional careers, obtaining a Harvard MBA, acquiring the biggest McMansion, and graduating from a 200 Series BMW to a 300 Series BMW. As the country moved out of the 1970’s into a new era, individualism and ego enrichment became the dominant themes. The end of this Awakening period in 1984 was marked by the classification of the then 25 to 35 year old Baby Boom Generation as Yuppies. Young upwardly mobile professionals were characterized accurately in the movie The Big Chill, the novel Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe and the TV show Thirtysomething. These were not flattering portrayals.

THE THIRD TURNING – THE UNRAVELING (Fall)

The latest Unraveling period in U.S. history began during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. His theme of “Morning in America” convinced most of the country that a new era of prosperity would lead to all boats rising. Strauss and Howe describe the traits during these periods:

An UNRAVELING begins as a society-wide embrace of the liberating cultural forces set loose by the Awakening. People have had their fill of spiritual rebirth, moral protest, and lifestyle experimentation. Content with what they have become individually, they vigorously assert an ethos of pragmatism, self-reliance, laissez faire, and national (or sectional or ethnic) chauvinism. While personal satisfaction is high, public trust ebbs amid a fragmenting culture, harsh debates over values, and weakening civic habits. The sense of guilt (which rewards principle and individuality) reaches its zenith. As moral debates brew, the big public arguments are over ends, not means. Decisive public action becomes very difficult, as community problems are deferred. Eventually, cynical alienation hardens into a brooding pessimism. The approaching specter of public disaster ultimately elicits a mix of paralysis and apathy.

The period between 1984 and 2001 was a period of peace and prosperity. President Reagan cut taxes, Paul Volcker defeated inflation, the Soviet Union collapsed, the stock market went up 1,000%, and MBA yuppies elevated to senior management positions on Wall Street. This interlude echoed the High of 1946 to 1964. The self involved Baby Boom Generation kept busy accumulating stuff. Their personal satisfaction is what mattered most. Gordon Gekko, the John Thain of his generation, uttered the words in the movie Wall Street that reflect the mood of the 1980’s. “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”

The 1990’s were dominated by cultural wars. The Republican Party and Democratic Party debate become extremely partisan. Public deliberations became harsh. Moral certitude was exuded by all sides of every issue. Hard driving overachieving narcissistic yuppies wearing Brooks Brothers suits and Rolex watches dominated corporate America. As twenty-eight-year-old Rob Lewis, a yuppie profiled in Newsweek, noted, yuppies were often willing to sacrifice “marriage, families, free time, relaxation.” He added, “Our marriages seem like mergers, our divorces like divestitures.”

The internet was going to change the world. Fraudulent IPOs were rolled out to the unsuspecting public. Day traders could get rich without working. Government did what it does best, spend money and defer all tough decisions to the distant future. A tough unpopular decision deferred is the path to reelection for a professional politician. The unwillingness to work together towards solutions that would insure that future generations weren’t left with the debts of the Baby Boom Generation, led to the current crisis being worse than it needed to be. As yuppies dashed down the streets of New York City, beating away on their crack-berries, on a sunny cool Fall morning, little did they know that their materialistic egotistical frenzied lives were about to change forever. With the tragic murder of 3,000 Americans in the Saudi led terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Fourth Turning had arrived.

THE FOURTH TURNING – THE CRISIS (Winter)

We know how this Crisis period in our history began. We don’t know how it will end. Previous crisis periods in American history included The American Revolution (1773-1794), The Civil War (1860-1865), and the twin crisis of The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945). All three period included wrenching highly destructive total wars. Will our current crisis period result in World War III?

Strauss and Howe describe the commonalities of most crisis periods:

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. 

Every crisis period has been initiated by a catalyst. The passage of the Stamp Acts started the American Revolution, the election of Abraham Lincoln sparked the Civil War and the Stock Market Crash of 1929 initiated the Depression/WW II crisis. If history is our guide, the Iraq and Afghan Wars will not be the only wars during this crisis epoch. Many challenges lie ahead. I don’t think the majority of Americans are ready to meet these challenges.

Winter Has Arrived

Strauss & Howe wrote the following words in 1997:

America feels like it’s unraveling. Though we live in an era of relative peace and comfort, we have settled into a mood of pessimism about the long-term future, fearful that our superpower nation is somehow rotting from within. The America of today feels worse, in its fundamentals, than the one many of us remember from youth, a society presided over by those of supposedly lesser consciousness. We yearn for civic character but satisfy ourselves with symbolic gestures and celebrity circuses. We perceive no greatness in our leaders, a new meanness in ourselves. Each new election brings a new jolt, its aftermath a new disappointment.

The Prophet Generation is the elder statesmen as we begin this secular crisis. George W. Bush was born in 1946. He is the eldest of the Prophet/Baby Boom Generation. Barack Obama was born in 1961 at the very end of the Baby Boom Generation. These two men have or will lead the United States through most of this crisis stage. George Bush and his cohort of neo-conservatives and their drastic overreaction to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, have set the stage for the most dangerous crisis in U.S. history. A Crisis always results in the appearance of strong leaders. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt rose to the occasion during our previous Crisis episodes. Strong does not always mean wise, thoughtful or right. George Bush exhibited strong leadership during his tenure. Wisdom and thoughtfulness were not two of his better traits. Barack Obama is a smart man and has exhibited some strong leadership skills in his initial weeks in office. He has also exhibited an ability to exaggerate threats to get what he wants. Will he rise to the level of Washington, Lincoln or Roosevelt?

On the day George Bush took office, he inherited an annual budget surplus that was the result of gridlock in Washington and PAYGO restrictions on Congressional spending. The National Debt stood at $5.7 trillion and our unfunded future liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid stood at $20 trillion. We had not been at war for nine years. Today, our National Debt is $10.7 trillion, poised to rocket above $13 trillion in the next year. Our unfunded liabilities now total $53 trillion as President Bush signed a prescription benefit plan expansion that added $8 trillion to our grandchildren’s burden. Since 9/11 almost 5,000 Americans have died in battle, with 50,000 Americans wounded. We’ve spent $800 billion, so far, on a war that didn’t need to be fought. Untold thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians have been killed or wounded, despite the fact that none of the 9/11 terrorists were from Iraq or Afghanistan. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from our “staunch ally”, Saudi Arabia. The acts of a terrorist organization consisting of less than 2,000 members resulted in actions by an American President that resulted in declining American moral influence throughout the world, increased terrorism around the world, budget deficits that threaten the very existence of our capitalistic system, and an American public that is angry, disillusioned and confused. Doug Casey in 1997 described the future actions of George Bush to a tee. “The Boomers in Elderhood will be dogmatic, harsh, puritanical, and quite willing to burn down the barn in order to destroy whatever rats they see.”

Domestically, the period from 2001 to 2008 could be described as “Boomers Gone Wild”. Boomers in their 40’s and 50’s now dominate society, as they have assumed the positions of power in government and business. Based on what they have accomplished so far, I truly fear for what comes next. After 9/11, President Bush urged Americans to spend to defeat terrorism, while Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates to historically low levels. This was like waving a red cape in front of a bull. The materialistic, self actualizing, individualistic Boomers went on the grandest borrowing and spending spree in the history of the world. Their mission: Save the world from terrorism by buying a 6,000 sq ft McMansion, the largest HDTV, the biggest Hummer, and most expensive Rolex. Boomers running Wall Street were happy to oblige with loans and complex derivatives to finance the Mardi Gras like celebration of capitalism.

The aftermath of the eight years of partying is, not surprisingly to some, the greatest hangover in the history of the world. There are 19 million vacant homes, 10% of all homes in the U.S. are in foreclosure, 20 million homeowners are underwater with their mortgage, $30 trillion of consumer wealth has be obliterated, the savings rate dropped below zero, consumer debt levels are at historic levels, and the banking system is insolvent. The Boomer economists, like Paul Krugman, are sure they have the answers (they don’t) and the current bank bailout tab has already reached $9.7 trillion. You have to hand it to Americans, we truly believe bigger is better. If this is the easy part of the twenty year crisis, I’m not looking forward to the hard part.

Winter of Our Discontent

We enter 2009 and the Presidency of Barack Obama with citizens pessimistic about the future of our country. The public has lost faith in government, financial institutions, and religious institutions. Distrust of politicians, bankers, CEO’s, financial advisors, and moral leadership is well founded. The popular culture of over hyping public figures and then tearing them down has led to everyone and everything being discredited. The personal and public choices that will be required in the next few years will be harsh. Moral courage and leadership is what is needed. As I watch the likes of Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity work their rhetorical magic, it is clear that we have a major deficit in wisdom, courage and leadership. Instead of analyzing how we got here and how we want the country to be in ten years, when this crisis has past, we are focused only on specific right wing or left wing agendas and how to position ourselves for the next election cycle. The short sightedness of our current leadership will lead to the next more dangerous phase of this crisis.

Congress will pass a stimulus bill with wave pools, Frisbee golf courses, digital TV coupons, tax incentives to borrow money and buy houses and cars, and billions more of pork in the next week. The bill is being sold as an infrastructure bill despite the fact that only 5% of the bill is for infrastructure. President Obama will sign it. The second helping of TARP will be dished out to banks, insurance companies, automakers, and people who bought more house than they could afford. It is tough to predict what will happen in the next week, let alone the next decade. Here is my best guess:

  1. The stimulus bill will grow to $900 billion (this is how Senators & Representatives compromise) and be passed on party lines, with virtual Democratic Senators Specter and Collins showing their true colors and providing the deciding votes. President Obama will use fear tactics, convincing the non-thinkers that inhabit most of America that not passing this bloated pig of a bill will result in a permanent Depression. I’d love to find out which economists told him this would happen. Every dime of this stimulus package will be borrowed from foreign countries and be paid for by increased taxes on future generations. An unfunded tax decrease or spending increase is a tax increase for our children and grandchildren.
  2. Timothy Geithner, our TurboTax expert Treasury Secretary, will introduce the sixth variation of the TARP program since we were told it had to be done to save the world from collapse. It will not do what needs to be done. Smoke and mirrors will not pay off debt. The bankrupt financial institutions and corporations (Citigroup, Bank of America, General Motors, Chrysler) must be put into receivership and their shareholders wiped out. Good banks should take over from bad banks. Corporations with sound management and viable business plans should prosper. Corporations that sell every product at a loss, financed by its subsidiary at a further loss, must go out of business.
  3. We are in the midst of a Global recession. Every country in the world is decreasing their interest rates, trying to devalue their currency, protecting domestic businesses, and subsidizing domestic employment. Every politician on the planet is playing to their constituents with protectionist rhetoric and actions. There are Buy American clauses in the stimulus package. French President Sarkozy has been ratcheting up protectionist ideas. Calling your biggest lender a currency manipulator months before you will need to borrow an additional $2 trillion is probably not a bright idea. Our new Treasury Secretary did just that last week. Protectionist measures will lead to retaliation and a worsening global economy.
  4. The Federal Reserve has doubled their balance sheet in the last year. They’ve done this by printing $1 trillion. They will double their balance sheet again if that is what it takes to generate inflation. They have bought toxic assets from banks but will not reveal the banks or assets they’ve bought, to the public. They work for taxpayers, not vice versa. Pundits on CNBC casually say that the Fed can just print money and everything will be OK. Their words prove that the Federal Reserve System is just the BIGGEST PONZI SCHEME ever perpetrated on the U.S. public by bankers in conspiracy with government. The Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke did not see this crisis coming. He thought we had a strong housing market, when any impartial observer, such as Robert Shiller, proved that we were three standard deviations too high. Mr. Bernanke will succeed in igniting inflation. He will not see it coming and as a political animal, will not pull the punch bowl away before the party gets going. Inflation will get out of control within three years.
  5. The annual deficit for 2009 will exceed $2 trillion. The government bean counters haven’t realized that people without jobs don’t pay taxes and companies with no profits don’t pay taxes. When you bring in less tax income, increase spending, and send out tax rebates to all Americans, deficits tend to rise. In the next two years the National Debt will exceed $15 trillion. GDP is headed in the opposite direction and will drop below $14 trillion in 2009. At this rate of increase, we’ll be approaching the debt to GDP ratio of 120% reached during WW II by the end of the Obama Presidency. This increase in debt combined with the enormous printing of dollars by the Federal Reserve will drive the value of the dollar down. The only question is whether it will go down slowly or violently.
  6. The U.S. has been dependent on Japan, China, and the Oil exporting countries to purchase our debt in the last ten years. Japan has entered recession and will need to stimulate their economy. Social unrest is growing as factories shut down in China. The government has begun domestic stimulus programs and will need more. Oil revenues have dropped 70% in the last year for the oil exporting countries. With their own domestic issues and U.S. Treasuries yielding 3% to 3.5% and U.S. annual funding needs of $2 trillion, demand is likely to wane. The only possibility is dramatically higher rates. High interest rates devastate a heavily indebted country.
  7. Oil prices below $40 a barrel will lead to a deepening of this crisis in the not too distant future. At these prices it is no longer profitable to develop alternative fuels and search for new supply. Rigs are being shutdown, deepwater projects cancelled, shale and oil sands projects being delayed, and natural gas exploration dramatically scaled back. The fact remains that the world has reached peak oil supply. The Saudi wells are 50 years old and are depleting rapidly. Mexico’s Cantarall oil field is in rapid decline and Mexico, the supplier of 12% of U.S. supply, will become a net importer in five years. The drastic decline in oil revenue will further exacerbate social unrest in a country on our border. The complete lack of a comprehensive energy plan will result in oil prices exceeding $200 a barrel in the next five years. Politicians will blame oil companies and the Arab countries, further alienating us from the world.
  8. The Military Industrial Complex will grow stronger. We have no intentions of leaving Iraq and we will double our presence in Afghanistan. The Defense (should be called Offense) budget will increase. We will be told that the Russian threat is growing. We will be told that China has aggressive intentions and that Iran threatens the Middle East. The public will go along because they don’t think for themselves. We will be told that the Defense industry generates American jobs. As the government identifies false threats, they will take away more rights and liberties in the name of protecting us. It will be gradual and almost unnoticeable to the Average American, but it is happening. A stronger more powerful Military will want to prove itself. They will be itching for action. When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
  9. Boomer leaders are always sure, and often wrong. They are dogmatic and cocky. They utter the words catastrophe, without specifying what will happen if you don’t follow their plan. They say that we will enter a permanent decline if we don’t spend our way out of a situation that was caused by spending too much. Boomer followers are so shallow and self involved that they will put reason aside and believe that we can spend our way out of this. The easy sound bite solution is what they are looking for. The word sacrifice does not exist in their vocabulary. The well being of future generations is of no interest to them. The day trading, house flipping, BMW driving Boomers are looking for the next big thing. The danger is that the next big thing could be a major war. They are too old to fight, but they are not too old to send others to their death.
  10. The stimulus package and TARP 6 plan will be implemented. The economy will not improve. By the Fall, Obama and the Democratic led Congress will push through trillions more in spending. The dollar will continue to fall versus gold. As the deficits grow and foreigners buy less and less of our debt, interest rates will rise. Oil will gradually rise as long as no external event causes it to spike. Protectionism will increase, leading to declining world trade. When we have not pulled out of this downturn in 2010, people will realize we are in a Depression and politicians have lied to them again. Social unrest will grow. Riots are likely to break out in poor urban areas. Governments always react to internal strife by seeking an external threat.
  11. The external threat could be anything. Russia could invade Ukraine. Israel could attack Iran. When oil reaches $200 a barrel, disputes over drilling rights in the Arctic with Russia or China could cause a confrontation. Oil is the lifeblood of our society. If major shortages occur in the U.S. it would bring the country to a grinding halt. The panic would be so drastic that our Leaders will use every means at their disposal to get more oil. With the most powerful military on the planet at their disposal, and itching for a fight, our Leaders will manufacture a reason to go to war in order to secure oil supplies. The problem with waging a major war is that you need troops to sacrifice. The volunteer army will not do. When the government tries to reinstitute the draft, the fabric of this country will be torn to shreds. This will be where I get off this merry-go-round ride.
  12. In ten years my sons will be 25, 22, and 20. They will not be sacrificing their lives for oil, bankers, corrupt politicians, and Defense industry CEOs. If I see the future developing as I fear, I will move my family out of this country to a place where individual liberties are respected, sound fiscal policy is practiced, and people can live in peace. I don’t know if that place exists, but I’ll be looking.

