The Fourth Turning upon us?

[Trianon]

In light of absolute denial to seek concrete solution to coutry's fiscal predicament by our leadership, what are your thoughts about timing of paradigm shift in our society, is it going to happen now or do we have a few more decades? Just trying to see ifthere is a prevailing consensus on this board.

http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/239719-james-quinn/130488-the-fourth-american-revolution

“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

 

[dmcowen674]

No doubt it's here. Last year was just the beginning.

 

[chucky2]

Remove the buying of pacification by removing the extensions of Unemployment. Watch what would have already happened.

Chuck

 

[Infohawk]

Ever notice how crappy articles/blogs have terrible web design?

 

[GTaudiophile]

We're going down hill until we take a tough stance on the Chinese in terms of protecting American IP.

 

[Trianon]

We're going down hill until we take a tough stance on the Chinese in terms of protecting American IP.

true, but this seems to be only a miniscule part of the problem. What about current fiscal and monetary policies?

 

[Cerb]

Yes, but we are too divided for it to work out well, in such a way that the US would once again become a great nation. We all can agree we are going in the wrong direction, but not enough can agree on the right direction to go.

 

[PliotronX]

Hyperinflation was supposed to hit "this year" for about three years yet the zombie still shambles. I just want to know if LegendKiller's declaration of gold not cracking 1,500 will hold.

 

[Zebo]

Yes but look on the bright side in 20 years after hardship, adversity and turmoil the "greatest generation" had to put up with we, like them, will be able to spoil our kids rotten again like boomers were. Such is the turnings. Need them to get people to think again. I have great hopes for future just not immediate future.

 

[Trianon]

Yes but look on the bright side in 20 years after hardship, adversity and turmoil the "greatest generation" had to put up with we, like them, will be able to spoil our kids rotten again like boomers were. Such is the turnings. Need them to get people to think again. I have great hopes for future just not immediate future.

I don't think this is the likely outcome at this point as the greatest generation didn't have to face globalization and scarcity of resources issues. It appears that living standard decline is pretty much permanent.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

I don't think this is the likely outcome at this point as the greatest generation didn't have to face globalization and scarcity of resources issues. It appears that living standard decline is pretty much permanent.

What scarcity?

 

[Trianon]

What scarcity?

Food, energy, etc...

 

[IceBergSLiM]

Food, energy, etc...

So you believe there is a real scarcity of these items or a manufactured scarcity(ala diamonds)?

 

[kranky]

I read The Fourth Turning and found it to be a very interesting book.

 

[Trianon]

So you believe there is a real scarcity of these items or a manufactured scarcity(ala diamonds)?

Quality food scarcity is a given, amount of arable land is limited and with weather patterns becoming more and more sporadic, betting on good harvests is more and more difficult. Plus Ethanol mandate is doing everyone a big disservice.

Mining diamonds is a waste of time and a fad, IMHO, never understood valuation of that carbon composition for the mankind.

Cheap energy is going to become scarce too, we don't have any tech that can be scaled easily to replace cheap oil in near term and no new significant oil deposit discoveries AFAIK.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

Quality food scarcity is a given, amount of arable land is limited and with weather patterns becoming more and more sporadic, betting on good harvests is more and more difficult. Plus Ethanol mandate is doing everyone a big disservice.

Mining diamonds is a waste of time and a fad, IMHO, never understood valuation of that carbon composition for the mankind.

Cheap energy is going to become scarce too, we don't have any tech that can be scaled easily to replace cheap oil in near term and no new significant oil deposit discoveries AFAIK.

Yeah I don't think i can agree with you on any of those points. yes arable land is limited but we haven't nearly approached those limits. Weather patterns should not impact food supply if there were more even distribution of food production. Put it this way Africa could have enough farm land to supply the world 10x over. However it doesn't so it currently relies on imports. Secondly the global obesity epidemic is not an indication of resource scarcity.

We have a shit ton of oil and coal. The limits and barriers to entry are man made mostly. Same with Nuclear. No resource scarcity. We have the technology to harvest water and geothermal sources as well as the sun. We aren't deploying this on a large scale though technically we 'can'.

The only scarcity I see is artificial man made. Our civilization has made it a priority to invest monetary resources in self destruction rather than self improvement.

 

[Trianon]

Yeah I don't think i can agree with you on any of those points. yes arable land is limited but we haven't nearly approached those limits. Weather patterns should not impact food supply if there were more even distribution of food production. Put it this way Africa could have enough farm land to supply the world 10x over. However it doesn't so it currently relies on imports. Secondly the global obesity epidemic is not an indication of resource scarcity.

We have a shit ton of oil and coal. The limits and barriers to entry are man made mostly. Same with Nuclear. No resource scarcity. We have the technology to harvest water and geothermal sources as well as the sun. We aren't deploying this on a large scale though technically we 'can'.

The only scarcity I see is artificial man made. Our civilization has made it a priority to invest monetary resources in self destruction rather than self improvement.

I guess we will agree to disagree, IMHO prices vs average income ratio in the US will go up and that will put both energy and quality food out of reach for majority of population. I am not saying that there is absolute scarcity, although it will slowly move to that, more like scarcity of affordable resources. Unless you foresee huge hikes in average income for majority of US population in deflationary economy environment.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

I guess we will agree to disagree, IMHO prices vs average income ratio in the US will go up and that will put both energy and quality food out of reach for majority of population. I am not saying that there is absolute scarcity, although it will slowly move to that, more like scarcity of affordable resources. Unless you foresee huge hikes in average income for majority of US population in deflationary economy environment.

I think we agree. This is artificial scarcity created by a corrupt system.

 

[scotth501]

I think Americans are more likely to believe in gloom and doom which causes them to over-estimate the actual threats. I tend to agree with the assessments I've read from George Friedman:
http://www.amazon.com/Next-100-Years...dp/0767923057/
or
http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Secre.../dp/0767917855


I think our navy and air force (including recent moves into space) guarantee we'll be able to disrupt smaller countries. According to WolframAlpha, China is the number 2 economy behind ours at US$4.3billion GDP, while the US is at $14.8billion. China is growing at 9%, we're growing at 2.5%. Plug this into a simple spreadsheet and it takes 20 years for them to catch us -- assuming they can maintain such explosive growth without their own political unrest and having so many of their people dirt poor.

As the US continues to manage and influence the bulk of global wealth and trade, I think we'll still be better off than any other country while they'll be closing in on us. I do agree that there has been plenty of mismanagement and wasting of resources, but it's nowhere near as bad out there as it could be, and not as bad as others currently have it.

 

[Trianon]

good talk by Niall Ferguson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a75vNw7l3vw

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

So you believe there is a real scarcity of these items or a manufactured scarcity(ala diamonds)?

There is not a scarcity of natural resources, but rather a manufactured scarcity due to how they are controlled by certain countries, the technologies involved for refining and using them, and limits imposed by funding and bureaucracy.