Generational Dynamics World View News

[jmm1184]

** 02-Mar-2022 World View: Response to comments
After I'm gone, very few people will even remember Generational
Dynamics, and many of them will remember it only with scorn and
derision as the invention of an old Boomer fossil. There will be
nobody whose selary depends on keeping Generation Dynamics alive, so
it will die.

I won't let that happen. Who's with me on that?

I tell my students (I'm a history teacher) about generational theory, and so as long as I and they are around, this will not be forgotten!

[Guest]

A few of observations:

1) Russia is losing trucks left and right. Also, I have seen both film and photographs of civilian trucks painted with "Z"s lying wrecked alongside the roads with other destroyed army vehicles. Russia logistics, not good to begin with, appear to be degrading quickly. Most of the analysis that I have seen points to Russia facing defeat, not victory.

2) The Russian military is unprofessional and incompetent.

Even there best units have been defeated: (VDV) troops are being killed by the battalion left and right. No reinforcements supplied to troops after they have secured strategic locations allowing special forces units to be wiped out.

Some units have not been supplied with food, fuel, or ammunition after running out days ago. Russian soldiers loot private homes and supermarkets and abandon their vehicles. Low morale troops don't even scuttle their tanks or fighting vehicles when walking away.

3) Many Russian jet pilots that have been captured are beer belly fat and are dressed like Maytag repairman. Obviously the Russian military does not enforce fitness standards. A lot of young soldiers are also fat and slovenly looking. Ukrainian soldiers, even the militias, look far sharper and better equipped. Russian equipment looks cheap. Video of a captured Russian army tank battalion commander showed a fat and slovenly officer that looked like a homeless person. Ukrainian soldiers in besieged cities look a thousand times better. Patton said that soldiers won't behave like soldiers unless they look like one.

$) Video on social media, including FB, show dozens of newly destroyed jet fighters, attack helicopters, transport helicopters every day. I don't know how many jets and helicopters the Russians have, but they seem to be running out.

6) The city of Khersov is reportedly now back under Ukrainian control

I don't think Russian victory is certain at all.

[MrGuest]

** 02-Mar-2022 World View: Response to comments
After I'm gone, very few people will even remember Generational
Dynamics, and many of them will remember it only with scorn and
derision as the invention of an old Boomer fossil. There will be
nobody whose selary depends on keeping Generation Dynamics alive, so
it will die.

I won't let that happen. Who's with me on that?

I tell my students (I'm a history teacher) about generational theory, and so as long as I and they are around, this will not be forgotten!

I was a history teacher and my students were fascinated by generational theory. I'm certain at least some of them are watching events with these ideas in mind. Also, following the discourse on places like Twitter, Youtube, podcasts, etc. I keep seeing more and more smart people saying things like "no is left who remembers the horrors of a world war." So, the core thesis behind generational theory is being put forth as conventional wisdom. To my knowledge no one has come close to researching this topic as extensively as John Xenakis, who has surpassed Strauss & Howe in term of the depth and breadth of his analysis.

It would be wonderful if somehow some factors unique to our modern world could buck the trend and we could avoid the worse. Still, the mass incompetence, confusion, dishonesty, recklessness and increasing lack of trust in the world at nearly every level is what really solidifies generational theory for me. It's very clear that massive changes occur as people made serious by crisis fade from the scene.

[Tom Mazanec]

Russia might take the Ukraine, but can they keep it? An occupation holding down the country with freedom fighters bleeding them dry seems plausible to me.

[Tom Mazanec]

Putin calls sanctions a declaration of war as Zelenskyy pleads for more aid
Updated March 5, 20228:18 PM ET
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/05/10847643 ... r-more-aid

[DT Subscriber]

So much for Putin controlling the world...

How Vladimir Putin blundered into his biggest economic mistake
As Europe races to turn off the taps, Russia faces ruin

When German Green Robert Habeck entered power, he probably didn’t expect to be drawing up plans to fire up coal stations and extend nuclear plants’ lifespan within months.

Despite a political career fighting coal and nuclear, even the new economy minister now concedes “pragmatism must trump every political commitment”.

“A warmonger is not a reliable partner,” Habeck said following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, admitting there are now “no taboos” in Germany’s energy debate.

The screeching about-turn just three months since the coalition government took charge reveals the long-term economic blunder made by President Putin, even if sanctions are eventually lifted.

Hastening Europe’s shift away from Russia gas risks creating a black hole in Moscow’s budget, consigning Russia to another decade of stagnated growth.

In a bid to loosen Moscow’s grip on supply, Germany is building new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, blocking the $11bn Nord Stream 2 pipeline and planning to speed up wind and solar projects.

Habeck says coal plants will be ready to step in if energy supply is hit - particularly next winter - while the lifespan of nuclear, due to be phased out alongside coal, could be extended.

Leaders across Europe are likely to be thinking along Habeck’s lines: Russia is no longer a dependable supplier of energy.


In just days, Putin has inadvertently engineered a tectonic shift in European energy policy, moving at a faster pace than expected. It risks decimating his oil and gas industry, which accounts for 15pc of Russia’s economic output, over a third of government revenue and around half of exports.

Despite such dependence and the threat of renewables, the Kremlin has made little effort to diversify its economy.

“What we're seeing is a rapid structural realignment away from a dependency on Russian hydrocarbons,” says Benjamin Schmitt, a research fellow at Harvard University and the US government's former European energy security adviser.

“In a single week, Germany has rolled out what amounts to a massive, and long overdue pivot in its energy policy.