The good news is that every modern Crisis has been followed by a new High. Of course, in every modern U.S. Crisis we had a strong leader. Will Barack Obama be that strong leader? If no strong wise leader emerges, could we follow the path of the Roman Empire? Can we as individuals change the course of history? I don’t know the answers to these questions. It is up to each of us to analyze the facts and act accordingly. A recent song by The Fray, You Found Me, asks the question we will all need to answer.

Where were you?

When everything was falling apart

YEARS OF THE MODERN

Is humanity forming en-masse? for lo, tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim,
The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war,
No one knows what will happen next, such portents fill the days and
nights;

Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to
pierce it, is full of phantoms,

Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me,
This incredible rush and heat, this strange ecstatic fever of dreams
O years! – Years of the Modern– Walt Whitman

The great American poet Walt Whitman wrote these words in 1859. Whitman was trying to peer into a future of uncertainty. He was sure the future would be bleak. He had visions of phantoms. Maybe he saw the 600,000 souls who would lose their lives in the next six years. Whitman had captured the mood of a country entering the Fourth Turning. He didn’t know what would happen, but he felt the beat of war drums in the distance. Whitman did not have the benefit of historical perspective that we have today.

There have been three Fourth Turnings in American History. The American Revolution Fourth Turning ended in 1794 with the Crisis mood easing with the presidency of George Washington. Whitman didn’t realize that, 64 years after the previous Fourth Turning, the mood of the country was ripe for revolution and the sweeping away of the old order. When the stock market crashed in 1929, 64 years after the exhausting conclusion to the Civil War Fourth Turning, Americans didn’t realize the generational constellation was propelling them toward a new social order and a horrific world war. It is now 66 years since the conclusion of the Depression/WWII Fourth Turning. All indications are that the current Fourth Turning began in the 2007 – 2009, with the collapse of the housing market and the ensuing financial system implosion.

I find myself vainly trying to pierce the veil of events yet to be. The future is filled with haunting phantoms of unborn deeds which could lead to renewed glory, untold death and destruction, or the possibly the end of the great American experiment. Walt Whitman captured the change of mood in the country with his poem. History books are filled with dates and descriptions of events, battles, speeches and assassinations. What most people don’t understand is Fourth Turnings aren’t about events, but about the citizens’ reaction to the events.

The Boston Massacre did not start the American Revolution Fourth Turning, but the Boston Tea Party did. John Brown’s attack on Harper’s Ferry did not start the Civil War Fourth Turning, but the election of Abraham Lincoln did. World War I did not start the Great Depression/World War II Fourth Turning, but the 1929 Stock Market Crash did. The 9/11 terrorist attack did not start latest Fourth Turning, but the Wall Street induced housing/financial system collapse did. In each instance, the generations were aligned in a manner that would lead to a sweeping away of the old civic order and a regeneracy with the institution of a new order.   Old Artists disappear, Prophets enter elder hood, Nomads enter midlife, Heroes enter young adulthood—and a new generation of child Artists is born.

 

One hundred and fifty years ago this week Fort Sumter was bombarded by upstart revolutionaries attempting to break away from an overbearing Federal government based in Washington D.C. Exactly four years later the butchery and death concluded dramatically with Robert E. Lee surrendering to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre. For the next four years we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of various battles that marked the Civil War. What people will not consider are the similarities between that tumultuous period in our history and the period we are in today. Fourth Turnings are marked by different events but the same mood of upheaval, anger and fury.

As Strauss & Howe note in their book, the morphology of a Fourth Turning follows a predictable pattern:

  • A Crisis era begins with a catalyst – a starting event (or sequence of events) that produces a sudden shift in mood.
  • Once catalyzed, a society achieves a regeneracy – a new counter entropy that reunifies and reenergizes civic life.
  • The regenerated society propels toward a climax – a crucial moment that confirms the death of the old order and birth of the new.
  • The climax culminates in a resolution – a triumphant or tragic conclusion that separates the winners from losers, resolves the big public questions, and establishes the new order.

Strauss & Howe describe the normal sequence:

This Crisis morphology occurs over the span of one turning, which (except for the U.S. Civil War) means that around fifteen to twenty-five years elapse between the catalyst and the resolution. The regeneracy usually occurs one to five years after the era begins, the climax one to five years before it ends.

The catalysts are relatively easy to identify, but the point of regeneracy is more subtle and harder to grasp.

Fiery Moment of Death & Discontinuity

“Like nature, history is full of processes that cannot happen in reverse. Just as the laws of entropy do not allow a bird to fly backward, or droplets to regroup at the top of a waterfall, history has no rewind button. Like the seasons of nature, it moves only forward. Saecular entropy cannot be reversed. An Unraveling cannot lead back to an Awakening, or forward to a High, without a Crisis in between. The spirit of America comes once a saeculum, only through what the ancients called ekpyrosis, nature’s fiery moment of death and discontinuity. History’s periodic eras of Crisis combust the old social order and give birth to a new.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

 

 

The catalyst for the American Revolution was the Boston Tea Party. The catalyst for the Civil War was the election of Abraham Lincoln. The catalyst for the Great Depression was the 1929 Stock market crash. The catalyst for the current Crisis was the housing/financial system collapse. The catalyst is an event that terminates the brooding mood of the Unraveling and unleashes the fury of a Crisis. The three previous Crisis periods in American history were driven by different events, but similar generational dynamics. By closely examining the dynamics and threats that were facing the country during these previous Crisis periods, we may be able to peer into the murky fog of the future and make out the phantoms of events to come. What we know for sure is every previous Crisis had an economic and fairness dimension that provided the initial spark, triggering a series of events that eventually led to an all encompassing war for survival.

American Revolution – The economic dimension that led to the onset of the American Revolution can be summed up in the rallying cry of the colonists, “No Taxation, Without Representation.”  The British felt that the colonies were created to be used in the way that best suited the crown and parliament. The French & Indian War left the British Empire deeply in debt. They responded by demanding more revenue from the colonies. The British Parliament continued to pass taxation Acts which became increasingly onerous to the independent minded American colonists:

  • Sugar Act – 1764
  • Currency Act – 1765
  • Stamp Act – 1765
  • Townshend Acts – 1767
  • Tea Act – 1773

The increasing levels of taxation and control resulted in the formation of Committees of Correspondence and the Sons of Liberty. Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine and the other firebrands led the movement for independence. The colonists grew increasingly angry with the heavy handedness and harshness of the British Monarchy. These incidents and actions solidified the mood for independence:

  • Quartering Act – 1765
  • Boston Massacre – 1770
  • Intolerable Acts – 1774

As you can see there were years of economic and political turmoil before the Boston Tea Party catalyst event ignited the revolution. The mood of enough citizens had shifted as the generational alignment no longer allowed for compromise. In the end, the increase of economic restrictions and limiting of freedom led to the revolution. As a side note, a Fourth Turning does not need a majority to be initiated. Only one-third of the colonists actively supported the rebellion.

American Civil War – The economic dimension that drove the dynamics of the Civil War related to the Southern agrarian society based upon growing cotton and the rapidly industrializing North with its cities and manufacturing prowess. The invention of the cotton gin led to many more plantations in the South depending solely on cotton to support their way of life. Cotton farming required vast amounts of cheap human labor, and slaves fit the bill. Abolitionists in the North had the moral high ground as Southern plantation owners treated human beings as property. Attitudes became more intense after the publication of  Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Dred Scott Decision, and the John Brown raid on Harper’s Ferry. The issue of slavery had been boiling beneath the surface since the adoption of the US Constitution. Various compromises had been struck over the years to keep the issue at bay:

  • Missouri Compromise
  • Compromise of 1850
  • Kansas – Nebraska Act

These economic and human rights issues became wrapped in the mantle of states’ rights and the struggle between the Federal government and State governments. The battle reached back to the earliest days of the Republic between Jefferson and Hamilton.  Many felt that the new constitution ignored the rights of states to continue to act independently. They felt the states should still have the right to decide if they were willing to accept certain federal acts. This resulted in the idea of nullification, whereby the states would have the right to rule federal acts unconstitutional. The federal government denied states this right. With the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Southern states saw a man who was against slavery, believed in a strong Federal government, and supporter of the industrial North. The years of compromise were over. The firebrand prophet generation took control in Washington DC and Richmond Virginia. A fight to the finish was unavoidable.

Great Depression/World War II – The economic dimension that drove the onset of this Crisis was the unbridled greed and speculation of Wall Street banks. The easy money policies of the Federal Reserve, formed in secret and voted into existence on Christmas Eve with many members of Congress not present created the Roaring 20’s. While farmers struggled to survive on the drought stricken plains and the average person lived a hard scrabble existence, the banking elite reaped obscene profits, with the top 1% sucking 23.9% of all the national income – the highest level in U.S. history.

The 1920’s were a time of cultural decay, decadence and disillusionment. This mood was reflected in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. As we know too well, every boom eventually goes bust. The bust came in October 1929, with a stock market crash. Stockholders lost $40 billion. The market dropped 89% over a two year period. By 1933, 11,000 of the 25,000 banks in the US had failed. These were mostly small regional banks. The major NY banks such as JP Morgan and Mellon became more powerful. The artificial interference in the economy by the Federal government and Federal Reserve was a disaster prior to the Depression, and government efforts to prop up the economy after the crash of 1929 only made things worse. Passage of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs spread the depression around the world. The economic hardship in Germany led to the election of Adolf Hitler and set the stage for a future war that would kill 65 million people. FDR’s New Deal programs crowded out private industry and resulted in unemployment staying at levels exceeding 15% for an entire decade. Keynesian government spending prolonged the depression and put into place social programs that set in motion the debt bomb that threatens the country today.

Force Advancing with Irresistible Power

I see not America only, not only Liberty’s nation but other nations
preparing,

I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combinations, the solidarity
of races,

I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage,
(Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the acts
suitable to them closed?)

I see Freedom, completely arm’d and victorious and very haughty,
with Law on one side and Peace on the other,

A stupendous trio all issuing forth against the idea of caste;
What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach?
I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions,
I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken,
I see the landmarks of European kings removed,
I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give
way;)

Never were such sharp questions ask’d as this day,
Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God,

Years of the Modern– Walt Whitman

 

 

Walt Whitman foresaw vast armies on the march and old orders being swept away by the historic denouements that were rapidly approaching. But even he couldn’t have foreseen the butchery and tragic deaths of over 600,000 men in the next four bloody years. The economic dimensions of the current Crisis were foreseeable at least a decade before the Crisis arrived. The Federal Reserve, under the “wise” supervision of former Ayn Rand disciple Alan Greenspan, progressively blew one bubble after another through its easy money policies. The Greenspan Put allowed the Wall Street vampire squids to suck the life out of the American economic system without fear of being harpooned for taking financial system endangering leveraged bets. The financial oligarchs used their influence, power and vast wealth to repeal Glass-Steagall, capture and buy off the rating agencies, neuter the SEC and other regulatory agencies and place their executives in high level government positions. The ruling wealthy elite again matched their peak take of the national income, just as they did in 1928.

The debt, fraud and lack of financial regulation that catalyzed the near collapse of the worldwide financial system in 2008, 63 years after the end of the last Fourth Turning, have not been purged from the system. In fact, those in power have decided more debt, accounting fraud and financial ignorance is the path to recovery for America. The issues which will be the driving forces during this Crisis are clear to anyone with their eyes open:

  • A National Debt the will approach $20 trillion by 2015 and has already surpassed 90% of GDP, the point of no return.
  • Annual deficits exceeding $1.5 trillion and equal to over 10% of GDP.
  • The unfunded promises made by slimy politicians over decades for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security exceeds $100 trillion and can never be paid.
  • A military industrial complex that controls Congress, is fighting three wars, occupies hundreds of bases throughout the world and spends $1 trillion per year, seven times more than any other country in the world.
  • A financial industry debt peddling complex that has gained control over the government and media to such an extent they have been able to rape and pillage the American people for three decades, convincing regulatory agencies to allow them 40 to 1 leverage, crashing the financial system through a massive mortgage/derivatives fraudulent ponzi scheme, threatening the American people into giving them $4 trillion of taxpayer money, paying themselves hundreds of billions in bonuses for a job well done, and then insisting on lower taxes for their corporations and the rich oligarchs who inhabit these towers of evil in downtown Manhattan.
  • Wealthy elite who use their existing wealth to control Congress, the media and the financial debt peddling industry, abscond with 25% of the national income and control 42% of the financial wealth in the country. At the same time real wages of middle class Americans have been stagnant for 4 decades, real unemployment exceeds 20%, 45 million people need food stamps to make ends meet, and real inflation on the things middle class Americans need hovers around 10%. The gap between the Haves and Have Nots has never been greater.

   

  • The Federal Reserve has boxed itself into a corner and will be unable to extricate itself with its only weapon – the printing press. It has tripled the size of its balance sheet to $2.7 trillion, with at least half of the “assets” consisting of toxic worthless mortgages bought from their Wall Street masters. 0% interest rates for two and a half years, QE1 and QE2, and allowing banks to fraudulently report the value of their loans have failed to jumpstart the economy. Come June of 2011 they will be faced with a dilemma – PRINT or DIE. If they stop buying U.S. Treasury debt, interest rates will go up dramatically. If they keep printing to buy U.S. Treasury debt, the dollar will continue to fall and inflation will accelerate from its already high level.
  • The biggest wildcard among the Fourth Turning catalysts is Peak Oil. The modern industrial world is completely dependent upon cheap accessible oil. Globalization, consumerism, suburban sprawl, food production and distribution, and all means of transportation are dependent upon cheap abundant oil. Peak world oil production has occurred. Demand will outstrip supply going forward at an ever increasing rate. Various levels of chaos will ensue as the realization of this fact becomes evident to everyone.
  • The peak oil scenario will mix with the toxic brew of religion. The centuries old war between Christianity and Islam has been gaining strength over the last three decades. The revolutions spreading across the Middle East will not die down. They will intensify and create havoc for the existing despotic regimes. The new regimes will not be friendly towards the U.S. The combination of peak oil, with the fact that 56% of the world’s oil reserves are controlled by Muslim countries in the Middle East provides an unsettling backdrop for the U.S., which controls less than 2% of the world’s oil reserves.

 

  • The technological complexity and interconnectedness of people across the world is a danger and a possible boon to civilization. Our entire world is dependent upon computers and networks to run our infrastructure, defense, commerce, and everyday lives. Armies, naval ships, and massed confrontation will be made obsolete by cyber warfare. Computer hackers will be able to do more damage to a country in minutes than armies could do in years of traditional warfare. The trillions the US spends on aircraft carriers, fighter jets and tanks will be wasted. The positive side of technology has been realized in its ability to organize people to fight oppression and government propaganda. Likeminded people have been able to use technology to seek and reveal the truth.

The initial stage of this Fourth Turning has run its course. The catalyst was easy to recognize. The issues that confront the nation over the next twenty years are clear. What is completely unclear to me is how our fractured society achieves a regeneracy – a new counterentropy that reunifies and reenergizes civic life. The regeneracy usually occurs one to five years after the Crisis era begins. This means that the country would need to reunify and begin to confront our challenges by 2013. Regeneracy began with the Declaration of Independence during the American Revolution. Regeneracy began with Abraham Lincoln demanding the enlistment of 500,000 men after the Battle of Bull Run. Regeneracy began with FDR’s New Deal programs in 1933 during the Great Depression. What will begin the Regeneracy this time?

Something Wicked This Way Comes 

“Decisive events will occur – events so vast, powerful, and unique that they lie beyond today’s wildest hypothesis. These events will inspire great documents and speeches, visions of a new political order being framed. People will discover a hitherto unimagined capacity to fight and die, and to let their children fight and die, for a communal cause. The Spirit of America will return, because there will be no other choice. Thus will Americans reenact the great ancient myth of the ekpyrosis. Thus will we achieve our next rendezvous with destiny.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

 

The storyline promulgated by the mainstream linear thinking opinion leaders is the economy is recovering, the banking system is sound, the stock market is booming, buying a house is a great investment, inflation is below 2%,  jobs are being created, and consumers have regained their confidence and spending power. This message is hammered home on a daily basis by the corporate run mainstream media. It is patently false and the thinking members of the American public know it. The economic condition of the country is rapidly deteriorating. While politicians posture and lie to the citizens, the fissures in our financial system grow wider. As of today, regeneracy and unification behind one common national purpose seems light years away. Strauss & Howe speculated in 1997 about potential events that could spur events during the next Fourth Turning. One of their possible scenarios looms in the near future:

  • An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics. 

