Generational Dynamics World View News

Discussion of Web Log and Analysis topics from the Generational Dynamics web site.
Guest

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by Guest »

Navigator wrote: Wed May 29, 2024 12:45 am I am not a prophet, but can only guess by probabilities.

The political discord in both Taiwan and US make it increasingly likely. Any significant economic event could tip the scales. But we are getting closer and closer. October and April seem to be the best months for weather concerns.
From my Peter Schiff newsletter (whicj for years I rarely bothered to read until now...

America is in trouble.

The Millenials and GenZ as write-offs.
June 24, 2024

[Note from Peter: I didn’t serve in the military like James did… but this is obviously concerning. Like he points out below, for a nation to maintain its power it requires BOTH a strong economy AND a strong military. We talk about the economic challenges all the time. But as James points out, the constant recruiting challenges create a whole new dimension to America’s problems.]

When Publius Licinus Valerianus (known to history as as Valerian) became emperor in 253 AD, the Roman Empire was in the midst of the 'Crisis of the Third Century'— plagues, inflation, escalating conflicts, growing social tensions, rising crime, declining trade, and a struggling economy.

But Valerian had decades of political experience, so everyone thought he would save the day.

Instead, he continued bankrupting the treasury with huge deficits. He raised taxes, debased the currency (which caused inflation to soar), and demanded ideological conformity. Dissenters were arrested and severely punished, and many had their property confiscated by the state.

The imperial borders were also a mess; barbarian tribes were coming across the northern border in what was tantamount to a full-scale invasion of Roman territory, while the Sassanid Persians were invading Rome’s Arabian provinces from the Empire’s eastern border.

Rome’s once-legendary military was also shrinking; in fact, the Empire had a historic military recruitment crisis on its hands.

Rome wasn’t just unable to attract the best and brightest to its ranks; it was practically unable to recruit anyone at all.

Long gone were the days when a career in the Roman legions was considered an honorable profession. Roman citizens were simply no longer interested in serving. And Roman patriotism wasn’t just dead, it was laughed at.

To address these challenges, Valerian expanded the use of mercenaries. He essentially bribed new recruits, including and especially foreigners, offering money, citizenship, and land grants in exchange for serving in the military.

This marked a clear and obvious turning point in Rome’s history: empires last because they sustain their strength— and that strength requires both a prosperous economy AND a powerful military.

And it’s incredibly difficult to have a powerful military when nobody wants to serve.

The US military finds itself in a similar position today. In fact, the US in general is going through a similar period as Rome’s “Crisis of the Third Century”, complete with political scandal and instability, inflation, massive deficits, border incursions, and even a pandemic.

And the parallels between Rome’s third century military and the state of the US military today are quite strong.

Last year, the US military missed its recruitment goal by 41,000 troops, which is a staggering, record-high figure. The active-duty US military is now at its smallest size since 1940.

As a result, mission readiness is down. Fitness standards are being abandoned. Recruiting bonuses have skyrocketed. Some politicians have even suggested offering citizenship to illegal immigrants in exchange for serving in the US military.

One of the biggest reasons for this recruitment crisis is that 77% of young people in America do not meet the basic standards to join the military, whether for physical, mental, or moral reasons.

And that last one— moral— is the fastest growing part: young people aren’t interested in serving because they are being indoctrinated to hate their country.

Teachers at Fort Lee High School in New Jersey and in Berkeley California, were recently caught, for example, teaching that Hamas is a peaceful resistance movement… while Israel is genocidal.

The teacher’s union covering school districts in Portland, Oregon recently published lesson plans which praised Hamas... yet completely failed to mention their October 7 terrorist attack murdering innocent Israelis.

By the time students make it to university, they are filled with hate for their country; it’s so palpable that the supreme leader of Iran, one of America’s biggest enemies, recently praised American university students.

“You are currently part of the Resistance Front,” the Ayatollah told America’s youth, “and have waged an honorable battle despite the relentless pressure of your government.”

The kids in the street wearing their keffiyehs and screaming about their pronouns have no interest in serving.

Meanwhile, the patriotic Americans who filled the military’s ranks for decades have been maligned as “extremists”.

These are the very people who love America so much that they were ready to die for their country— and kill the enemies of their country, which is no less consequential.

Yet instead of embracing the people the military so desperately needs, the government practically lampoons them and their core beliefs.

The Army used to have slogans like “Be all you can be,” and “Army Strong”. Those have been replaced by recruiting ads about soldiers with lesbian moms. Even the CIA recruits by catering to the woke, Diversity & Inclusion crowd.