“Putin’s illegal aggression against Ukraine is rapidly moving Russia into pariah state territory – not a regime that European nations want to rely on for energy imports any longer.”

As the world’s third-biggest oil producer and second-largest in gas, Russia has become a particularly vital source in Europe.

Around 40pc of EU imports of natural gas come from Russia, with countries such as Germany, Poland and the Netherlands becoming far more reliant in recent decades.

The region’s vulnerability to Moscow’s iron grip on supply has grown while many countries, such as the Netherlands, have wound down their own gas production.

Russia is also a major supplier of oil and coal to Europe - around 27pc and 47pc of imports, respectively.

Just over a week into warfare, however, and companies are already shunning the supply, attempting to find alternative sources that won’t be caught in the crossfire. Russian oil is trading at a discount of up to $20 per barrel compared to crude from elsewhere.

In the short-term, European leaders are thinking about how to keep the lights on next winter if supplies from Russia are disrupted. But in the long-term, a huge price will be paid by Putin as countries wake up and take action over their overreliance on Russian goods.

Leaked documents this week suggested the EU is readying a blue-print for massively shifting the balance of its energy supply. The International Energy Agency believes Europe can feasibly cut imports of Russian gas by a third within a year.

The plan, revealed by Bloomberg, seeks to find new LNG sources from the likes of Japan, India and China; accelerate the rollout of solar energy; introduce minimum gas reserves and push for greater energy efficiency.

Whether the taps are suddenly turned off or Europe’s Russian gas addiction ends slowly, Moscow faces a huge blow to its economy – and coffers.

A hint of the possible damage was modelled by Oxford Economics, which estimates that Russian GDP would take a 7pc hit in a scenario where its gas supplies are restricted and the war continues into 2023. The eurozone faces a 3pc knock to GDP.

Liam Peach, economist at Capital Economics, says the long-term problems already facing the Russian economy from the shift away from fossil fuels, as well as an ageing population, will now hit sooner.

He warns: “There's now going to be this concerted effort to move away from Russia, that’s going to hit quite hard. Although things were looking like they would hit in 10-15 years, it could be sooner than that now.”

Moscow will face “very little income growth”, Peach adds, a shift towards a “very slow growing” economy and “a big black hole in Russia's public finances at some point in a decade's time.”

However, experts say completely weaning Europe off Russian supply will not happen overnight.

Jack Sharples, a research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, says: “What we have seen right now is a step change in attitudes towards commerce with Russia more broadly.”

But he adds: “Given the relatively limited alternative supply options, the only thing that could have been done to reduce European dependence on Russian gas is to reduce consumption of gas more broadly.

“This becomes a question of the energy transition and there we come up against the challenges of how we consume gas.”

While Russia could find new buyers for oil and gas, particularly in Asia, it again faces a race against time.

Last week China and Russian state giant Gazprom signed a 30-year deal for Moscow to supply it with up to 50 billion cubic metres of gas per year. However, Beijing, considered an ally of Russia, has refused to support - or condemn - events in Ukraine and many stress a shift to new buyers will not happen quickly.


Sharples says “the vast majority of Russian gas exports are made by a pipeline to Europe” with links to China “not connected to the rest of the Russian pipeline network”. That means that in the “immediate short term there is no alternative market for them, not for gas.”

He adds: “If the flow of Russian oil and gas to Europe were halted, it would be devastating for the Russian government in terms of their tax revenues and GDP. But it would also be devastating for the European economy.”

Meanwhile Putin has shown little interest in diversifying its economy even as peak oil and gas demand looms and countries move to clean energy.


Richard Connolly, a Russian economy expert at the Royal United Services Institute, says little action has been taken despite a “lot of talk about the need to diversify and modernise”.

Russia would find it difficult to substitute all of the gas it sells to Europe as it would take Moscow “a long time to find alternative markets in the same way that it will take us a long time to get off it”, he says. “If tensions remain high, they both may make the effort to do it.”

Putin already had little answer to the economic challenges Russia was facing. By forcing Europe’s hand, those problems will hit sooner and harder than many feared.

[John]

** 06-Mar-2022 World View: Putin failure within three weeks?

There was a military analyst on ABC news this morning who said that
Russia's army is doing so poorly that they will be totally exhausted
in three weeks, and the Russian economy will be in the toilet, so
Putin will be forced to negotiate, even if it humiliates him.

[Tom Mazanec]

Would Putin survive such a humiliation?

[FullMoon]

** 02-Mar-2022 World View: Response to comments
After I'm gone, very few people will even remember Generational
Dynamics, and many of them will remember it only with scorn and
derision as the invention of an old Boomer fossil. There will be
nobody whose selary depends on keeping Generation Dynamics alive, so
it will die.

I won't let that happen. Who's with me on that?

I tell my students (I'm a history teacher) about generational theory, and so as long as I and they are around, this will not be forgotten!

I think GD has a very good chance of breaking on through to the other side. Any of us who live will be a part of the generation who says "Never Again". And possibly, with this knowledge in hand together with new technologies, it won't end so badly next time.
John, your life's work has not been in vain. You will be a great historical figure at least in this field. And for the sake of our children's children, we can only hope that these lessons will be learned and actually put into practice.

[FullMoon]

** 06-Mar-2022 World View: Putin failure within three weeks?

There was a military analyst on ABC news this morning who said that
Russia's army is doing so poorly that they will be totally exhausted
in three weeks, and the Russian economy will be in the toilet, so
Putin will be forced to negotiate, even if it humiliates him.

I'm assuming that if mainstream media is bleating this line, then it's probably something more closely resembling the opposite. The propoganda war is quite intense at present.