The event necessary to cause a regeneracy in this country will need to be on an epic scale. Based upon a review of the foreseeable issues confronting our society it is clear to me that a worse financial implosion will strike before the 2012 presidential election. It may be triggered by a debt ceiling confrontation, the ending of QE2, a panic out of the USD, hyperinflation, a surge in oil prices, or some combination of these possibilities. The ensuing collapse of the stock and bond markets will remove the last vestiges of trust in the existing financial system and the government bureaucrats who have taken taxpayer dollars and funneled them to these Wall Street oligarchs.

The economic chaos will likely lead to a Republican landslide in the 2012 election. A Boomer Prophet with a reputation for fixing financial disasters (aka Mitt Romney) would be given a mandate to fix the economic system. All generations will realize that generational promises made cannot be fulfilled. People of a libertarian mindset, like me, will not be happy with the turn of events. In a chaotic scenario, the Federal government is likely to assume even more power than they have today. The American people will be fearful and angry. If the financial criminals on Wall Street are brought to justice, the chances of a unified populace will increase. A drop in everyone’s standard of living would be acceptable, as long as the rich shared equally in the burden. If the super wealthy oligarchs retain their power, a fracturing along class lines would become a distinct possibility. Social unrest, riots, and violent protests along the lines of the current situation in the Middle East could develop. Then a question of military use against the civilian population becomes paramount to what would happen next.

Amidst the financial chaos will be the ever present peak oil issue. The increasingly high prices and imminent shortages of supply will exacerbate the pain for the American people. The current War on Terror is really a cover for keeping American troops in the Middle East as a forward vanguard to keep the oil flowing. The U.S. consumes 7 billion barrels of oil per year and will use all means necessary to keep it flowing. With a Boomer Prophet leader invoking American manifest destiny, it is likely we will intervene to protect Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait in the name of democracy. A terrorist incident in the U.S. would provide convenient cover for further intervention in the Middle East. As with most wars the unintended consequences will overwhelm the best laid plans of politicians and generals. Further U.S. intervention into an already exploding Middle East will likely spur a larger conflict between Islam and Christianity. Ground zero could shift to Europe as millions of Muslims have settled there and will not react positively to western powers siphoning oil from Islamic countries in the name of Christianity. History has taught us that Fourth Turnings end in all out war. The outcome of wars is always in doubt. 

“History offers more sobering warnings: Armed confrontation usually occurs around the climax of Crisis. If there is confrontation, it is likely to lead to war. This could be any kind of war – class war, sectional war, war against global anarchists or terrorists, or superpower war. If there is war, it is likely to culminate in total war, fought until the losing side has been rendered nil – its will broken, territory taken, and leaders captured. And if there is total war, it is likely that the most destructive weapons available will be deployed.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

“Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger: In the Revolution, the very birth of the republic hung by a thread in more than one battle. In the Civil War, the union barely survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was reagrded as the most lethal war in history. In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed. In all likelihood, the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale.” – Strauss and Howe – The Fourth Turning

It may be 150 years since Walt Whitman foresaw the imminent march of armies, visions of unborn deeds, and a sweeping away of the old order, but history has brought us right back to where we started. Immense challenges and threats await our nation. Will we face them with the courage and fortitude of our forefathers? Or will we shrink from our responsibility to future unborn generations? The drumbeat of history grows louder. Our rendezvous with destiny beckons.

 

RENDEVOUS WITH DESTINY

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on June 27, 1936. This was seven years into the last Fourth Turning. We are now three or four years into the latest Fourth Turning. We are headed towards our own rendevous with destiny.

“Senator Robinson, Members of the Democratic Convention, My Friends: Here, and in every community throughout the land, we are met at a time of great moment to the future of the nation. It is an occasion to be dedicated to the simple and sincere expression of an attitude toward problems, the determination of which will profoundly affect America.

I come not only as a leader of a party, not only as a candidate for high office, but as one upon whom many critical hours have imposed and still impose a grave responsibility.

For the sympathy, help and confidence with which Americans have sustained me in my task I am grateful. For their loyalty I salute the members of our great party, in and out of political life in every part of the Union. I salute those of other parties, especially those in the Congress of the United States who on so many occasions have put partisanship aside. I thank the governors of the several states, their legislatures, their state and local officials who participated unselfishly and regardless of party in our efforts to achieve recovery and destroy abuses. Above all I thank the millions of Americans who have borne disaster bravely and have dared to smile through the storm.

America will not forget these recent years, will not forget that the rescue was not a mere party task. It was the concern of all of us. In our strength we rose together, rallied our energies together, applied the old rules of common sense, and together survived.

In those days we feared fear. That was why we fought fear. And today, my friends, we have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear.

But I cannot, with candor, tell you that all is well with the world. Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance gather darkly in many places. In our own land we enjoy indeed a fullness of life greater than that of most nations. But the rush of modern civilization itself has raised for us new difficulties, new problems which must be solved if we are to preserve to the United States the political and economic freedom for which Washington and Jefferson planned and fought.

Philadelphia is a good city in which to write American history. This is fitting ground on which to reaffirm the faith of our fathers; to pledge ourselves to restore to the people a wider freedom; to give to 1936 as the founders gave to 1776 – an American way of life.

That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy – from the eighteenth-century royalists who held special privileges from the crown. It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without the consent of the governed; that they denied the right of free assembly and free speech; that they restricted the worship of God; that they put the average man’s property and the average man’s life in pawn to the mercenaries of dynastic power; that they regimented the people.

And so it was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought. That victory gave the business of governing into the hands of the average man, who won the right with his neighbors to make and order his own destiny through his own government. Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

Since that struggle, however, man’s inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution – all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to remain free.

For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital – all undreamed of by the Fathers – the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small-businessmen and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.

It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor – these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age – other people’s money – these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities.

Throughout the nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

An old English judge once said: “Necessitous men are not free men.” Liberty requires opportunity to make a living – a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people’s mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody’s business. They granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

The brave and clear platform adopted by this convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.

But the resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them.

For more than three years we have fought for them. This convention, in every word and deed, has pledged that the fight will go on.

The defeats and victories of these years have given to us as a people a new understanding of our government and of ourselves. Never since the early days of the New England town meeting have the affairs of government been so widely discussed and so clearly appreciated. It has been brought home to us that the only effective guide for the safety of this most worldly of worlds, the greatest guide of all, is moral principle.

We do not see faith, hope, and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.

Faith – in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships.

Hope – renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.

Charity – in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.

We seek not merely to make government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity.

We are poor indeed if this nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.

In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.

It is a sobering thing, my friends, to be a servant of this great cause. We try in our daily work to remember that the cause belongs not to us, but to the people. The standard is not in the hands of you and me alone. It is carried by America. We seek daily to profit from experience, to learn to do better as our task proceeds.

Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales.

Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

In this world of our in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy.

I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.

I accept the commission you have tendered me. I join with you. I am enlisted for the duration of the war.”

THE GATHERING STORM

“Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” – Winston Churchill – The Second World War

A butterfly flapped its wings in Tunisia creating a hurricane that is swirling across the globe, wreaking havoc with the existing social order and sweeping away old crumbling institutions and dictatorships. The linear thinking politicians, pundits and thought leaders have been knocked for a loop. They didn’t see it coming and they don’t know where it’s leading. An examination and understanding of history would have revealed that we have been here before. We were here in 1773. We were here in 1860. We were here in 1929. We are here again. The Fourth Turning has returned in its predictable cycle, just as Winter always follows Fall.

 

Winston Churchill wrote the definitive history of World War II in 1948. His six volume history detailed the years from the end of World War I through the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers in 1945. Volume I in the series was The Gathering Storm. It covered the second half of the Unraveling and the first ten years of the last Fourth Turning Crisis period. The title fits perfectly with the mood and inevitability of what was destined to occur. All Fourth Turnings resemble Winter, with bitter cold options, biting winds of change, dark days, and destructive storms. The seasons cannot be averted. The Seasons of a year are predictable, as are the seasons of a human life. We’ve entered the Crisis (Winter) season of the latest Saeculum that began in 1946 and will climax sometime around 2025.

“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

The generations are aligned in such a way that an event, incident, or individual action that may have been disregarded or ignored ten years ago will now trigger a worldwide conflagration. The Boston Massacre occurred in1770 during Revolutionary Saeculum. Five colonists were slaughtered by British troops. The mood of the generations was not ready for a Crisis. It wasn’t until three years later that the Boston Tea Party ignited a spark that started a revolution. John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859 was intended to start a revolution. The populace was not ready. One year later, the election of Abraham Lincoln lit the fuse on the most horrific war in modern history. America experienced a sharp depression in 1920-1921. The country did not spiral into a decade long downturn, culminating in a World War that killed 65 million people. The generational dynamic was not aligned in a way that would lead to that outcome. Instead, the roaring twenties commenced. On December 17, 2010 a man committed a seemingly inconsequential act that has ignited a worldwide firestorm.

The spark that has enflamed the planet was struck by a 26-year-old Tunisian with a computer science degree named Mohamed Bouazizi, who unable to feed his family, was not allowed by his government to even get a permit to sell vegetables. Bouazizi publicly doused himself with gasoline, lit a match, and burnt not only his own body, but enflamed the consciousness of a world, and its inhabitants, being obliterated by the corrupt wealthy elites who rule the planet. In less than a month the brush fire started by this 26-year-old Tunisian had incinerated the despotic government of his country and forced its “president-for-life”, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, to flee the country. The people’s coup in Tunisia, called the Jasmine Revolution, has sent shockwaves across the globe, spreading wildfires of freedom throughout the Arab world.  The firestorm started by Bouazizi has brought down Mubarak in Egypt and is lapping at the heals of Gaddafi in Libya. Tyrants throughout the world are quivering with fear. The mood of the people across the globe has turned dark and angry. The political class and media are persistently surprised by the reaction of citizens to events during the Fourth Turning.

Historians William Strauss and Neil Howe documented their generational theory in the 1997 book The Fourth Turning. People who prefer blind ideology and believe human existence is a straight line of progress scorn their work as fantasy and pure prophecy. So called progressives misrepresent the theory as predicting the future because they refuse to accept the fact that large groups of human beings of a similar age and having common experiences react in similar predictable ways. It irritates those with an unwavering belief in human individuality. They prefer to ignore the numerous example of mass hysteria throughout history. In just the last 10 years we have experienced an internet boom and a housing boom that convinced millions of Americans to act  simultaneously in a foolish manner . The theory is so logical and measurable that even the most vacuous blond bubble head on Fox News should understand it.

Strauss & Howe have been able to break Anglo-American history into 80 to 100 year (a long human life) Saeculums going back to 1435. Each Saeculum has four generations at different stages of their lives.  A turning is an era with a characteristic social mood, a new twist on how people feel about themselves and their nation.  It results from the aging of the generational constellation.  A society enters a turning once every twenty years or so, when all living generations begin to enter their next phases of life.  Like archetypes and constellations, turnings come four to a saeculum, and always in the same order. In 1997, Strauss & Howe knew when the next Fourth Turning would begin:

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

They did not predict events that would ignite the next Fourth Turning. It was how the generations reacted to the events that mattered. The generational constellation is now in the once every 80 year alignment that will lead to chaos, violent change, the sweeping away of the existing social order, and likely war. Strauss & Howe answered why this would happen fourteen years ago:

“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 power 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.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

I believe my generation is about to experience a rendezvous with destiny. Each generation’s life experiences have prepared them for this hour and the trials that await them. The mood of the country has shifted darkly into a crisis mode. The mainstream media pundits and progressive politicians try to put a positive spin on today’s events, when anyone with the ability to think can see that things will get severely worse in the next ten years. Trust in our institutions, politicians, corporate leaders, media and social order is disintegrating.

It’s a Matter of Trust

“An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

The initial spark that ignited this Fourth Turning was the collapse of the housing market, which began in 2005 and continues today. Home prices collapsed, the fraudulent mortgage loans blew up in the faces of the Wall Street banks that birthed them, and millions of delusional Americans lost their houses in foreclosure. The cascading impact of this implosion brought the American empire of debt to its knees. On September 18, 2008 the U.S. financial system came within hours of complete collapse, as described by Congressman Paul Kanjorski on CPAN:

“On Thursday (Sept 18), at 11am the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S., to the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help and pumped a $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn’t be further panic out there.

If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.”

The implosion of the financial system was created by the actions of the Wall Street financers that have been looting the country for decades. They created mortgage products (no doc, liar loans, Alt-A, negative amortization) designed to encourage people to commit fraud. They purposely promoted this massive fraud because they had perfected the art of derivatives. The issuers of these fraudulent mortgages bore none of the risk from their guaranteed default. They packaged them into MBOs and MBSs, bought AAA ratings from Moodys, and shilled them to pension managers, insurance companies, municipalities, states, and little old ladies. Then they bet against their own products with credit default swaps. Their greed and avarice was so extreme, they leveraged their own balance sheets 40 to 1 and then bought their own toxic waste. When their MBA created models proved to be defective, the entire house of cards collapsed. Strauss and Howe anticipated a financial catalyst related to immense levels of debt would trigger the next Fourth Turning:

It is unlikely that the catalyst will worsen into a full-fledged catastrophe, since the nation will probably find a way to avert the initial danger and stabilize the situation for a while.

After the near collapse of the financial system in September 2008, the authorities took unprecedented actions to avert a Second Great Depression. Henry Paulson, the Goldman Sachs U.S. Treasury Secretary, who had warned his own staff that a Wall Street derivative disaster would happen, immediately reacted like a former Wall Street CEO. He convinced his Harvard MBA boss, George W. Bush, that the only way to save the country was to fork over $700 billion to the Wall Street banks that created the manmade disaster. When Congress initially voted down this banker bribe, Wall Street showed who was boss by crashing the market by 777 points in one day. The bought off politicians in Washington DC then towed the line and passed TARP.

The two and one half years since September 2008 have set the stage for a far worse catastrophe. The Obama administration jammed an $800 billion pork filled stimulus bill down the throats of America, along with home buyer tax credits, loan modification programs, and a healthcare plan that will crush small businesses. The politicians, government bureaucrats, and mainstream media corporate mouthpieces proclaim that their wise and prompt actions averted a Second Great Depression. The government solutions used to “stabilize” the situation have wrought unintended consequences and planted the seeds of further pain and suffering to come. A summary of what has happened in the last few years is in order:

  • On September 18, 2008 the National Debt stood at $9.66 trillion. Today it stands at $14.16 trillion, a 47% increase in 2 1/2 years.
  • The country is running $1.5 trillion annual deficits and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
  • The States are running cumulative budget deficits of $130 billion in FY11 and expect deficits of $112 billion in FY12. This is leading to conflicts with unions, higher taxes and mass layoffs of government workers.
  • The working age population has risen by 5 million, while the number of employed Americans has declined by 6.5 million. The true unemployment rate http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts has risen from 12% to 22%.
  • In September 2008 there were 30.8 million Americans on food stamps. Today there are 44 million Americans on food stamps (14% of the U.S. population), a 43% increase in 2 1/2 years. The annual cost has risen by $37 billion, a 100% increase in 2 1/2 years.
  • Real inflation  http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts bottomed at 5% in early 2009, but has accelerated to 9% today, with further increases baked in the cake.
  • Gasoline prices bottomed out at $1.61 per gallon in January 2009 and have risen to $3.54 per gallon today, a 120% increase in just over two years.
  • Households have lost $6.3 trillion of real estate related wealth since the peak of the housing market. Home prices have fallen for six straight months.
  • Almost 3 million homes have been lost to foreclosure since 2007.
  • There are 11.1 million households, or 23.1% of all mortgaged homes, underwater on their mortgages today, with rates above 50% in Nevada, Arizona, California, and Michigan.
  • Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the US government and have lost $170 billion of taxpayer funds so far. Losses are expected to reach $400 billion. Along with the FHA, they continue to prop up a dead housing market with more bad loans.
  • The Federal Reserve balance sheet in September 2008 consisted of $895 billion of US Treasury bonds. Today it totals $2.55 trillion of toxic mortgages bought from Wall Street banks and Treasury bonds being bought under QE2.
  • The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Dept. intimidated the FASB into allowing Wall Street banks to account for worthless mortgage and real estate loans as fully collectible. Magically, insolvent banks became solvent – on paper.
  • The Dow Jones was 11,700 in late August 2008 and today stands at 12,000. The Dow has risen 84% from its March 2009 low. The top 1% wealthiest Americans own 40% of all the stocks in America, so they are feeling much better.
  • In late 2007, a risk averse senior citizen could get a 5% return on a 6 month CD. Today, after two years of no increases in their Social Security payments, a senior citizen can “earn” .38% on a 6 month CD.
  • The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to 0% in order to allow the Wall Street banks to borrow for free and earn billions without risk.
  • Over 300 smaller banks have been closed by the FDIC, with losses exceeding $50 billion. There are another 900 banks on the verge of insolvency, with estimated future losses of $100 billion.
  • The Federal Reserve initiated QE2 in November 2010, purchasing $70 billion per month of  Treasury bonds and attempting to create a stock market rally. They have succeeded in creating a tsunami of energy, food, and commodity price inflation across the globe, sparking revolutions among the desperately poor in the Middle East.
  • Wall Street banks “earned” record profits of $19 billion in 2010 after nearly destroying the worldwide financial system in 2008 and raping the American taxpayer in 2009.
  • No Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for the fraudulent actions committed by their banks.
  • Wall Street banks handed out $43.3 billion in bonuses in 2009/2010 for a job well done. The average Wall Street employee received a $128,000 bonus in 2010. In 2008, the year they crashed the financial system, they still doled out $17.6 billion in bonuses.
  • The median household income in 2007 was $52,163. Today the median household income is $46,326, an 11% decline in three years. Real average weekly earnings are lower today than they were in 1971.

