Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

[Higgenbotham]

Descent

Chapter 33 - The disorganisation process

Boom and bust

...

Clearly, the present boom will not
last forever or even for more than a few years. By
the same token, the next economic downturn may
be equally transient and not necessarily the
immediate prelude to collapse. The descent has
some way to run, and world economies could go
through several more cycles of boom and bust
before the dark age arrives.

The worse the busts are, the longer the descent
is likely to take. A bust acts like a miniature dark
age, forcing people to take a more realistic view of
things, and to work harder while expecting less.

The Phoenix Principle and the Coming Dark Age by Marc Widdowson, 2001

As with the topic of the high tech companies and how they stuff their coffers with cash, John has also written about declining innovation in the generational cycle on his main site - the "Crusty Old Bureaucracy Theory".

The "Crusty Old Bureaucracy" Theory

...

A Great Depression is, like war, another of "nature's ways" of renewing a society. When poverty is rampant and the unemployment rate is above 25%, as it was in the 1930s, then not rocking the boat is impossible. Thousands of businesses will shut down, eventually to be replaced by new businesses that are more efficient. Governments at all levels will be forced to shut down and cut back on all its agencies, because the level of tax collections will be way down. Similar observations will be true for educational institutions, labor unions, non-profit institutions, and so forth.

Organizations in all sectors will disappear, as they did in the 1930s. The ones that survive are able to do so only by completely reinventing themselves, and accepting inevitable cutbacks in all but the most essential jobs, and letting employees in non-essential jobs go to fend for themselves. That's how society renews itself.

...

Today, the Fed is acting to prevent these massive results by flooding the economy with money -- by keeping the federal funds interest rate close to 0%, and possibly by repurchasing long-term bonds. Businesses that are close to bankruptcy can often borrow cheap money and keep going. People who are close to bankruptcy can often borrow against credit cards, which pass along the low interest rates to their customers.

So we're seeing a different effect on people's lives of the massive stock price drop than we saw in the 1930s. In the 1930s, people went bankrupt and homeless. Today, people and businesses are going massively into low interest rate debt.

It's not known what effect this will have in the long run. In the optimistic scenario, it will give businesses time to change to produce 21st century products, instead of the old 20th century products. In the pessimistic scenario, it will keep the "crusty old bureaucracy" in place a few years longer, thus causing an even harder fall when the fall finally comes.

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... ession.htm

Both Widdowson and John have written about the negative long term effects of interventions to postpone the natural economic cleansing and regenerative process. It's been my guess that by postponing this process all the way to 2023, 94 years after the 1929 crash, that any regenerative process that does take place after a more devastating crash will not be able to take the economy to new highs. Of course, I don't know that and that is another reason why this is a Dark Age Hovel in The Mixer.

Why is there a second horizontal phase?

It's acknowledging that the decline won't be uniform. There will likely be periods of intense crisis followed by periods of slow decline, stability or improvement. The picture should show more than one such cycle.

[aeden]

Your the first read in the morning. No more than second H.
The second phase is here as the long count file to phase four seen long ago also.
The thought map posited past a starboard tilt was even beyond the Hasbro memes who are
in many real regional terms trying to survive Hadrian's Curse. Once in a while you meet
a few and yea I dropped an Benjamin to get some get some kids to shelter just as
I supported that Muslim Girl in a abandoned Olive grove left for dead and the Pastor who got that vision
to get Her. I was armed so the Kids and Grandkids could sleep when they let the lunatic
out period who was contracted in prison and early released to kill two Women and five kids.
Gods mercy alone we walk in His shadow in the day and at night hear to times to do
what was wanted when another stopped by.
You H are no different than any other soul who journeys in His garden.
Never are you forsaken or not seen. The left is deracinated and given over just as bad as the
right who are just as forsaken since intent is known here to events I can convey is already a bent of
mind to what we already view. They came from trees and before that mud muddle hit by lightning. Priceless.
Evil is as real as the ones the Light removed and they know what is coming for them.
Not my problem busy in the short interlude. Short or Long.
Yes.

[Higgenbotham]

Your the first read in the morning. No more than second H.