It’s bizarre to see recruiting ads tailored to radicals who hate their country and have no interest in serving. And gee what a surprise— the woke recruiting campaigns have failed.

Now the Defense Department has resorted to bribing people.

Of course, the military has long offered recruitment bonuses and college tuition in exchange for service. But it was typically one of the reasons to join, not THE reason.

That’s no longer the case. Just ask the soldiers who make TikTok videos about why they joined:

“For a Camaro.”

“To pay my bills.”

“For the money.”

Soldiers have long been a cynical group; I remember this even from my time in the service more than two decades ago. But today it seems to be at a completely different level.

Need more evidence? Allow me to offer Exhibit A— an online recruiting advertisement for the US Coast Guard that I recently saw:

“Think you’re too old or out of shape for the U.S. Coast Guard? Think again.”

image
Bribing people to join only got them so far, and now they are begging people to serve who are too fat and old.

Again, strong nations need both a robust economy AND a powerful military.

We’ve written at length about America’s future economic tsunami; the government itself forecasts the national debt to grow beyond $55 trillion over the next decade. Social Security will run out of money in 9 years. The US dollar is on the road to losing its global reserve status soon.

The challenges plaguing the US military, however, add yet another dimension to America’s problems.

Mission readiness is down. Most major weapons systems, from fighter jets to naval warships, are rapidly becoming obsolete… yet there is no money to replace them. And this recruiting crisis continues to worsen.

I’ve written before that, theoretically, these challenges are fixable. And there is still a very narrow window of opportunity to do so.

But at the moment it doesn’t appear that the people in charge even recognize the problems, let alone have the willingness to solve them.

To your freedom,

James Hickman
Co-Founder, Schiff Sovereign LLC

P.S.

There was an old saying that became popular during World War I: “The situation is serious, but it’s not hopeless.” And I think that’s true today. Things could still change and improve.

But with so many obvious challenges lurking, it would be completely foolish to ignore reality.

Moreover, it would also be a bad idea to become consumed with the negativity or become filled with a sense of dread. After all, there is still a lot of good news and opportunity in the world.

Rational people can acknowledge the future challenges and take sensible steps to reduce obvious risks.
navigator1

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by navigator1 »

A major hinderance to Western defenses is the industrial-military complex.

Defense contractors want Western militaries to buy high dollar items, since that is the best way for them to make a profit. The militaries go along with this, as it is well known that if you want a great post retirement career, you go to work for a defense contractor (who, btw, you helped win large multi million $ contracts while you were in the military).

It is obvious by looking at the Ukraine war that simple drones are currently ruling the battlefield, either as suicide drones, or as targeting instruments for the artillery and its shells.

Realistically, every western military should be creating battalions of drone pilots and building massive inventories of drones that cost a couple of hundred dollars apiece. The reason the are not doing this is that there is no real profit in it for large defense contractors. Instead we are buy billions of dollars worth of crap products like the F35, Littoral combat ships, and obsolete aircraft carriers (now fitted with electromagnetic catapults that have serious reliability problems)
navigator1

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by navigator1 »

While the military-industrial complex continues to produce and develop overpriced armaments of questionable value, there is actually a new private enterprise that is developing the systems needed for the US and the west to defend itself.

Anduril Industries, founded by Palmer Luckey, inventor of the OculusRift Virtual Reality System, is developing the drone type weapons we will need.

You can check out what they have at https://www.anduril.com/
Guest

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by Guest »

And with Biden and Kamala running the country, we might as well flee now...
FullMoon
Posts: 1017
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2020 11:55 pm

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by FullMoon »

spottybrowncow wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2024 11:33 pm Japan and Philippines need to coordinate and start sinking some Chinese vessels as far away from mainland China as possible. India should join in, too.
Make them commit resources on multiple fronts and crush them.
This kind of talk got us into the Iraq War. And that was smaller than a cake walk compared to this sticky situation.
Imagine the immediate cessation of global trade in Asian goods (most 'stuff') and the beginning of Total War. If you read One Second After, don't forget that things will change radically for the worse (or better if you're already fully prepared prepared for the Apocalypse and hoping it happens). This charade with Russia has people thinking war is a game, whilst they gamble with the lives of other people's children. The game is about over and bluffs will be seen. We've been bluffing ourselves in many instances, just like we did with Iraq. But the consequences will be 1,000,000 times worse. Or better if you prefer this world destroyed and most of the people dead.
navigator1