It is clear from the list above that the oligarchic players that wield the power in this country have chosen to prop up their tottering structure of debt-created-wealth on the backs of the working middle class. The people who have been screwed and continue to be screwed are growing angry and distrustful, as anticipated by Strauss & Howe:

“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 continuing foreclosure crisis has proven that the financial industry’s sole purpose in creating subprime loans, liar loans, Alt-A loans and packaging them into tranches with fake AAA ratings  to be sold off to whatever sucker they could find was to enrich themselves with no care about the future consequences. The owners of the debt can’t prove they own the debt. Lawsuits clog up the court system. Deadbeats occupy houses for longer than two years without making a mortgage payment. Wall Street has created so many complex confusing financial products in their greedy thirst for fees that Harvard MBAs can’t even figure out the mess they have created. The $1.4 quadrillion of outstanding derivatives is truly a weapon of mass worldwide destruction waiting to be triggered. The fraudulent actions of Wall Street, the lies told to the American people by government bureaucrats about the solutions needed, the overstep and obfuscation committed by Ben Bernanke, and the propaganda fed to the masses by the corporate mainstream have destroyed the remaining trust in our institutions. Distrust grows by the day, as Strauss and Howe foresaw in 1997:

“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.”

The growing distrust of financial and governmental institutions was reflected in the angry and sometimes violent town hall meetings with Congressmen during the healthcare debate. An angry on-air rant by financial reporter Rick Santelli ignited the Tea Party movement that eventually swept dozens of candidates into office in a Republican landslide in the 2010 mid-term elections. Societal trust in promises made by politicians is ripping apart. The entitlement benefit promises can’t be kept. Senior citizen and government union beneficiaries are angry. Younger generations don’t want to be left with debt so older generations can have comfortable 25 year retirements. Taxpayers don’t want to pay higher taxes to support gold plated healthcare and pension plans for government union workers. The decades of compromise, denial, apathy and lethargy are over. The mood of the country has changed dramatically. Survival of the country is at stake.

Volcanic Eruption

“America’s short-term Crisis psychology will catch up to the long-term post-Unraveling fundamentals. This might result in a Great Devaluation, a severe drop in the market price of most financial and real assets. This devaluation could be a short but horrific panic, a free-falling price in a market with no buyers. Or 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.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

The country has withstood the initial onslaught of this latest Fourth Turning. The Great Devaluation resulted in a 50% stock market crash and a 30% decline in home values. Rather than allowing home values to fall to their fair value, the government used tax credits and loan modification programs to prop up home prices. Rather than liquidating insolvent Wall Street banks in an orderly bankruptcy, the government and Federal Reserve chose to use accounting gimmicks and borrowed taxpayer funds to save those who had taken excessive risks and reaped hundreds of billions in profits. The government has systematically “adjusted” every economic statistic in order to paint the most optimistic view possible. Unemployment, inflation, government debt, and GDP are all manipulated in the most positive light.

Many people understand that you cannot solve a debt problem by issuing more debt. They understand that politicians have overpromised Social Security and Medicare benefits to the tune of $100 trillion. They understand that if you cover 30 million more people in your healthcare system, it will cost hundreds of billions more. They understand that mega-corporations have shipped their manufacturing jobs overseas, and they aren’t coming back. They understand spending $800 billion per year, policing the world, fighting two wars of choice, with hundreds of military bases across the globe is unsustainable. They understand that running $1.5 trillion deficits will eventually result in a collapse of the U.S. dollar. They understand that an individual or a country cannot borrow their way to prosperity. The U.S. government is essentially bankrupt and dependent upon Ben Bernanke’s printing press to keep up the appearance of solvency.

Fingers of tension and instability run through every aspect of American society. Pressure is building beneath the surface. The last year and a half have proven to be a liquidity driven lull. The appearance of stability does not mean our situation has stabilized. The actions of those in power have created a vastly more dangerous scenario for the next decade. The volcano is erupting and the lava is flowing along the channels of distress, as described by Strauss & Howe:

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
  • 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 

Strauss & Howe did not predict specific events that would occur during the next Fourth Turning. As trained historians and economists, they simply analyzed the environment created by our leaders over the last few decades. If the thought leaders in the country had not been blinded by their ideological biases, they would have seen that the next Fourth Turning Crisis would be channeled by un-payable debt obligations, reckless financial schemes, religious ideology, political corruption, class warfare, foreign conflicts, and terrorism. The molten ingredients are travelling along the channels outlined above. What happens next is anybody’s guess.

The economic distress worsens for the average American every day. The recovery propaganda circulated by the power elite through the mass media is a fraud. Only those with wealth and power have recovered. The middle class sinks further into poverty and despair. Unemployment remains at Depression levels and the entire economic faux recovery rests with Ben Bernanke’s printing press. The only question that remains is whether the United States experiences a deflationary collapse or a hyper-inflationary collapse. The country is currently experiencing stagflation as the things we need (energy, food, clothing) inflate, while wages stagnate and our home values deflate. Bernanke and his minions at the Federal Reserve will choose inflation as their poison because it will allow their banker masters to pilage the remaining wealth of the middle class before the final collapse of the U.S. dollar.

Social distress has manifested itself over the last year in Arizona as the illegal immigration issue has turned violent, with State government and Federal government in conflict. The social welfare net is being strained through the payment of billions in unemployment compensation, food stamps, and other welfare programs. When this net breaks, all hell will break loose in the decaying urban Mecca’s. Political distress is at historic levels as the Tea Party battles liberals and its own neo-con Republican establishment. States are refusing to implement the Federally mandated Obamacare. Governors are battling teacher’s unions, firemen unions, and police unions in an effort to regain control of their out of control budgets. The 2012 elections could prove to be a tipping point for the country.

Military distress is already extreme, even before a major conflict is thrust upon the country. The two wars of choice in the Middle East have drained trillions from the treasury of a declining empire. The all volunteer military has been stretched to the breaking point. The multi-billion dollar high tech weaponry has proven useless against “terrorists” who fade into mountains until they can strike again. As revolution erupts across the Middle East, the U.S. is helpless and has no credibility, as they have propped up the thugs and dictators who are slaughtering their people. The daily  intensification of volcanic eruptions across the globe is clearly evident to all but the most linear thinkers. We’ve entered the Fourth Turning and there is no turning back.

Prophecy or Destiny

“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.  Eventually, all of America’s lesser problems will combine into one giant problem. The very survival of the society will feel at stake, as leaders lead and people follow. The emergent society may be something better, a nation that sustains its Framers’ visions with a robust new pride. Or it may be something unspeakably worse. The Fourth Turning will be a time of glory or ruin.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 did not usher in a sweeping political realignment of the country. The actions he has taken in the last two years have maintained the status quo. The financial industry complex, military industrial complex, and big pharma complex are stronger and more powerful today than they were in 2008. The 2010 midterm elections were a decisive rejection of Obama’s policies. Those who think he will be re-elected in 2012 are not seeing the big picture. Previous Fourth Turnings have ushered in strong dominating Prophet (Boomer) leaders who used any means necessary to bring the country through the Crisis. Wishy washy politically calculating compromiser leaders do not cut it during a time of intense Crisis. The number of vulnerable Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2012 virtually insures that Republicans will control both houses of Congress in 2012. A legitimate 3rd Party candidate does not appear to be on the horizon. The onset of phase two of the economic meltdown will determine the next President of the United States.

Before the 2012 elections, I expect a violent downturn in our economic fortunes spurred by a continued fall in real estate values, generating more debt losses for the financial industry, and a loss of confidence in the U.S. fiat currency, as our foreign creditors balk at lending more money to an already insolvent empire that is incapable of taking corrective budgetary actions. The resulting economic turmoil, crashing stock market, rising interest rates, and massive unemployment will lead the nation to seek a strong, decisive, authoritative leader who will boldly lead the country through the remainder of the Crisis. Will it be Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Chris Christie, or a Lincoln like figure who hasn’t even entered the national stage yet? This question is unanswerable today. But, the country will turn to someone with answers. Strauss and Howe clearly state how important the next 10 to 15 years will be:

“Decisive events will occur – events so vast, powerful, and unique that they lie beyond today’s wildest hypotheses. These events will inspire great documents and speeches, visions of a new political order being framed. People will discover a hitherto unimagined capacity to fight and die, and to let their children fight and die, for a communal cause. The Spirit of America will return, because there will be no other choice. Thus will Americans reenact the great ancient myth of the ekpyrosis. Thus will we achieve our next rendezvous with destiny.”

I’m convinced that decisive events will transpire over the next decade that will push our country to the brink. The country is on an unsustainable path and we will either crash and burn or take the actions needed to avert catastrophe. Vast powerful events on an incomprehensible scale await. Events as farfetched as a Weimar like hyperinflationary economic collapse, the detonation of a nuclear bomb in a major American city, the secession of one or more States from the Union, the collapse of our oil based economy due to peak oil and/or revolution and turmoil in the Middle East, or a worldwide pandemic, will become not only realistic, but probable. Are these events any more improbable than a 9.0 earthquake, leading to a 33 foot high tsunami wave, which triggers nuclear meltdowns at two separate nuclear power plants? If you had outlined that scenario a week ago, you would have been classified as a crazy prophet of doom.

At this point in time, it doesn’t seem possible that a communal cause could rejuvenate the Spirit of America in a manner that would lead me to be willing to fight and die or send my three sons to fight and die. An imminent threat, such as the Axis Powers during World War II, the North and South seeing each other as a threat during the Civil War, or the threat from a foreign empire during the American Revolution, does not appear evident today. The war on terror is a concept, rather than a real war. The absence of a known foreign adversary makes me think that the conflict could center on our own soil between Americans. Strauss and Howe point out that history does not offer much hope in avoiding armed conflict during this Fourth Turning:

“History offers even more sobering warnings: Armed confrontation usually occurs around the climax of Crisis. If there is confrontation, it is likely to lead to war. This could be any kind of war – class war, sectional war, war against global anarchists or terrorists, or superpower war. If there is war, it is likely to culminate in total war, fought until the losing side has been rendered nil – its will broken, territory taken, and leaders captured.”

When it comes to what kind of armed confrontation, how about all of the above? The wealth distribution of the country is more heavily skewed to the “Haves” versus the “Have Nots” than any time in history. The austerity measures that are being proposed on the backs of the middle class and senior citizens, while ultra-rich bankers have been bailed out and allowed to continue pillaging the countryside, will surely lead to class conflict. Generational warfare between the Boomers who want what they are “owed” and younger generations stuck with the bill will flare up in the coming years. The country has become so ideological that it can be easily split into Red States and Blue States. Could this ideological divide result in the country splitting into two or three independent countries? Would the Federal government use the armed forces to maintain one country? It happened before.

The war on terror concept has been in place for the last ten years and has resulted in draining the Treasury of trillions, exhausting our limited volunteer forces, and creating more terrorists than existed on September 10, 2001. The revolutions sweeping across Northern Africa and the Middle East are not cause for celebration in Washington DC. American foreign policy has centered on supporting thugs, despots, and dictators across this region with financial aid and weapons. The aid was absconded and sent to bank vaults in Switzerland. The weapons are being used to kill the poor revolutionaries across the region. Two American backed dictators have been deposed thus far, with Yemen likely to follow. Our allies in the region are falling with lightening speed. The loss of Saudi Arabia would portend dire consequences for the U.S. If the Middle East oil spigot is turned off, the American way of life will wither and die.

The myth of American Exceptionalism will not protect the country from the revolutionary tsunami that is sweeping the globe. America was not chosen by God as the country that would lead the world for eternity. The hubris and overreach of the American empire has bankrupted the nation. Greed, corruption and arrogance are not limited to North African dictatorships. Crony capitalism supporting a vast military empire, financed by a banker controlled Federal Reserve has failed. Its failure will become clear as the Fourth Turning intensifies and sweeps away the old order. Who or what replaces the old order is unknown. Much will depend on the generations and their response to the Crisis.

Bad Moon Rising

Robert Strauss and Neil Howe had no interest in trying to predict the future. As historians, they wanted to understand how the past could give clues to what would happen in the future. They discovered a pattern of behavior by generational archetypes across centuries of Anglo-American history. They identified the issues that would drive the next Fourth Turning. They predicted the timing. The accuracy of their prophecy thus far, has been uncanny. The rhythms of history continue. The outcome of this Crisis is unknowable, but there is most certainly a bad moon rising.

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

I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightning.
I see bad times today.

Don’t go around tonight,
Well, it’s bound to take your life,
There’s a bad moon on the rise.

I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we’re in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.

Credence Clearwater Revival – Bad Moon Rising

ONCE IN A LIFETIME

Guess who I was listening to on the way to work today? I’ve been working on a Fourth Turning related article for the last two weeks on and off. I’m desperately trying to connect the dots to give some indication of what will happen in the next ten years. I’m trying to keep the big picture in view. The day to day distractions are unimportant. During a Fourth Turning, the specific events are not as important as people’s reaction to the events. My article is about 50% complete and I’ll have it done by Sunday, but in the space of two weeks the world situation has deteriorated rapidly. The Middle East is ablaze in revolution. Tensions are rising all over the globe. European countries are teetering on the brink of insolvency. Energy and food prices are skyrocketing. The worst earthquake in a century struck Japan this morning. The US economic system rests solely on the printing press of the Federal Reserve.

The MSM and myopic politicians are focused on the next election cycle, gay marriage, union protests in Wisconsin and American Idol. The world is changing. The old order is being swept away. Winter has descended on the world. There are bitter times ahead. You must keep the big picture in view. We are in the midst of a Fourth Turning that will not end until 2025. Buckle up.

A Fourth Turning only happens Once in a Lifetime for a person who lives a normal 80 year life. That is why I think the Talking Heads tune – Once in a Lifetime is appropriate today.  

Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…

 

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
wife
And you may ask yourself-Well…How did I get here?Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…

Water dissolving…and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean!

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right?…Am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
MY GOD!…WHAT HAVE I DONE?Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…Same as it ever was…

Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime

150 YEARS AGO TODAY – EARLY STAGES OF A FOURTH TURNING

On this day 150 years ago Abraham Lincoln snuck into Washington DC amidst the turmoil of another Fourth Turning in US history. He had been elected in November and the Southern states had begun to seceed. His election was the spark that ignited a terrible bloody Crisis. Below is a description of his secret trip into Washington DC to avoid a potential assassination in Baltimore.

We now sit here 150 years later at the beginning stages of another Fourth Turning with the world in turmoil, confusion and anger. The time for compromise and civility had ended by February 23, 1861. Only all out war would settle the issue.

There will be no compromises today either. People are choosing sides. Union versus non-union. Cost cutters versus spenders. The middle class versus the rich elite. Citizens versus despots. Muslims versus Christians. There are surely dark days ahead. Pretending everything will be alright is a fools game.

If you can’t see the writing on the wall, you just aren’t looking hard enough.

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected as the 16th President of the United States, a Republican, and the first to be elected from that party. Shortly after his election, many representatives of Southern states made it clear that secession was inevitable, which greatly increased tension across the nation. A plot to assassinate Lincoln in Baltimore was alleged. On February 23, 1861, he arrived secretly in Washington, D.C. For the remainder of his presidency Lincoln’s many critics would hound him for the seemingly cowardly act of sneaking through Baltimore at night, in disguise, sacrificing his honor for his personal safety. However, the efforts at security may well have been prudent.