Some may wonder why I write here (in this Hovel).

Obviously, it's not to get wide readership or to convince anybody of anything, but spottybrowncow touched on it when he said he hopes I have grandkids some day. This is being written for (or maybe more accurately keeping in mind) my young daughter before I forget it. When she gets older, I will be using this for some of the lessons I plan to teach. With the passage of time much of it may look stupid or irrelevant and maybe some of that will be discussed too and why. Lessons on how blind I was and what to watch for.

Which reminds me. It was discussed here that I was part of the longest running investigative report ever done by Fox 6 in Milwaukee up to that time. There were 3 segments of about 6 minutes each and it was about employees who blew the whistle on corruption in state government. I was in one of the segments. From what I could estimate, 60,000 people would have watched it. My name was featured prominently in the report and my phone number was in the book and on the Internet. I was curious as to who would call as a result of the report. There were 4 parties that called. The first was the EPA in Washington. There were 3 people on the phone from EPA. They called me at home. They said that normally they would not make a phone call like that (they were almost apologetic) but they were so appalled by what they saw that they wanted my suggestions. I gave suggestions to them and they followed up. The second was an auditing branch of the state government. It was a similar conversation and they also followed up to clean out the corruption. The third was a woman who wanted to go out on a date. The fourth was a citizen, an old woman who was about 80 years of age. She asked me for a copy of the tape to show her grandkids. In her words as I can best remember, she said there is a thread that runs through humanity that never dies and that she wanted to use that tape to demonstrate that to her grandkids and discuss it. The conversation was very brief, I gave her the tape and she returned it maybe a week later and thanked me.

My take on the above is that the government employees who contacted me were operating under the auspices of corrective systems put into place by previous generations. The 80 year old woman was part of those generations. Nobody else cared much, at least not enough to contact me as a concerned and engaged citizen. That was 20 years ago.

Meantime, getting back to the events of the day here on the GD forum, consider this:

You are correct, this place has become an echo chamber, and the only ones allowed to have an opinion are those who agree with a select few.

It's not an exchange of ideals, or thoughts, that are not agreeable to you and the other arbiters.

Hmm…. S&H seems to indicate that the crisis problems problems will be solved, and that the old concepts rejected. Common sense gun regulation to stop the spree killing? Feminine health care? Jailing criminal presidents? Racial equality in law enforcement? Containment? Collapse by the old guard?

Perhaps that is what voting blue will get you? The Republicans seem to have chosen the wrong side in every crisis issue. It has gotten to be that whenever they do occasionally vote for the benefit of the American people, it gets labeled a bi partisan issue as the Democrats are already there.

You are so clueless, it is truly sad.

Butler has his far left Polyticks echo chamber and is happy with it.
I have my Dark Age echo chamber and am happy with that.

Yes, I have my Dark Age echo chamber and am happy with that.

The Chechen guest talked about waterborne infection during the Siege of Grozny a couple of years ago. That's what almost killed him. Not Russian bullets or artillery, infection.

Another reason why I am here.

Generally, from the Guests on this thread, I'm keeping these observations in mind:

2. Infectious diseases, waterborne and otherwise, are going to be a significant problem going forward.

[Higgenbotham]

“In the grand scheme of human existence, it wasn’t that long ago that we got along just fine without plastic,” Simon points out. This is true. It also wasn’t all that long ago that we got along just fine without Coca-Cola or packaged guacamole or six-ounce bottles of water or takeout everything. To make a significant dent in plastic waste—and certainly to “end plastic pollution”—will probably require not just substitution but elimination. If much of contemporary life is wrapped up in plastic, and the result of this is that we are poisoning our kids, ourselves, and our ecosystems, then contemporary life may need to be rethought. The question is what matters to us, and whether we’re willing to ask ourselves that question.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023 ... ket-newtab

This gets straight to what came to mind last night about the next phase of innovation as the world enters the new dark age. We see that innovation in the classical sense that it is thought about in an expanding industrial society is likely starting to slow. There are types of innovation besides technical innovations such as social and political innovations that will probably lead the world out of the dark age some centuries hence. Then there is what the article above suggests, which could also be thought of as innovation, or innovation in reverse. What technologies and products to throw away and what to keep in a world of scarcity. Also, how to salvage the material that is available that could have previously been considered garbage.