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by navigator1 »

At this point I think our best hope is that Trump picks Burgum as his VP, and then dies in office. Of the four potential leaders we are looking at; Trump, Trump VP, Biden, Harris; Burgum would be far and away the best at leading the country through WW3. He is an honest self-made man who seems to have the country's best interest at heart. This is very far from the truth for the other 3.
navigator1

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by navigator1 »

spottybrowncow wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2024 11:33 pm Japan and Philippines need to coordinate and start sinking some Chinese vessels as far away from mainland China as possible. India should join in, too.
Make them commit resources on multiple fronts and crush them.
Eventually this will be needed, but outright sinking of Chinese ships would tip things over into a war where the Chinese could say the others were the aggressor; as FullMoon points out.

We do need for China to commit a full-out act of war. And I don't think we will be waiting much longer.
FullMoon
Posts: 1017
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2020 11:55 pm

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by FullMoon »

navigator1 wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2024 11:07 am
FullMoon wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2024 11:02 am
spottybrowncow wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2024 11:33 pm Japan and Philippines need to coordinate and start sinking some Chinese vessels as far away from mainland China as possible. India should join in, too.
Make them commit resources on multiple fronts and crush them.
Eventually this will be needed, but outright sinking of Chinese ships would tip things over into a war where the Chinese could say the others were the aggressor; as FullMoon points out.

We do need for China to commit a full-out act of war. And I don't think we will be waiting much longer.
I agree. We're working at it as fast as our large bureaucracy can. We're shutting them down in non military measures while beefing up the military presence. It's probably too little, too late at this point. Nobody took this area seriously until very recently and now that the Chicoms realize that they've been found out, they'll have to let themselves peacefully deflate (probably as fast as they inflated). Or they'll choose what they've already shown, which is align with the other global cancerous malignant powers and fight for their continued survival.
It's going to be a terrible shock and rude awakening for us when this war really starts.
China is looking to initiate a war to divert from internal social and economic stresses as Navigator predicted some years ago
https://youtu.be/_0c4Ugj8pQw?si=oi4vx9btR7zqg3bW
They think that they can have a small scale war and increase domestic cohesion without much external ramifications. Or maybe they have more sinister motivations. We know the Biden family is entwined with Chinese money.
navigator1

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by navigator1 »

Guest wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2024 2:42 am
America is in trouble.

The Millenials and GenZ as write-offs.
Yes, currently only about a quarter of young adults in the USA are considered viable as military recruits.

The big problems are:
1. Overweight
2. Physically Unfit
3. Legal issues (criminal records)
4. Mental Health issues
5. Medical issues.

However, let me point out what would happen should (when) we face a REAL large scale conflict.

Numbers 1 & 2 will not make you un-draftable. You will still get inducted into the service. Your basic training will be a living hell, and you will be put into "special" basic training that will starve you and get you in shape. It will take longer than the regular basic training going on now, but if the military has to put you in a cage to starve you back to normal weight and force you through endurance/fitness training, it will do it. (I am obviously exaggerating here, but not by much).

Number 3 will become much less of an issue. Misdemeanors will be ignored, and Felons (depending on the actual crime) would be put into some jobs where they are probably unarmed. For example, I can't see that bribery (or other non-violent felony offenses) would keep you from getting drafted. Such people may be barred from promotion, but could get past that based on actual performance. Also, penal units for violent offenders are not out of the question, though the USA has not had to do that before (The Dirty Dozen is fiction after all).

Number 4 will also be less of an issue. Right now ADHD and Depression prevents military service. I think this is WAY over diagnosed, and is more of a home discipline issue. The military knows how to fix this. It always has. Nobody is going to get out of being drafted because of ADHD or Depression.

Number 5 does have some grey areas. I think a peanut allergy (or any others where you stop breathing or have a seizure or require an epi pen) would still get you disqualified. As would heart issues or digestive tract disorders (like Crohn's) or really any serious medical issue. Otherwise you are going. Dental issues may prevent people getting in right now (the average state of dental health in young people is appalling), but the military will end up pulling teeth and issuing dentures (they did this in WW2)
Guest

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by Guest »

navigator1 wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2024 11:04 am At this point I think our best hope is that Trump picks Burgum as his VP, and then dies in office. Of the four potential leaders we are looking at; Trump, Trump VP, Biden, Harris; Burgum would be far and away the best at leading the country through WW3. He is an honest self-made man who seems to have the country's best interest at heart. This is very far from the truth for the other 3.
AGREED.
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