On February 11, 1861, President-elect Lincoln boarded an east-bound train in Springfield, Illinois at the start of a whistle stop tour of seventy towns and cities ending with his inauguration in Washington, D.C. Pinkerton had been hired by railroad officials to investigate suspicious activities and acts of destruction of railroad property along Lincoln’s route through Baltimore. Pinkerton became convinced that a plot existed to ambush Lincoln’s carriage between the Calvert Street Station of the Northern Central and the Camden Street Station of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This opportunity would present itself during the President-elect’s passage through Baltimore on February 23, 1861. Pinkerton tried to persuade Lincoln to cancel his stop at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and to proceed secretly straight through Baltimore, but Lincoln insisted upon keeping to his schedule.

Pinkerton famously clashed with Lincoln’s friend and escort, Ward Hill Lamon, over the President-elect’s protection. Lamon offered Lincoln “a Revolver and a Bowie Knife” but Pinkerton protested that he “would not for the world have it said that Mr. Lincoln had to enter the National Capitol armed.”

On the evening of February 22 telegraph lines to Baltimore were cut to prevent communications from passing between potential conspirators in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Meanwhile, Lincoln left Harrisburg on a special train and arrived secretly in Baltimore in the middle of the night. The most dangerous link in the journey was in Baltimore, where a city ordinance prohibited night-time rail travel through the downtown area. Therefore, the railcars had to be horse-drawn between the President Street and Camden Street stations.

According to Pinkerton, a captain of the roads reported that there was a plot to stab the President-elect. The alleged plan was to have several assassins, armed with knives, interspersed throughout the crowd that would gather to greet Lincoln at the President Street station. When Lincoln emerged from the car, which he must do to change trains, at least one of the assassins would be able to get close enough to kill him.

Once Lincoln’s rail carriage had safely passed through Baltimore, Pinkerton sent a one-line telegram to the president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad: “Plums delivered nuts safely.”

INTERVIEW FROM 1997

This interview with Neil Howe and William Strauss took place in 1997. Their call for a Crisis in 10 years must have seemed odd to most people in 1997. The economy was booming. The stock market was booming. Unemployment was low. We were involved in no wars. The budget was on its way to being balanced. Still, something seemed wrong. Turnings are predictable. Were they just lucky? You decide. Is the mood of the world darkening or brightening?

DOES IT FEEL LIKE THE FOURTH TURNING IS INTENSIFYING?

Am I crazy, or does it seem like the Crisis in the world is picking up momentum? Fourth Turnings sweep away the old social order. In my view, we’ve entered the vortex. The worst part of the Fourth Turning is rapidly approaching.

World On Fire – Mapping Last Week’s 88 Global Protests

Tyler Durden's picture

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/18/2011 17:31 -0500

Feeling like the entire world is on the verge of a global revolution? It’s understandable. According to the attached interactive map, based on Google News data, in the past week, there have been 88 reported instances of protest somewhere in the world. How much of this is due to snow, and how much is due to Bernanke’s increasingly more genocidal policies (has anyone done a tally of how many people have died in various riots, protests and revolutions since the beginning of the year – perhaps it is time) is unknown and irrelevant. All that matters is to buy (sorry, BTFD no longer works as there just are no Ds anymore).

Courtesy of John Lohman

ALL YOU ZOMBIES (Oldie but Goodie)

With the events of the last week pushing the world further into Crisis, I thought this November 2009 article would be appropriate to rerun. I’m finalizing an article that I hope will be a bookend to this piece.

zombies

The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.  The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.  So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.”  But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. – Genesis 6

Everyone is familiar with the story of Noah. God was angry at the evil and wickedness of mankind. God instructed Noah to build an ark in order to save his family and two of each animal on earth from the coming flood. Noah could have ignored God’s warning and continued to live his life as before. By heeding God’s warning and building the ark, Noah was able to save himself, his family, and two of every animal from death and destruction. The warning signs regarding the current American Crisis have been discernible since the 1990’s. The un-sustainability of the government’s fiscal social guarantees, the inevitability of peak cheap oil, and the policing of a far flung empire with troops in 130 countries, were all known during the 1990’s. Americans had swelled their use of debt since 1980 and had not saved enough for their looming retirement years. The culture wars fractured the country. Just like a squirrel prepares for winter by collecting acorns and storing them in his nest, Americans had an opportunity to prepare for the coming winter. Instead we squandered the remaining days of autumn, ignoring our monetary problems, buying $45,000 SUVs, borrowing at 125% of the value of overpriced McMansions, initiating wars of choice, expanding our empire and enlarging our police state.

We had the power to influence history in a positive manner. Appropriate preparation could have lessened the impact of the long cold hard days ahead. Some winters are bitter and deadly. Others are mild and harmless. Since most Americans, including our leaders, think linearly they never see the turning of the seasons of history until it is too late. We are currently in the midst of a Fourth Turning, and most people have no clue. With winter approaching, it is always wise to get the heater checked, buy some firewood, make sure the snow plow has gas, store some food and water in case of a blizzard, buy some salt in case of ice, and tune up the car.  

Instead of having their heater tuned up, Americans decided a new kitchen with granite counters and stainless steel appliances paid for with a home equity loan was a better idea. Instead of buying firewood, Americans bought a 52 inch HDTV using their platinum credit card. Instead of making sure the snow plow had gas, Americans outsourced their lawn care and snow removal to illegal immigrants. Instead of storing food and water, Americans decided to spend their money eating out four times per week. Instead of buying salt for an icy winter, Americans bought salt for the rims of their margarita glasses. Instead of tuning up their cars, they leased a new BMW every two years. Bitter winds have begun to blow, dark clouds are on the horizon, and winter has arrived. The country is completely and utterly unprepared.

Only Noah Saw It Coming

All you zombies hide your faces
All you people in the street
All you sittin’ in high places
The pieces gonna fall on you
No one ever spoke to Noah
They all laughed at him instead
Working on his ark, working all by himself
Only Noah saw it coming
Forty days and forty nights
Took his sons and daughters with him
Yeah they were the Israelites – Hooters – All You Zombies

The Hooters were a Philadelphia rock group from the 1980’s. The first concert I attended was a Hooters performance at the Spectrum. Their music still rings true today. The American zombies had a chance to prepare for the coming Crisis. They instead laughed at Noah. Now the pieces will fall on them. The pieces will fall on the average American and the elitist rulers in Washington and on Wall Street. When Strauss and Howe wrote their book The Fourth Turning in 1997 there was approximately a decade to prepare for the coming Crisis. They warned that the two parties needed to change their messages to prepare the country for the coming winter:

“Yet both parties are also harmfully post-seasonal. In their quest for an ever bigger harvest, Democrats want to remove sacrifice ever further from the public lexicon. They seek entitlements for every victim, including the entire middle class, without caring whether all this guaranteed consumption is sustainable. If Democrats get their way, they would impose huge debts and future taxes on Millennial children. In their quest for ever more individualism, Republicans want to make public authority ever more dysfunctional. They seek to starve all government of revenue and are willing to shut down whole federal agencies to make their point. If Republicans get their way, they would prevent Millennials from forging a positive bond with government and limit the public resources directed toward the care and schooling of the neediest children.”

The Fourth Turning requires personal sacrifice by all Americans and the government must be seen as a high functioning authority that protects its citizens and successfully accomplishes big missions. In the last twelve years, we have done the exact opposite of what was needed to prepare for the Crisis. The two Parties reached a consensus by increasing entitlements for everyone with passage of Medicare Part D, creating a new $15 trillion unfunded liability. George Bush provided rich people with entitlements of lower taxes and middle class entitlements with rebate checks. The banking industry was given free rein to rape the American public and the rest of the world with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Rather than killing or reducing governmental agencies, George Bush used 9/11 as an excuse to greatly expand government by creating the Department of Homeland Security and increasing Defense Spending by 200%. Democratic politicians, with the wholehearted support of George Bush, used their authority over Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and threats against banks to open the mortgage market to people who had no means to actually make a mortgage payment. The two wars of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $934 billion since 2003.

2

In 1997, the United States spent approximately $300 billion annually on Defense related areas. Today, we are spending in excess of $900 billion in those same areas. At the end of 1997, the National Debt was $5.4 trillion. If Congress and the Presidents had chosen to prepare the country for the unavoidable Crisis period of twenty years, they would have scaled back government spending, tackled the Social Security and Medicare train wreck, developed a multi-pronged energy plan, and asked Americans to save. Instead, they pressed their foot to the accelerator as they approached a curve on a mountain road.

Today, the National Debt stands at $12.1 trillion. Our politicians proceeded to saddle us with an additional $6.7 trillion of debt in the space of 12 years, after taking 208 years to accumulate $5.4 trillion of debt. Based on current projections, the National Debt will exceed $25 trillion by 2019. These reckless actions were akin to entering winter by not paying your utility bill for a year, having your windows wide open, not having the oil changed in your car for 10,000 miles, and being two quarts low with your anti-freeze.

Strauss & Howe recommended that the country prepare in the following ways:

  • Prepare values: Forge the consensus and uplift the culture, but don’t expect near-term results.
  • Prepare institutions: Clear the debris and find out what works, but don’t try building anything big.
  • Prepare politics: Define challenges bluntly and stress duties over rights, but don’t attempt reforms that can’t now be accomplished.
  • Prepare society: Require community teamwork to solve local problems, but don’t try this on a national scale.
  • Prepare youth: Treat children as the nation’s highest priority, but don’t do their work for them.
  • Prepare elders: Tell future elders they will need to be more self-sufficient, but don’t attempt deep cuts in benefits to current elders.
  • Prepare the economy: Correct fundamentals, but don’t try to fine tune current performance.
  • Prepare the defense: Expect the worst and prepare to mobilize, but don’t pre-commit to any one response.

Rather than finding common ground and forging alliances, Baby boomer culture warriors upped the ante. The extreme wings of the Democratic and Republican parties gained control of the dialogue. Neo-conservatism has dominated the thinking in the Republican Party while ultra-liberals have dominated the Democratic Party. The culture has deteriorated, with the media perpetuating a nihilistic, selfish, materialistic attitude among the citizens. TV and movies have portrayed lives of the dregs and lowlifes of society as desirable and normal. The lives of washed up rock stars, drugged out TV personalities, vapid housewives, and brainless house flippers passes for entertainment in today’s society. Getting rich by any means necessary has been glorified.

The best and brightest MBA students graduated and trooped off to Wall Street. Working at real companies that produced something became passé. The degeneration of moral, ethical, and cultural standards has made it more likely that a fascist government could gain control during the Crisis. The dysfunction of both the Federal government and state and local governments have dramatically reduced the trust level of the American public in these institutions. During a Crisis, public faith in government is necessary for swift decisive action. With an approval rating of 26%, Congress is more despised than Osama bin Laden.

The politicians who have chosen to lie to the American people and not face up to the national problems of deficits, unfunded promises, and peak oil, have set the country up for a cataclysmic Crisis. The only statesmen who have spoken candidly about the coming Crisis have been David Walker and Ron Paul.

“Washington has charged everything to the nation’s credit card – engaging in tax cuts and spending increases without paying for them. Washington’s imprudent, unethical and even immoral behavior is facilitated by a lack of transparency.  While the US government is too big to fail, continuing on our current path will have adverse implications for our economy and international standing. The sooner Washington acts, the better. Our country, children and grandchildren deserve no less.”    David Walker – 9/2008

“We’re indeed stuck between a rock and a hard place, and we don’t talk about how we got here; we talk about how we are going to patch it up. The solutions proposed so far – stimulus packages, bailouts and interest rate cuts – just amount to printing more money, which will lead to greater currency devaluation, contribute to the rising cost of living, and further squeeze the middle class and our senior citizens.”  Ron Paul – 8/2008

A candid discussion of these issues has been avoided at all costs by the cowards who crawl around the halls of Congress. Politicians had a chance to stem the downward slide of cynicism, apathy, and disgust with government. They failed miserably. As the Crisis deepens, Americans will turn to those who told the truth. It is a small list.

Society needed to prepare our youth for the test that awaited them during the Crisis. Civic duty, teamwork, and a sense of community needed to be encouraged by adults in our youth. The Millenials (Hero generation) will be the generation on the front lines during this Crisis. The youth of today have been coddled, protected, and have not been required to participate in community efforts. Government efforts such as No Child Left Behind have been failures, as school districts concern themselves with bureaucratic test results and bringing the poor students up to average rather than giving added support to the truly outstanding students. Overall performance of students has continued to decline. Selfish narcissistic Boomer parents have concerned themselves with materialistic trinkets and their own self actualization rather than sacrifice for their children’s future. Our youth are entering the Crisis unprepared for the harsh winter.

The youngest Boomers reached the 50’s in 1997. Government leaders needed to prepare the Boomers for less benefits in the future, which would have pushed Boomers to save more for their retirement. The 50 year average national savings rate has been 6.5%. In 1997, the national savings rate was already below average at 4%. Government leaders urged Americans to buy houses, buy cars, and spend, spend, spend. The American zombies heeded the call and drove down the savings rate to below 0% in 2005. It has subsequently risen to 3% as the Crisis has unfolded. The Baby Boomers are completely unprepared for their old age and will fight all efforts to cut their benefits. Rather than accepting cuts in benefits to secure the future well being of their children and grandchildren, Boomers continue to push for more healthcare benefits. A bitter generational war is now a certainty.

3

“During the Crisis, the American economy will experience the most extreme shocks to asset values, production, employment, price levels, and industrial structure in living memory. The economy may also, at some point be pushed to the breaking point in order to produce the tools necessary to save the nation and, later the infrastructure that will underlie the next saeculum.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

What was required was a build out of our energy infrastructure, with natural gas, nuclear, geothermal, wind, and solar all playing a part in weaning us off Middle Eastern oil. Instead, the myopic government bureaucrats, NIMBY crowd and green extremists have succeeded in driving our usage of Middle Eastern oil to new heights as we now import 67% of all our needs. Peak oil will hit the United States like a sledgehammer. Americans needed to increase the national savings rate so we would have the ability to invest in new dynamic technologies. Instead we chose a debt fueled frat party, driving the national savings rate below 0%. The government needed to run budget surpluses as we entered the Crisis period. Accepting a recession during the Third Turning would have mitigated the chances of a Depression in the Fourth Turning. A recession was unacceptable to George Bush and Alan Greenspan. Tax rebate checks and 1% interest rates, along with Bush urging Americans to defeat terrorism by shopping, buying cars and buying houses, resulted in immense deficits. Obama has since added $1.8 trillion to the national debt in one year. Tax policy should have shifted toward taxing consumption and not taxing investment. The economic path chosen by our politician leaders has ensured a 2nd Great Depression.

 From a foreign policy and military preparation standpoint, our leaders have squandered an opportunity to strengthen alliances and form new alliances in advance of the coming battles. Every prior Fourth Turning has resulted in all-out war for survival. Strauss & Howe provided the roadmap to our future:

“But before the Fourth Turning catalyzes, America should gird for something else: a possible war whose scale, cost, manpower, armaments, casualties, and home-front sacrifices far exceed anything the nation would tolerate now.”

Instead of conserving our strength for the coming epic challenges, our leaders have engaged in two wars which have depleted our Treasury, stretched our manpower beyond the breaking point, used up valuable military equipment, strained our alliances, and diminished our moral standing in the world. These wars have revealed our weakness and have made it more likely that potential foreign adversaries will contest our super power status. These foreign ventures have failed to secure democracy in the Middle East or secure future supplies of oil. They have succeeded in inflaming the Muslim world and creating more terrorists than existed on September 10, 2001. The loss of credibility and moral high ground will make it more difficult for Crisis Saeculum leaders to rally the American people to a higher cause.

As I watch ancient doddering Congressmen parade and bluster while debating the Obama healthcare bill, I can’t help but think that these are the wrong people, at the wrong time, fighting the wrong war, for the wrong cause. The country is in the midst of a Crisis and our leaders have decided to expand the welfare state, bailout failures with our grandchildren’s money, expand our wars of choice, and stifle the ingenuity of the American people. This will surely not end well. 

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

We know with certainty that our leaders have not prepared the country for this Crisis. As individuals, we also had the opportunity to prepare. Did you harvest the crops, fatten the livestock, cut the firewood, stockpile the propane, hoard ammunition and batten down your farmstead? Did you deepen your relationships with family and neighbors who would support you during a Crisis? With a potentially devastating howling blizzard forecast in the near future, delay could be fatal. What if the blizzard lasted five years? There is no way to avoid this blizzard. The snow has begun to fall and Americans are concerned with Michael Jackson’s corpse, the breakup of Jon and Kate, Oprah’s future plans, Britney Spears’ weight, and whether President Obama should be bowing to the Japanese emperor. Talking heads on the Sunday morning talk shows distract the public with meaningless drivel regarding polls and minor differences between the corrupt political parties. The bitter winds have begun to howl.