Also, I've been intending to comment on the 6 excerpts I posted from his book but haven't gotten around to it yet. I posted those to provide another view on the coming dark age and also because many of the topics he covers in those excerpts have been discussed and debated here.

The 6 excerpts from Marc Widdowson's book The Phoenix Principle and the Coming Dark Age, in the order posted, discuss these topics:

Characteristics of Economic Descent
World Economic Order and Whether the Dark Age will be Global
Neo-Barbarian Invaders will Destroy the West
Fragmented Spirituality of the Descent will Leave People Wanting
Giant Firms will Fail and there will be an Informal Economy
When the Descent Culminates in Collapse, Every Remaining Nuclear Warhead may be Exploded

That should wrap up Characteristics of Economic Descent. I did Neo-Barbarian Invaders will Destroy the West previously and they are destroying France this week. Probably Giant Firms will Fail and there will be an Informal Economy would be the next logical one to look at.

[Guest]

The globalists will be well pleased at the fruits of their work. Annually, hundreds of thousands of young single men - who have been brainwashed into believing the Western nation state and its horrid history of slavery and colonialism are the source of all their problems - pour into Europe through what are laughably called borders, ensuring much more of this in the years to come.

One day, the “only solution” to the chaos will be China-style control of citizens, enforced through official digital currencies, “vaccine” mandates, and military-controlled lockdowns. Even just ten years ago such a dystopian future was unimaginable.

Vote Reform in the UK. For Le Pen in France. For BBB in Holland. Et cetera. This is the last chance saloon.

[aeden]

EU is on the brink of another Socialist Bankruptcy as 1/6 of the Industrial backbone is leavings and already gone.
The greens imploded the zone as material input cost basis. Plants are already set in Asia for free cash flow to survive.
It is not different this time. They are not able to fathom one stick and three carrots since 1980 anyways used on them.

[Higgenbotham]

The globalists will be well pleased at the fruits of their work. Annually, hundreds of thousands of young single men - who have been brainwashed into believing the Western nation state and its horrid history of slavery and colonialism are the source of all their problems - pour into Europe through what are laughably called borders, ensuring much more of this in the years to come.

One day, the “only solution” to the chaos will be China-style control of citizens, enforced through official digital currencies, “vaccine” mandates, and military-controlled lockdowns. Even just ten years ago such a dystopian future was unimaginable.

Vote Reform in the UK. For Le Pen in France. For BBB in Holland. Et cetera. This is the last chance saloon.

The successful, developed west is under an enormous threat from the underdeveloped countries of the world. There will not be a 3rd world war as such, but a slow motion war of attrition in the form of mass illegal migration swamping the first world. It will take decades. It’s already happening In great cities like London and Paris. And it’s irreversible, waved on by the naive lefty, liberal, woke Marxists aided and abetted by our left leaning judicial systems which are strangling the sophisticated developed west.

Yeah, this is essentially my view as to why it will be hard for nation-state governments - for so long as they might even still exist - to mount an organized and concerted war effort. Looking at France right now, which is probably the leading edge of chaos in the West, their short term focus and effort has to be toward keeping their increasingly restive population under control. It's not clear that a war effort undertaken by France would quell that even if the resources and opportunity are available, which they probably aren't. At the same time, mounting an organized and concerted population control effort requires resources too. Just continuing to have the transfer payments and food available to control the increasing and increasingly restive populations in nation-states drowning in debt as interest rates rise seems to be something that will be difficult to pull off. That's not to say war won't be a factor - it is already happening - but how much compared to other things, especially after the leftist governments run out of other people's money to make transfer payments as producers are also being squeezed. A government saying they have a new digital currency doesn't put potatoes on the shelves if they're not already there. Then we see if that government survives once it gets to that point.