During a Crisis the virtues of faith, trust, reliability, endurance, perseverance, frugality and self-sacrifice are essential. These virtues were indispensible during the Great Depression and World War Two. Strauss and Howe recommended preparation by individuals in the following areas:

  • Rectify: Return to the classic virtues.
  • Converge: Heed emerging community norms.
  • Bond: Build personal relationships of all kinds.
  • Gather: Prepare yourself (and your children) for teamwork.
  • Root: Look to your family for support.
  • Brace: Gird for the weakening or collapse of public support mechanisms.
  • Hedge: Diversify everything you do.

Your reputation will be crucial during the Crisis. Are you a man or woman of your word? Can your family and neighbors count on you? Your honor and word will be judged by others during the Crisis. If you are seen as an outcast, loner, or opponent of the majority, you risk personal harm. The materialistic investment banker swine who have feasted off the carcasses of the American middle class and senior citizens are at extreme risk. Their gated McMansion communities and their BMW getaway cars will not save them from the angry lynch mobs. The community will require your acquiescence to their norms. A more authoritarian government will punish those who do not fall into line. It will be important that your personal relationships with authority figures be in good order. The lone wolf will not survive the deep snows of a Crisis.

The final resolution of this Crisis will depend upon the youth of today. Their ability to function in teams and use technology to overcome their opponents will be critical. Boomer parents who have smothered their children, fought their battles, did their class projects for them, and generally coddled them, have not done them any favors. If they are unprepared or unwilling to take the mantle of the GI Generation, our society may be in its final stages. Social outcasts will not fare well during the Crisis. Strong families will be essential to survival, with multigenerational households providing support and safety in dangerous times. The continued disintegration of the family unit, especially in the inner cities, will make it more difficult for many in the Crisis. Divorce rates have declined to 40% of all marriages, but marriage rates have declined to a greater degree. Children living in one parent households have increased, as millions of men have shirked their fatherhood duties.

The un-sustainability of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and government employee pension plans was clear in 1997 and it is clearer today. Americans with half a brain should have seen that the government could never deliver on the social fiscal pledges they’ve made. The $100 trillion unfunded liability will never be paid. The government is going to stiff the elderly. Americans should have increased their personal economic security by saving for emergencies, saving for retirement, cutting back on their excessive lifestyle choices, distinguishing between needs and wants and ratcheting their lifestyles down to a sustainable level in an effort to prepare for hard times. Instead, millions or morons proved that stupid is as stupid does.

The average 401k balance for those over 60 years old is only $93,000. This is skewed higher by a few high savers. The median balance is in the range of $60,000. The Boomer generation has proven to be the most spendthrift, irrational, delusional generation in history. The life expectancy of a 60 year old is twenty years. How do these people expect to live twenty years on $60,000 to $100,000? A rational human being approaching 50 years old in 1997 with $50,000 in retirement savings should have realized their dire predicament and maxed out their savings for the next fifteen years.

Average 401(k) Balance by Age Group

Age         2007 Balance        2008 Balance
20s          $9,190                 $6,690
30s          $40,990                $27,360
40s          $93,350                $62,580
50s          $138,660              $99,420
60+          $115,700              $93,470

Source: Hewitt Associates

Instead of acting rationally, the Boomers went on a glutton-like spending spree, buying McMansions, beach houses, Mercedes, 60 inch HDTVs, electronic gadgets, and taking exotic vacations to the Far East. Household debt as a percentage of GDP soared from 90% in 1997 to over 135% today. Over this same time, personal savings plummeted. The delusional Boomers convinced themselves that 10% annual gains in the value of their houses for eternity would fund their every material desire and pay for their comfortable retirement. 

4

Option ARM loans, home equity withdrawals, auto loans, and credit card debt were the weapons of choice. In the last two years zombie Americans have learned a brutal lesson they should never forget. Home prices can drop 30%, but the debt remains like an anchor around their necks. Consumers increased their debt from $5 trillion in 1997 to over $13 trillion today. Most Americans are completely unprepared financially for a harsh winter.

5

The American financial system’s near disintegration in 2008, initiated by the housing crash, revealed who was swimming naked. If Americans had diversified their portfolios with foreign stocks, bonds, gold, and commodities they would have survived the stock market crash with minimal losses. We sit here late in 2009 with thousands of Boomers reaching the age of 60 every day. They are racked with immense debts, have saved little for their retirement, and have trillions of government IOUs in their pockets. The only way the government can pay these obligations is to double taxes on the children and grandchildren of Boomers. Will Boomers be selfish and egotistical enough to rob their kids because they chose not to prepare for winter?  

Ten Years Have Got Behind You

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death – Pink Floyd – Time

America has frittered away ten years. Americans missed the starting gun. If you had prepared for the Crisis and it hadn’t touched you personally, the loss of material satisfaction would have been a minor inconvenience. Strauss & Howe describe the implications of not preparing:

“If you haven’t prepared, you will have put much at risk. History warns that saecular winters can be searing times for everyone, especially for those who are caught entirely by surprise. No matter what your age, sex, income, race, family status, or line of work, sensible choices today could help you avoid truly desperate choices in the Fourth Turning.”

The sad truth is that the nation and most of its citizens did the exact opposite of what Strauss and Howe recommended in 1997. The nation and its people are now destined to experience a terrible winter on par with the Civil War and World War II, with no safety net. The politicians driving the country into this Crisis period continue to think linearly and will be blindsided as the Crisis deepens. Politicians in Washington continue to do business as usual, passing laws and programs that will only worsen the Crisis. Every prior Fourth Turning has seen a Grey Champion Prophet figure appear on the scene to lead the country through the storm. Washington, Lincoln, and FDR proved their mettle in times of extreme danger. Barack Obama is not today’s Grey Champion. He will be cast aside in 2012. A Boomer leader must arise to lead the country through the difficult days ahead.

With a National Debt projected to reach $25 trillion by 2019, a government that has promised Boomers $100 trillion more than it can deliver, the end of the cheap oil age, looming resource wars, and nuclear proliferation, it is hard to fathom a happy ending to this Crisis. We appear to be hurtling towards the abyss and no one in charge seems capable of averting disaster. Americans need to understand the danger that is approaching. The final outcomes of this Crisis range from Armageddon to a restoration of the American Republic. The final pages of the Fourth Turning are truly frightening. The possibilities according to Strauss & Howe are:

  • The next Fourth Turning could mark the end of man. It could be an omnicidal Armageddon, destroying everything, leaving nothing.
  • The Fourth Turning could mark the end of modernity.
  • The Fourth Turning could spare modernity but mark the end of our nation.
  • Or the Fourth Turning could simply mark the end of the Millennial Saeculum. Mankind, modernity, and America would all persevere. Afterward, there would be a new High.

Several months ago my University repaved the walkway leading to my building. Along with the new bricks they placed stones within the walkway with words of wisdom from Ben Franklin. Every morning I walk across the same words and ponder their significance.  “Lost Time, is never found again.”

The nation and its citizens have not made good use of our time. We have entered this Crisis severely weakened and vulnerable. Our appalling fiscal choices and failure to address the coming energy crisis have set us up for a calamity of epic proportions. The linear status quo statists argue that our ingenuity and technological prowess will save the day. They ignore the fact that our best and brightest have spent the last three decades focused on creating financial weapons of mass destruction, pilotless drones that make war as easy as playing on your PS3, improving the distribution chain for aerosol cheese, and inventing the drive thru fast food window. The corporate fascists who have Congress in their back pockets, supported by the Federal Reserve and the banking cartel, have raped and pillaged America to the point that there is nothing left for the middle class. The ruling elite have no intentions of relinquishing their wealth or control without a fight.

I’m just an average guy who has lived his whole life in suburban America. I’m the guy at the little league baseball field and the local ice hockey rink cheering my sons on. I shop at Wal-Mart and I take my family to the Jersey shore on vacation. I decorate my house with multitudes of Christmas lights every year after I untangle the ball from the previous year. I’m an average guy who is also a wide eyed realist. My heart and my mind tell me that our leaders have failed us mightily. The next 15 years will be full of pain, suffering and angst. In the previous two Crisis periods, America entered with the moral high ground. The Civil War was ultimately seen as a moral war to free the slaves. World War II was fought against evil Nazis and Fascists. I fear that America’s next Great War will be fought for oil. The shortsighted narrow-minded morons who have controlled our nation will try to cover-up their epic failures by falsifying the reasons for war. I have said this once in a previous article. I will not sacrifice my sons for oil. That is not a cause worth fighting for. Hell no, they won’t go.

I do not believe Americans will fall into line behind a leader whose cause is fighting to secure some other country’s oil. I do believe that the credibility and honesty of our politician leaders has been destroyed through their own corrupt immoral actions. A splintering of the country into competing factions and/or regions is a distinct possibility. There is precious little time left, as the howling blizzard gains strength. You will need to hunker down for a long hard winter. Build close relationships, protect your family at all costs, don’t trust government officials, don’t expect the government to honor any fiscal promises, don’t trust the mainstream media, learn to live locally, buy a gun, buy some gold and silver, and be prepared to fight for the truth.

THE FOURTH AMERICAN REVOLUTION (Featured Article)

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. – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997

  

        Harpers Ferry – 1859                         Tucson – 2011

The mass murder in Tucson is another brick in the wall of this Fourth Turning Crisis. The importance of this tragic event is not what happened in that Safeway parking lot, but the reaction in the aftermath of the shooting. Turnings are not about specific events, but how generations react to the events based on their stages of life. A turning is an era with a characteristic social mood, a new twist on how people feel about themselves and their nation.  It results from the aging of the generational constellation.  A society enters a turning once every twenty years or so, when all living generations begin to enter their next phases of life. We entered this Fourth Turning between 2005 and 2008, with the collapse of the housing market and subsequent financial system implosion.

We have crossed the threshold into a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime will propel the replacement of the old civic order with a new one.  The Silent Generation (1925-1942) is dying off, Baby Boomers (1943-1960) are entering elder hood, Generation X is entering midlife, Millenials are entering young adulthood—and a new generation of child Artists are being born. Strauss & Howe have documented that a long human life of 80 to 100 years makes up a social cycle of growth, maturation, entropy, and death (and rebirth) known as a Saeculum. Within each cycle, four generations proceed through their four stages of life. Every 15 to 25 years a new Turning surprises those who only think of history in a linear way. Strauss & Howe are historians who have been able to document this generational cycle going back to the 1400s.

The Anglo-American saeculum dates back to the waning of the Middle Ages in the middle of the fifteenth century.  In this lineage, there have been seven saecula:

  • Late Medieval (1435-1487)
  • Reformation (1487-1594)
  • New World (1594-1704)
  • Revolutionary (1704-1794)
  • Civil War (1794-1865)
  • Great Power (1866-1946)
  • Millennial (1946-2026?)

The Turnings of history are like the seasons of nature. Seasons cannot be rearranged, seasons cannot be avoided, but humans and nations can prepare for the challenges presented by each season. Winter has descended upon our nation.

We are still in the early stages of this Fourth Turning and the mood of the country continues to darken like the sky before an approaching blizzard. Generational theory does not predict the specific events that will happen during a Turning. The events, personalities, and policies that become the chapters in history books are not what drive a Turning, it is how each generation reacts to the events, personalities and policies. Someone who is 60 years old will react differently to an event than they would have reacted at 20 years old. The issues that are driving this Fourth Turning (un-payable entitlement obligations, Wall Street greed & power, globalization gutting the middle class, increasing government control, wealth distribution) were all known and understood in 1997. It took the spark of a housing market collapse and the generations being in proper alignment to catalyze the mood of the country.

Chapter one of this Fourth Turning is approaching its end. Chapter two guarantees to be more intense, with more violence, and periods of great danger. Strauss & Howe envisioned this chapter based upon their analysis of the issues looming back in 1997:

The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it. 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. – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997

American Revolutions

“A Fourth Turning is a solstice era of maximum darkness, in which the supply of social order is still falling but the demand for order is now rising. As the community instinct regenerates, people resolve to do more than just relieve the symptoms of pending traumas. Intent on addressing root causes, they rediscover the value of unity, teamwork, and social discipline. Far more than before, people comply with authority, accept the need for public sacrifice, and shed anything extraneous to the survival needs of their community. This is a critical threshold: People either coalesce as a nation and culture – or rip hopelessly and permanently apart.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997

 

  

“Photo credit: ComfortBetrays.com”

There have been three prior Fourth Turnings in U.S. history: the American Revolution, Civil War and Great Depression/World War II. The American Revolution preceded the Civil War by 87 years. The Great Depression followed the Civil War by 69 years and this Millenial Crisis arrived 76 years after the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929. Essentially, each prior Fourth Turning has represented a Revolution in American history.

The First American Revolution began in 1773 when Parliament’s response to the Boston Tea Party ignited a colonial tinderbox—leading directly to the first Continental Congress, the battle of Concord, and the Declaration of Independence. History always seems easy to predict in retrospect. This is another of the many faults in human thinking. There was very little talk or thought of the colonies breaking away from the mother country during the 1760s. Up until the Boston Tea Party catalyst event, no one could have predicted the events which would occur in a chain reaction over the next 21 years. There were dark cold bitter days during this Crisis winter. In the end, George Washington’s honor, courage and fortitude symbolized the character of a new nation.

Historians Charles and Mary Beard described the Civil War as the Second American Revolution.  The Civil War Crisis began with a presidential election that southerners interpreted as an invitation to secede. The attack on Fort Sumter triggered the most violent conflict ever fought on New World soil. The war reached its climax with the Emancipation Proclamation and Battle of Gettysburg (in 1863). The epic conflagration redefined America. The slavery issue was settled for good, signed in the blood of 600,000 men. The industrial might of the North was rechanneled toward progress as a world industrial powerhouse. In retrospect many will say the Civil War was entirely predictable, but that is completely untrue.

The great compromise generation (Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster) of the 1850s passed from the scene, leaving the country in the hands of firebrands on both sides. John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry and subsequent execution served to increase the brooding mood of the country. The bloodiest war in the history of mankind was not predictable even one year before it began. The aristocracy of Washington DC actually took carriages in their Sunday best to watch the First Battle of Bull Run. Shortly thereafter Lincoln mobilized 500,000 men and unleashed a catastrophic spiral of butchery over the next four years that exhausted itself with the assassination of Lincoln and the surrender at Appomattox in the same week. The resolution of this Crisis felt more like defeat than victory.

Renowned American historian Carl Degler called FDR’s New Deal the “Third American Revolution”. The Crisis began suddenly with the Black Tuesday stock-market crash in 1929.  After a three-year economic free fall, the Great Depression triggered the New Deal Revolution, a vast expansion of government, and hopes for a renewal of national community.  After Pearl Harbor, America planned, mobilized, and produced for world war on a scale never seen in the history of  mankind, making possible complete victory over the Nazis and Fascists. In 1928 did anyone foresee an 89% stock market crash, worldwide depression, vast expansion of government power, a world war more devastating than the prior war, and the usage of an atomic weapon of mass destruction? Not a chance. Only in retrospect do people convince themselves that it was predictable.

Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929 marked the abrupt unforeseen end of the Roaring Twenties. The bewilderingly rapid collapse of the worldwide financial system in the space of three years left the American people shaken and desperate. With their wealth destroyed and unemployment exceeding 20%, the American public turned to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal promises of government social and work programs. He declared “nationwide thinking, nationwide planning, and nationwide action, the three essentials of public life”. This was truly a Third American Revolution. FDR’s policies changed the course of American history. The renewed spirit of American youth during the 1930s was essential in preparing them for the trials that awaited from 1941 through 1945. It is somewhat ironic that FDR’s revolutionary social programs, begun during the last Crisis, will be a major factor in the current Crisis – the Fourth American Revolution.

Fourth American Revolution

“The US government is on a “burning platform” of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon.” – David M. Walker

 

 

No one knows exactly what events will transpire over the next 15 to 20 years as this Fourth Turning morphs from regeneracy to climax and finally to resolution. The mainstream media, most politicians, and self proclaimed progressives are blind to the cyclicality of history. They believe history proceeds in a linear upwards path. These are the people you see on TV talking about toning down the rhetoric, false gestures of bipartisanship, and soothing words about the financial crisis being a thing of the past. They fail to understand that once the mood of the country is catalyzed by a trigger event or events, there is no turning back the clock. Winter must be dealt with head on. Very few, if any, “financial experts” anticipated a housing collapse, followed by a deep recession, a 50% stock market crash, and a financial system which came within hours of total implosion on September 18, 2008 (as detailed in the documentary Generation Zero). Absolutely no one anticipated the extreme measures taken by the U.S. government and Federal Reserve to “Save” the country from a 2nd Great Depression. These measures have added $5 trillion to the National Debt in the last 40 months. It took 205 years to accumulate the 1st $5 trillion of debt.

While it is impossible to predict the exact trials and tribulations that will confront America over the next decade, the issues that will drive this Fourth Turning were clearly visible to anyone with their eyes open, many years in advance of the Crisis.  Strauss & Howe clearly detailed the easily observable issues that led to the current Crisis back in 1997. Their book is not prophecy, but historically provable interactions between generations based upon the circumstances confronting society at the time.

“Sometime around the year 2005, perhaps a few years before or after, America will enter the Fourth Turning. A spark will ignite a new mood. It will catalyze a Crisis. In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. It could be a rapid succession of small events in which the ominous, the ordinary, and the trivial are commingled.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997

The authors use their common sense, based upon known trends, to posit potential catalyst scenarios such as:

  • A global terrorist group blows up an aircraft and announces it possesses nuclear weapons.
  • Beset by a fiscal crisis, states begin to balk at Federal mandates leading to secession actions, militia violence, cyber attacks on the IRS, and demands for a new Constitutional Convention.
  • An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The government shuts down. The President declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Financial markets spiral out of control. Default looms.

These “theoretical” scenarios were put forth in 1997. The authors concluded that these were unlikely, but that no matter what the catalyst, the response by the generations would be predictable. It seems this Fourth Turning is being driven by a succession of smaller triggers, rather than one large trigger. The housing collapse, which began in 2005, ultimately led to the world financial system collapse in 2008. The overreach by government in attempting to repair the damage done by Wall Street and K Street led to the Rick Santelli Tea Party Rant heard round the world in February 2009. The Tea Party movement has since taken the country by storm, surprising the linear thinkers and stunning the ruling elite. Last week a congresswoman and a dozen bystanders were gunned down, further darkening the mood of the country and inflaming passions among competing political ideologies. So what happens next?

Strauss & Howe postulated on the possible path of this Crisis and I see nothing to doubt their analysis:

“An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. It is unlikely that the catalyst will worsen into a full fledged catastrophe, since the nation will probably find a way to avert the initial danger and stabilize the situation for a while.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997

The CNBC talking heads, mainstream media pundits, clueless Washington politicians, corrupt Wall Street shysters, and non-thinking robotic masses have been convinced that the actions taken by Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama, Tim Geithner and Congress have averted a financial disaster and saved the world. One hundred years from now when Chinese historians look back on the period from 2000 until 2025 they will ask themselves, “what the hell were they thinking?” The causes of this Crisis are as clear as day to anyone willing to see. A small group of Wall Street bankers and corporate interests through their proxy, the Federal Reserve, created the largest housing bubble in the history of the world generating hundreds of billions in obscene undeserved profits, while destroying the wealth and futures of millions of middle class Americans. Once the fraudulent nature of the bankers’ pillaging of the nation’s wealth came to light, the entire ponzi scheme collapsed, as they always do. On a parallel track, the Federal government, knowing full well that its un-payable social welfare commitments could never be fulfilled, decided to engage in two wars of choice, made additional un-payable social welfare commitments, and created new bloated bureaucratic agencies in the name of security and safety.

What will truly amaze future historians is the “solutions” that our leaders chose to save the country. Despite already being the largest debtor the planet has ever seen, with a National Debt of $8 trillion in 2005, the President and Congress have added an additional $6 trillion of debt, with plans to increase that debt at a rate of $1.5 trillion per year for the foreseeable future. Despite the fact that the housing boom was created by loose monetary policy and non-enforcement of existing laws and regulations by the Federal Reserve, our leaders have allowed this bank owned entity to reduce interest rates to 0%, buy $1.5 trillion of toxic mortgages from the Wall Street banks that caused the crisis, suspend requirements for banks to report their assets at their FMV, monetize the debt spending by the Federal Government, and create inflation through the printing of money out of this air. The Federal government’s response to the crisis was to create a mandated healthcare benefit for 35 million more Americans with no means to pay the untold trillions in future costs. Our leaders’ solution to a crisis caused by excessive debt has been to create twice as much debt. A passage from the Book of Matthew which Abraham Lincoln utilized during a prior Fourth Turning Crisis is a fitting description of where we stand today:

“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.” – Matthew 12:25

The country is deeply divided. There is a vast swath of America that has chosen ignorance over knowledge. With 50% of Americans paying no income taxes, they will vote for anyone who promises them more. The rest of America is split between those who believe the answer lies in increased Federal government coordination and control and those who want a return to liberty, individual responsibility and a vastly reduced Federal government footprint. As I have tried to figure out the most likely path of this Fourth Turning I was focused on an external conflict in the Middle East or an incident on the Korean Peninsula providing the next spark. After the shooting in Tucson, this Fourth Turning is beginning to crystallize.

What I realized was that the three previous American Revolutions all occurred on U.S. soil. The First American Revolution was fought on American soil by a loose confederation of autonomous states against the overbearing control of a great European empire. The Second American Revolution was fought by Americans against Americans and resulted in a vast expansion of Federal government power and diminishment of state power. The Third American Revolution took place under the auspices of saving America from the depths of Depression with government social programs and the birth of the Nanny State. Each Revolution has further expanded the power and control of the Federal government. I believe the Fourth American Revolution will ultimately come down to a battle between the Liberty movement and the ruling oligarchy of Wall Street, Mega-corporations and supporters of the Military Nanny State.

I trust that Strauss & Howe correctly assessed the main factor that will drive the next phase of this Crisis – the Great Devaluation:

“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

There is no doubt in my mind that the next downward ratchet in this Crisis will be caused by Ben Bernanke and his attempt to generate just enough inflation to make our un-payable debt load less burdensome. His track record regarding economic forecasting, assessment of housing prices and anticipation of economic distress is flawless. He hasn’t been right once. With the top 1% richest Americans controlling 42% of the financial wealth in the country, an all-time high, the next leg down will boil over into class warfare. The middle class has been devastated thus far. Another stock market collapse and more job losses would push them over the edge. The evident failure of government solutions will invigorate the Liberty Movement to become even more strident in their anti-government message. The subsequent battle between the Haves and Have Nots is likely to flair into protests, riots and increasing violence. There will be no compromises. The 2012 Presidential election could incite reactions on par with the election of Lincoln in 1860. While the country convulsively flails about, foreign adversaries will take advantage of our weakness. Peak oil will throw a further wrench into the downward spiral. Out of this tempest, the country will either turn to a strong leader and more government control or move back toward a smaller Federal government footprint and a return to rule by the people and for the people. The outcome is unknown, but the path is foreseeable. Let’s hope that Ben Franklin was right.

All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?” – Benjamin Franklin, To Colleagues at the Constitutional Convention

 

“History offers no guarantees. If America plunges into an era of depression or violence which by then has not lifted, we will likely look back on the 1990s as the decade when we valued all the wrong things and made all the wrong choices.”  – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997

WILL 2012 BE AS CRITICAL AS 1860? (Featured Article)

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”  – Abraham Lincoln

We are approximately five years into The Fourth Turning Crisis. Every previous Fourth Turning had an economic dimension that eventually led to a do or die all out war. The mainstream linear thinkers see a recovery and a return to their concept of normality. They will be shocked and flabbergasted when they realize that this is only the beginning of a 20 year period of turmoil, chaos and war. It seems that some study of history would benefit the mainstream talking media heads pretending to know what is happening and political hacks in Washington D.C. who pretend to administer the affairs of state. The cycles of history are not identical, but the alignment of generations is always the same. The cycles are consistent because a long human life is always between 80 and 100 years. The previous Fourth Turnings in U.S. history were the American Revolution, the Civil War and the Great Depression/World War II. The descriptions are as follows:

American Revolution (Fourth Turning, 1773-1794) began when Parliament’s response to the Boston Tea Party ignited a colonial tinderbox—leading directly to the first Continental Congress, the battle of Concord, and the Declaration of Independence.  The war climaxed with the colonial triumph at Yorktown (in 1781).  Seven years later, the new “states” ratified a nation-forging Constitution.  The crisis mood eased once President Washington weathered the Jacobins, put down the Whiskey Rebels, and settled on a final treaty with England.

The Civil War (Fourth Turning, 1860-1865) began with a presidential election that many southerners interpreted as an invitation to secede. The attack on Fort Sumter triggered the most violent conflict ever fought on New World soil. The war reached its climax in the Emancipation Proclamation and Battle of Gettysburg (in 1863). Two years later, the Confederacy was beaten into bloody submission and Lincoln was assassinated–a grim end to a crusade many had hoped would “trample out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”

The Great Depression & World War II (Fourth Turning, 1929-1946) began suddenly with the Black Tuesday stock-market crash.  After a three-year economic free fall, the Great Depression triggered the New Deal revolution, a vast expansion of government, and hopes for a renewal of national community.  After Pearl Harbor, America planned, mobilized, and produced for war on a scale that made possible the massive D-Day invasion (in 1944).  Two years later, the crisis mood eased with America’s surprisingly trouble-free demobilization.

There is a consistent tempo to all Fourth Turnings. An event or series of events leads to the initial Crisis. As the Fourth Turning progresses it becomes more intense, chaotic, dire and bloody. It eventually exhausts itself as a victor is left in control of the battlefield. Picture George Washington at Yorktown, Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, and Douglass McArthur on the Battleship Missouri. The events during a Fourth Turning will always be different. The consistent aspect of all Fourth Turnings is the mood of the country, the same generational dynamics, and the reactions of the generations to events. Strauss & Howe describe this Crisis period as follows:

“The spirit of America comes once a saeculum, only through what the ancients called ekpyrosis, nature’s fiery moment of death and discontinuity. History’s periodic eras of Crisis combust the old social order and give birth to a new. A Fourth Turning is a solstice era of maximum darkness, in which the supply of social order is still falling but the demand for order is now rising.”

The turnings of history are like the seasons. It is impossible to go directly from Fall to Spring. You must withstand the bitter harshness of Winter in order to get to the revitalizing warmth of Spring. The intensity and depth of Winters will vary. Those who prepare for a potentially harsh Winter in advance will be more likely to survive.  The morphology of Fourth Turnings as described by Strauss & Howe is:

  • A Crisis era begins with a catalyst – a startling event (or sequence of events) that produces a sudden shift in mood.
  • Once catalyzed, a society achieves regeneracy – a new counterentropy that reunifies and reenergizes civic life.
  • The regenerated society propels toward a climax – a crucial moment that confirms the death of the old order and birth of the new.
  • The climax culminates in a resolution – a triumphant or tragic conclusion that separates the winners from losers, resolves the big public questions, and establishes the new order.

An honest assessment of where we sit in this cycle shows that we are still in stage one. The housing collapse brought about the near destruction of the worldwide financial system. The sudden shift in mood has been borne out by the angry rise of the Tea Party and the startling result from the recent election. Society is on the verge of stage two. There has yet to be the reunification and reenergizing of society. It still feels like things are falling apart. The sun is slowly setting on this stage and a dark brutal Winter night beckons.

1860 Election – Spark that Ignited an Epic Conflagration

 

Turnings throughout history have consistently lasted between 15 and 25 years, except one. The Civil War Crisis Turning lasted only 5 years and seems to not fit the standard definition of a Turning. Strauss & Howe reflected that:

“By the usual pattern of history, the Civil War Crisis catalyst occurred four or five years ahead of schedule and its resolution nearly a generation too soon.”

The truth is that instead of a drawn out Crisis over 15 to 20 years that would have had undulations of pain and suffering, the U.S. experienced the most savage 5 years in our history, with 620,000 Americans killed and 400,000 wounded. Ten percent of all Northern males 20–45 years of age died, as did 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18–40. Strauss and Howe conclude that there are two lessons from the Civil War Crisis:

  1. The Fourth Turning morphology admits to acceleration.
  2. That acceleration can add to the tragedy of the outcome.

The catalyst for the Crisis was the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. After the Compromise of 1850, who would have envisioned the election of an unknown Congressman from an abolitionist party that didn’t even exist in 1850. Beyond that, could anyone have predicted the carnage from the bloodiest war in the history of mankind being the result of that election? Many people do not know that there were four candidates for President in 1860 and that Lincoln won the election with only 39.8% of the popular vote. Lincoln won the Presidency and he wasn’t even on the ballot in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, or Texas.

The Republican Party realized they had a tremendous opportunity to win the Presidency as the Democrats were in disarray. Since it was essential to carry the West, and because Lincoln had a national reputation from his debates and speeches as the most articulate moderate, he won the party’s nomination on the third ballot on May 18, 1860. The Republican platform stated that slavery would not be allowed to spread any further, and it also promised that tariffs protecting industry would be imposed, a Homestead Act granting free farmland in the West to settlers, and the funding of a transcontinental railroad.  All of these provisions were highly unpopular in the South.

The Democratic Party split into two factions due to the issue of slavery. Stephen A. Douglass became the Northern Democrat candidate. He was a moderate on the slavery issue. John C. Breckinridge was selected by the Fireaters from the Deep South. Breckinridge supported extending slavery into territories whose voters did not want it. A fourth party called the Constitutional Union Party made up of die-hard former Southern Whigs and Know Nothings who felt they could support neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party was formed. They nominated John Bell of Tennessee for President. The party platform advocated compromise to save the Union, with the slogan “the Union as it is, and the Constitution as it is.”

The voter turnout rate in 1860 was the second-highest on record (81.2%, second only to 1876, with 81.8%). The voter turnout in 2008 of 56.8% was the highest for a Presidential election since 1968.

File:Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Helser, 1860-crop.jpg  File:John C Breckinridge-04775-restored.jpg

Nominee: Abraham Lincoln                        Nominee: John C. Breckinridge

Party: Republican                                          Party: Southern Democrat

% of Vote: 39.8%                                              % of Vote: 18.1%

Electoral Votes: 180                                      Electoral Votes: 72

  File:StephenADouglas.png

Nominee: John Bell                                        Nominee: Stephen A. Douglass

Party: Constitutional Union                          Party: Northern Democrat

% of Vote: 12.6%                                                % of Vote: 29.5%

Electoral Votes: 39                                         Electoral Votes: 12

As the 1850s progressed the firebrands in the North and South became more entrenched in their dogmatic positions. The Transcendental Generation Prophets came to power and compromise was no longer an option. Both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were from this Prophet generation. Aging Prophets are always the moralistic drivers of Fourth Turnings. Strauss & Howe stress the importance of the Prophet Generation during a Fourth Turning:

A Crisis catalyst occurs shortly after the old Prophet archetype reaches its apex of societal leadership, when its inclinations are least checked by others. A regeneracy comes as the Prophet abandons any idea of deferral or retreat and binds the society to a Crisis course. A climax occurs when the Prophet expends its last burst of passion, just before descending rapidly from power.

The election of Abraham Lincoln proved to be the catalyst for the Crisis. Seven southern states seceded from the Union before Lincoln took office. The attack on Fort Sumter started a spiral of carnage and butchery that could not be reversed. The Crisis reached regeneracy after the Union debacle during the First Battle of Bull Run. Lincoln realized winning this war would require full mobilization and all out war. He ordered the enlistment of 500,000 soldiers, suspension of habeas corpus, taxation, and expansion of government power. The next four years were a swirl of savagery and unprecedented tragedy. It convulsed to a chaotic conclusion with the surrender at Appomattox and assassination of Lincoln in the same week. The Crisis exhausted itself with the climax seeming more like a defeat than a victory.

Are the actions of politicians 150 years ago worth understanding in order to determine how our current Crisis will develop? Since every Crisis period has the exact same generational configuration and generations react to events in similar manner, I believe it is worthwhile to examine the Civil War dynamics. Historian Gordon Leidner’s conclusions about the Civil War period are revealing:

  • Although the majority of the American people– including many moderate politicians like Abraham Lincoln–wanted to avoid Civil War and were content to allow slavery to die a slow, inevitable death, the most influential political leaders of the day were not.
  • On the southern side, “fire-eaters” like Robert Rhett and William Yancey were willing to make war to guarantee the propagation of their “right” to own slaves.
  • On the northern side, abolitionists like John Brown and Henry Ward Beecher of Connecticut were willing to make war in order to put an immediate end to the institution of slavery.
  • Southern politicians convinced their majority that the North was threatening their way of life and their culture. Northern politicians convinced their majority that the South, if allowed to secede, was really striking a serious blow at democratic government. In these arguments, both southern and northern politicians were speaking the truth–but not “the whole truth.”
  • It was also about the constitutional argument over whether or not a state had a right to leave the Union, and–of primary concern to most southern soldiers–the continuation of antebellum southern culture. Although the majority of Southerners had little interest in slaves, slavery was a primary interest of Southern politicians–and consequently the underlying cause of the South’s desire to seek independence and state rights.