My more specific predictions would be:

• There will be a major global financial panic and crisis. Supply chains will break, resulting in unavailability of critical raw materials and components. Global trade will begin to shut down. As it begins to become apparent that the supply chain linkages are permanently broken, the global interlinked financial markets will shut down and cease to exist. This will all happen very quickly. It will not take years from the initial panic.
• The focus of governments will turn to controlling their panicked and hungry populations. Due to lack of availability of imported goods and adequate storage "sufficient to reconstitute" a system consistent with nation state government, this will prove to be too little too late and most government will devolve to the local level as populations lose faith in their national governments and the national governments lose the resources and ability to control their populations.
• There will be no large scale nuclear war. Instead, the population will be culled through starvation, local strife (including settling of long-standing scores) and disease. Wave after wave of pandemics will sweep the world.
• Similar to national economies and governments, centralized utilities will fail or become so decrepit as to be unsafe and unusable. All centralized utilities including the power grid will shut down permanently.
• The initial worldwide kill rate during the first couple decades following the financial panic will exceed 90%. The global population will be in the range of a few tens of millions when the bottom is hit in two or three centuries. Similar to the last dark age, the world's largest cities will have a population on the order of 25,000 and a large town will be 1,000.
• Life during the coming dark age will be similar to the last dark age but worse due to environmental damage and pollution.

However, before getting to Widdowson's excerpt "When the Descent Culminates in Collapse, Every Remaining Nuclear Warhead may be Exploded" I will consider and present more information, including information and opinions that indicate he may be right. This will be the last excerpt I will get to because I think it is the most difficult.

[Higgenbotham]

As an example, we know George HW Bush (41) was Skull and Bones and Head of the CIA prior to agreeing to become VP under Reagan. After serving under Reagan, to the best of my knowledge, he was the first president to openly use the phrase "New World Order" with the intent of introducing it to the public. Yet he fully subordinated himself as VP to Ronald Reagan, who was an outsider conventionally speaking, and broke down while delivering his eulogy at Reagan's funeral, when he stated, "I learned more from Ronald Reagan than I did from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life..."

https://youtu.be/FTFOLdcBq2Q?t=177

The reason I said "was an outsider conventionally speaking" is that Reagan was a member of Bohemian Grove, as was George HW Bush. I think it would be hard to find any references to that fact in the mainstream press, either then or now. It's reasonable enough to say Reagan was a Beltway outsider but that's not the whole story.

Ronald Reagan avoided the Grove during the 1980 presidential election

Ronald Reagan was officially inducted into the Bohemian Club in 1975, the year before he tossed his hat into the 1976 presidential campaign.

He belonged to the Owl's Nest Camp, which he shared with execs from United Airlines and a number of other companies that were powerful in the 1970s.

During the 1980 presidential election, Reagan avoided the Bohemian Grove because he thought he "might be an embarrassment to our fellow Bohemians because of the round-the-clock surveillance by the press. They camp down at my driveway these days," according to "Reagan: A Life in Letters."

In his Spy magazine expose, Weiss reported that he was able to meet with Reagan in the Owl's Nest Camp. They made some small talk, and Reagan off-handedly confirmed that he had assured Nixon he "wouldn't challenge him outright for the Republican nomination in 1968."

Weiss wrote that Reagan gave the lakeside talk that year and took questions from club members afterwards, during which he called for four year terms for congress members and greater regulation of the press.

George H. W. Bush bunked with executives from influential companies

George H.W. Bush joined the club in 1973, while chairing the Republican National Committee during the Watergate scandal.

Domhoff writes that Bush belonged to a camp called Hill Billies, along with top executives from Bank of America, General Motors, and Procter & Gamble.

Bush also brought along a future president as a guest on one trip to Bohemian Grove. He introduced his son — George W. Bush — at a lakeside talk in 1995, saying that he'd make a great president, according to Domhoff.

https://www.businessinsider.com/bohemia ... nts-2018-3

Finally, as I had recalled, it seems to be generally accepted that it was Bush who coined and introduced the phrase "New World Order" to the public.