The insights gained from the Civil War Crisis are that compromise and moderation are discarded. The firebrands control the field. The Prophets push for an all out war to settle the pressing issues of the day. They are willing to sacrifice the young in their moralistic fervor to satisfy their vision of the future. The final verdict will depend on the strength, judgment, and wisdom of the Prophet leaders during a Crisis.

2012 Election – Crisis Leader Sets Stage for Dark Days Ahead

  

     Nomad (Gen X)                         Prophet (Boomer)              Prophet (Boomer)

  

  Prophet (Boomer)                        Nomad (Gen X)                         Prophet (Boomer)

        Artist (Silent)

By 2012 we will have reached the 7th year of this Crisis. The linear thinking media and supposed “thought leaders” are convinced that the worst days of this Crisis have passed. They believe that the Federal Reserve and Government leaders have taken the proper actions to avert a Great Depression. They will be shocked when the Crisis deepens and gets far worse than today. Every action taken by our leaders since 2005 has  worsened the Crisis. Rather than letting the culprits of the financial crisis fail, they have propped up these criminal institutions with taxpayer funds. By not accepting the pain early in this Crisis, these leaders have ensured that this Crisis will be more tragic, brutal and wrenching. The mood of the country continues to darken, even as the mainstream media and government cheerleaders falsely insist that things are getting better.

By year 7 of the American Revolution Crisis, George Washington was on the verge of defeating the British at Yorktown and bringing that Crisis to a positive conclusion. The Civil War Crisis had concluded with Union victory by year 5. The Great Depression/WWII Crisis was in a lull period, with GDP growing by 13% in 1936 as government spending and personal consumption surged. The economy gave the appearance of recovery because FDR’s New Deal programs created make work schemes using government funds. Americans know the 1930s as the Great Depression. As proof of how meaningless GDP calculations are versus how real Americans are affected, the GDP increased by 63% in the four year period between 1934 and 1937. Despite this phenomenal growth, the unemployment rate remained at 17%. In comparison, GDP has advanced by only 5.1% from the bottom in the 2nd quarter of 2009 until today and the unemployment rate on a comparable basis is 23%. Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the 1936 election over Alfred Landon in one of the greatest landslides in history, with 523 electoral votes to Landon’s 8.

The current Crisis appears to be in a lull similar to the 1930s. Government actions can mask deeper problems for awhile, but pressure continue to build. The problems did not go away. The bad debts did not disappear. The Wall Street criminals are still free to loot the American middle class. No one has been prosecuted for the greatest financial fraud in history. The National Debt continues to balloon by $4 billion per day. The USD is slowly being replaced as the worldwide reserve currency. Political ideologues have taken control of both parties. Worldwide trade tensions and social contract broken promises are leading to riots and chaos across the Europe. The onset of peak cheap oil is raising prices for fuel and food and setting the stage for coming resource wars. Fundamentalist religious leaders are pushing for a religious war between Christianity and Islam. The extremists are gaining control of the agenda.

The sudden shift in mood has occurred. The hard working middle class of this country are frustrated, angry and feel betrayed by their leaders. The American people are fed up with all politicians. The liberal ideologues and conservative ideologues have staked out immovable positions on social, financial, and foreign trade issues. Compromise is as likely as it was in 1860. The Tea Party will not compromise. Their agenda is to change politics in Washington DC. They will be a thorn in both party’s side. The possibility of the Tea Party becoming a 3rd party is quite possible. This brings us to the 2012 Presidential election. The current configuration of Congress guarantees that absolutely nothing will get done in the next two years. Both parties will ignore the looming disaster of debt, devaluation, and depression as they position themselves for the 2012 election. The Crisis has not yet entered the regeneracy stage. This is the stage where the country unifies behind a leader and deals with the sudden threats that previously have been ignored or deferred, but which are now perceived as dire. The likely threats are the National Debt, a currency collapse, the Christian/Muslim conflict, Peak Oil, the rise of China, or more likely a combination of some of these issues.

Strauss & Howe‘s words regarding the approaching Crisis, written in 1997, are eerie and haunting:

“In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability –  problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action.”

As I try to assess the next phase of this Crisis, I have been seeking guidance from previous Fourth Turnings. At this juncture, the Crisis seems to have aspects of the Great Depression/World War II and Civil War Fourth Turnings. A financial crisis morphed into recession, much like the 1929 Crash and subsequent recession. Like the Great Depression, government borrowing and spending has given the false hope of recovery. The difference is that  government actions have failed to generate a strong rebound in GDP and unemployment continues to ratchet higher. A landslide election victory by Barack Obama in 2012 is not only impossible; he may not even be the Democratic nominee. The 2012 Presidential election is already destined to be a defining moment in our country’s history. The future path, intensity and pain of this Crisis will be greatly impacted by the outcome of this election. The darkening skies of Crisis are likely to become more threatening by 2012.

A recent Gallup poll gives an early indication of the likely Republican nominee in 2012. The front runners (Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin) have remained static, while the firebrands (Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee) have gained ground. The move towards a moralistic Prophet summoner of human sacrifice is not a surprise. The financial and world events that lead up to the 2012 election will determine which candidate is selected from the Republican field. The firebrands are likely to push to resolve ever-deepening moral choices through military force.

November 2010: Which of These Candidates Would You Be Most Likely to Support for the Republican Nomination for President in 2012? Based on Republicans and Republican-Leaning Independents

Usually an incumbent President can be sure of re-nomination as the Democratic candidate, but Obama’s popularity is so low and his effectiveness as President has been so wanting that a challenge from Hillary Clinton is a distinct possibility. Clinton has the Prophet persona and would command the respect of Americans looking for foreign relations expertise. A failed challenge to Obama’s nomination would likely weaken Obama and allow the Republican candidate an easy victory. A potential wildcard would be an insurgent independent campaign by billionaire Michael Bloomberg. His financial background and moderate positions on social issues could attract moderate Republican and Democratic voters. Another possibility is that the Tea Party is unable to assimilate within the Republican Party and decides to nominate its own candidate. This could lead to an 1860 like situation, with four candidates vying for the Presidency. The victor in this scenario might need to be selected by the Electoral College. The next President could be elected with less than 40% of the popular vote. Could this election result lead to secession movement? Will large segments of the population not accept the election verdict?

Will America Survive this Fourth Turning?

 

 

We are poised on the brink of the regeneracy phase of this Fourth Turning. The open question is what incident or events will lead to Americans rallying around a Prophet leader. Regeneracy during the American Revolution occurred in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. It occurred during the Civil War when Lincoln demanded full mobilization and total war after the Battle of Bull Run. The election of FDR in 1932 produced a regeneracy based upon his New Deal policies. The issues confronting our nation appear intractable. The government “solutions” to the initial phase of this Crisis have been to paper over bad debts, prop up insolvent financial institutions, defer hard entitlement choices, debase the currency in an effort to alleviate overwhelming levels of government debt, ignore the imminent implications of cheap peak oil, and waging never ending lifeblood draining wars on terror. Ben Bernanke, a self described “expert” on the Great Depression, and his Federal Reserve, which has inflated away 96% of the USD purchasing power since 1913, will be the likely culprit in the next phase of this Crisis. Countries around the world are scrambling to reduce their exposure to the USD. Ben Bernanke has proven unable to comprehend the most basic economic signals (housing collapse, derivatives, Wall Street fraud). He will be blindsided by the sudden collapse of the US currency.

It is likely that phase two of this financial Crisis will lead to the election of a dogmatic Republican Prophet Boomer in 2012. This person will take office in January, 2013, eight years into this Fourth Turning. They will be faced with the realization that peak cheap oil is a fact, as even the linearist thinkers realize that technology and green energy will not provide the bumper sticker solution for our oil dependent society. The devastating combination of a currency collapse, oil supply shortages, and the draining war on terror will either unify the country behind the Prophet leader in their effort to save the country or it could result in the country’s fabric tearing apart with the Federal government losing control of sections of the country. A World War over dwindling natural resources is easily foreseeable. The actual denouement of events remain a mystery. Much will depend on the leader we choose. Much will depend on the strength, fortitude, and sacrifice of the American people.

Strauss & Howe provide four possible outcomes to our current Crisis:

  1. This Fourth Turning could mark the end of man. It could be an omnicidal Armageddon, destroying everything, leaving nothing. If mankind ever extinguishes itself, this will probably happen when its dominant civilization triggers a Fourth Turning that ends horribly. For this Fourth Turning to put an end to all this would require an extremely unlikely blend of social disaster, human malevolence, technological perfection and bad luck.
  2. The Fourth Turning could mark the end of modernity. The Western saecular rythm – which began in the mid-fifteenth century with the Renaissance – could come to an abrupt terminus. The seventh modern saeculum would be the last. This too could come from total war, terrible but not final. There could be a complete collapse of science, culture, politics, and society. Such a dire result would probably happen only when a dominant nation (like today’s America) lets a Fourth Turning ekpyrosis engulf the planet. But this outcome is well within the reach of foreseeable technology and malevolence.
  3. The Fourth Turning could spare modernity but mark the end of our nation. It could close the book on the political constitution, popular culture, and moral standing that the word America has come to signify. The nation has endured for three saecula; Rome lasted twelve, the Soviet Union only one. Fourth Turnings are critical thresholds for national survival. Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger: In the Revolution, the very birth of the republic hung by a thread in more than one battle. In the Civil War, the union barely survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was regarded as the most lethal war in history. In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed. In all likelihood, the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale.
  4. Or the Fourth Turning could simply mark the end of the Millennial Saeculum. Mankind, modernity, and America would all persevere. Afterward, there would be a new mood, a new High, and a new saeculum. America would be reborn. But, reborn, it would not be the same.

The Fourth Turning is not a prophecy of doom. It is not some sort of Nostradamus like prediction of what will happen on a certain date. The Fourth Turning is part of a cycle of history tied to a long human life that has happened before and hopefully will happen again. Our trials await. Will America respond with strength of character, wise choices, and a willingness to sacrifice for future unborn generations? It is time to find out.

 

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
                                                              Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

 

 

   

 

Waiting for a Fourth Turning Prophet

The recent flare up of the long running conflict in NK-SK led me to thinking about all the Proxy Wars that have been fought since the end of WWII in all the “undeveloped” nations of the world, including all the African and South American ones along with the Southeast Asian ones.

Now of course I don’t know exactly what the state of the Politics in any of those countries was prior to WWII, but as far as I know from the history books following colonial expansion, most of these countries were more or less stable, not really nation states as we think of them now but rather rough geographic areas “claimed” by one of the original colonial powers but for the most part the people living there lived as they had for centuries, in a semi stable Feudal kind of manner balanced against local Tribal interests.

The Post WWII period though began the real period of Globalism, as Corporate interests sought to acquire the resources of each of these portions of the Globe not yet part of the Global Banking system. It is at this point in each location the societies bifurcated. Along what lines? Basically, Haves and Have Nots, where local Haves wanted to Join Up and become a part of the Big Ponzi, and local Have Nots who weren’t going to get any benefit from having their land raped for resources.

So in most of those countries since this was a Haves v Have Nots battle, the Have Nots were supported by the Global Communists, either Russia or China at the time. The Haves of course were supported by the Global Capitalists, led by the Anglo-American Illuminati for the most part. For Americans growing up through this period, this was the Cold War and the fight to stop Communist Dominoes from falling in all these countries, a fight to bring them Freedom and Liberation from Oppression. It was of course precisely the opposite, to enslave all these countries under the economic slavery of Capitalism.

Of course the alternative they actually had of the kind of Communism run by Russia and China was itself a form of slavery and Totalitarianism, so they were pretty much between a Rock and a Hard Place. Lots of nice peaceful folks, subsistence farmers mainly forced to choose between two Evils, being Raped by Capitalists or subjugated to the will of the State in Centralized Communism. Once these two juggernauts got rolling, there no longer was a real choice possible to have a small Goobermint for your local area, you had to side up with one or the other of the Big Boys. No other source of weapons you could fight with that would be effective in maintaining your Freedom of course.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China from Communism to a hybrid Mercantilist model left the whole philosophy of communism high and dry as pretty much a failed system. In the heady days for Capitalistas following the fall of the Berlin Wall, they appeared to have successfully won the battle of who has the Better System, and Euphoria was at an all time high. I remember some academic declaring it was the “End of History” with Pax Americana. Talk about being WRONG WRONG WRONG. LOL.

However, now with the World as their Oyster, the Capitalistas did what they do, which is to build bigger Ponzis all the time, and they revved up the Loan making bizness to a level never seen before in the entire history of Homo Sapiens on Earth. “Investment” and big money loans went out to every ex-Commie country in Eastern Europe, Brasil turned into a Resource mine to suck dry and even Ruskie Gangsters got their share of Illuminati Investment turning ex-KGB apparatchiks into Billionaires virtually overnight. I remember reading just a couple of years ago that Moscow had more Billionaires than any other city on Earth. Imagine that! In just a little over a decade, Mother Russia long the home of Communism was making more Billionaires then the FSofA, home of Capitalism!

Well of course it wasn’t the End of History, and this huge expansion of the Ponzi to encompass every last square inch of the surface of the Earth is now rapidly collapsing as all those loans which created all that “wealth” aren’t returning on the investment. Why? Because the whole paradigm was based on a never ending source of cheap energy, Oil. Black Gold. Texas Tea. It wasn’t a more sustainable system than Communism, it was just a more successful system at sucking what wealth there was in the earth up faster, and so Communism went into Failure mode first.

The current failure of the Capitalist model now leaves a real Vacuum on a philosophical and economic level in all the countries that were either one or the other for a while, and whose internal populations have been fighting battles ever since base on the Capitalist-Communist dichotomy of available systems. NK is a relic of the heady days of Chinese Communism; SK is a relic of the heady days of Capitalist expansion. The country got physically divided with the Haves on one side of the line, the Have Nots on the other. Now as Capitalism fails, the Have Nots over in NK sense weakness, and besides that are being used as a Proxy by the Chinese on a geopolitical level.

Thing is here, on both sides of that line, nobody really knows what they are fighting for anymore. No real vision of the future has been presented by the leadership on EITHER side of these battle lines to give J6P or Chen Rice Wine a reason to fight anymore. For the typical Proletariat in the Communist society, Communism failed miserably. For the typical Consumer in the Capitalist society, Capitalism failed miserably. Just look at the pics in JimQs Black Friday post. If that isn’t EPIC fail, I don’t know what is.

So here we are, on the Cusp of another World War, and nobody knows what the hell they are fighting for anymore, other than personal survival. At least as of yet, there is no great Movement of people drawn to Philosophy they can fight for with passion. No Great Leaders, no Prophets of the Fourth Turning kind have emerged yet on EITHER side to provide a real vision of the future people will line up to fight for. Oh sure, on both sides here J6P and Chen Rice Wine will be conscripted up as Cannon Fodder, but do you think any J6P is going to go into Battle here the way his Grandfather in the Greatest Generation did, feeling Righteous about saving the world from Totalitarianism? J6P himself is now just a machine part in the Totalitarian State run by the Illuminati, and he KNOWS it. Every time his children get on an airplane and are frisked down to make sure there isn’t a bomb secreted in their private parts he knows it. Soon to be every time you board a subway train or bus also.

Of course he will for the most part still go into battle, his battle juices revved up into high gear by some false flag, a few Car Bombs driven into Elementary Schools around the country one day soon. How are TSA Scanners going to stop that one? Its utterly stupid to think you can prevent a terrorist attack, there are just too many targets. Besides, your REAL Terrorists are the Intelligence Agencies like the CIA and MI5 which have the resources to make any kind of event like this happen anytime they want to, as a means to push around the psychology of whole populations.

For the time being, until a Prophet does arrive here, for most everyone on either side of the old divide of Capitalism and Communism, the only reasonable choice is to run away from this battle, as far as you can, as fast as you can. There is no good justification to fight for either side in this battle. The only solution is to hunker down and wait until the fighting comes to your neighborhood, and then fight for what is truly important, family and community. Then you can go out and fight with passion for something you truly believe in. Then you can go out with GLORY, and in the end win this battle against Evil which so consumes us now. For the Meek Shall Inherit the Earth. Right AFTER the Meek get Very, VERY ANGRY.

RE