Abstract: The phrase new world order has been widely used on the political scene since first publicly coined by former president, George Bush. Although quickly adopted as the catch phrase of the 1990s, few people actually agree on what new world order really means. Since new world order, while elusive in definition, is most frequently used to describe aspects of the post Cold War international scenario, understanding the true meaning of that phrase is critical to projecting our future strategic environment and prospects for the new millennium. The attempt of this paper is to reveal that true meaning. Historical analysis will be the primary methodology used to reveal the meaning of George Bushs specific terminology describing his concept of new world order. In a January 16, 1991 speech, he identified the opportunity to build a new world order where the rule of law governs the conduct of nations, and in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the UNs founders. These words will be dissected and historically analyzed to develop a clear picture of new world order. Additionally, the primary mechanisms for implementing new world order will be addressed and finally, specific strategic environment and national security implications will be drawn from those conclusions.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA398504

We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective -- a new world order -- can emerge: a new era -- freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we've known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak. This is the vision that I shared with President Gorbachev in Helsinki. He and other leaders from Europe, the Gulf, and around the world understand that how we manage this crisis today could shape the future for generations to come.

The test we face is great, and so are the stakes. This is the first assault on the new world that we seek, the first test of our mettle. Had we not responded to this first provocation with clarity of purpose, if we do not continue to demonstrate our determination, it would be a signal to actual and potential despots around the world. America and the world must defend common vital interests -- and we will. America and the world must support the rule of law -- and we will. America and the world must stand up to aggression -- and we will. And one thing more: In the pursuit of these goals America will not be intimidated.

https://bush41library.tamu.edu/archives ... apers/2217

By way of example, as previously said, I avoid these kinds of rabbit holes because there is, I feel, little to be gained by burrowing down into them. Having said that, I'll rehash some general ideas on these topics.

It can been seen from what I posted on the previous page that every elected Republican president for the past 55 years has come out of Bohemian Grove, with the exception of Donald Trump. In addition, it can be seen that deals were cut, candidates introduced, and so on. Nobody on this forum has pointed that out, based on a search for "Bohemian" up in the search box. I've been aware of it, but haven't, since there are more important and relevant issues to discuss, in my opinion. To my knowledge, John hasn't tried to steer the forum away from uncovering facts like this and I don't believe he has any particular bias against this type of information being posted. In other words, it's not anything John posted that made me reticent to discuss or point this out; it's just way, way down the list of important topics. And obviously that's the case for everyone else here too, as I'm sure many are aware of this.

Now let's say I am in a workplace having a conversation with a colleague and say, "Did you know that every elected Republican president for the past 55 years has come out of Bohemian Grove, with the exception of Donald Trump? Also, in Bohemian Grove, deals were cut, and new candidates were introduced who eventually went on to become President."

This is pretty much an established fact, but how would that go over? I can almost guarantee that it would go over like a lead balloon. Showing the veracity of it would not appeal to many people. Instead, it's likely that I would be labeled a conspiracy theorist.

Why is that? I think the reason for that is, while the above is based on solid research, most similar conjectures are not. One reason, and a primary reason that most similar conjectures are not, is that most circumstances from which similar conjectures arise are shrouded in secrecy. There are necessarily a lot of gaps in information to fill in. That makes them the second of the 3 types of information that Donald Rumsfeld outlined: "Things that you know you don't know." So when I say I "avoid these kinds of rabbit holes" that's what I am mostly talking about, that it's extremely difficult to go down these rabbit holes and find the truth, particularly when something happened a long time ago and everyone who was involved is dead, and no new information has really surfaced except perhaps for information which consists of things "that you know you don't know" are true or not.

All of this is pretty basic and just an introduction to the topic of why I don't go down rabbit holes.

In the next post, rather than talk about rabbit holes, which tend to be more emotional topics, I will talk about the sources of rumors, which are more common and everyday occurrences but seem to stem from the same elements of human nature. In doing so, I will use my own experience rather than research what experts on rumors have to say about them.

[Guest]

Blame us white people for the systemic institutional racism we push. It’s never their fault. Always our fault.

[Higgenbotham]

Blame us white people for the systemic institutional racism we push. It’s never their fault. Always our fault.

Yes, this type of thing is a source of rumors. I will be getting to this.