Acute vs chronic crises
Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 6:24 am
I am a long time reader of your site, and we have traded e-mails in the past. Your site introduced me to generational theory. I ordered the DVD of the movie you mentioned too (I hope you get a cut of sales referred from your website!)
I just read "The Fourth Turning", and I am trying to reconcile your site with the book. I have some questions, if you would be kind enough to answer them. They fall into international / economic and domestic categories;
International / economic
The book predicted a crisis that would precipitate the 4th turning, followed by 20 years of crisis, tearing down the old and making way for the new. I immediately thought of 9/11 as the acute crisis, and that we are now in a chronic crisis to last 20 years. You seem to think that a stock market crash and world war are inevitable. Couldn't the acute crisis be past, and we are looking forward to 20 years of a "Long Emergency" or what I think of as a downward staircase of multiple small crises? This might include multiple stock marked corrections down to a fair value, and multiple low intensity or proxy wars. Manipulated for maximum profit extraction the whole way, of course. There is so much money to be made in the volatility of this crisis, GS won't let go of the levers willingly. They'll have to be pried from their cold, dead hands.
Domestic
Many things will have to change, institutions that were built up over the last 3 generations. The Federal Reserve Bank, Social Security, the medical insurance system, public sector pensions, the Dollar as world reserve currency, the bureaucratic and civil service systems of public sector employment. I would be curious what you think.
I just read "The Fourth Turning", and I am trying to reconcile your site with the book. I have some questions, if you would be kind enough to answer them. They fall into international / economic and domestic categories;
International / economic
The book predicted a crisis that would precipitate the 4th turning, followed by 20 years of crisis, tearing down the old and making way for the new. I immediately thought of 9/11 as the acute crisis, and that we are now in a chronic crisis to last 20 years. You seem to think that a stock market crash and world war are inevitable. Couldn't the acute crisis be past, and we are looking forward to 20 years of a "Long Emergency" or what I think of as a downward staircase of multiple small crises? This might include multiple stock marked corrections down to a fair value, and multiple low intensity or proxy wars. Manipulated for maximum profit extraction the whole way, of course. There is so much money to be made in the volatility of this crisis, GS won't let go of the levers willingly. They'll have to be pried from their cold, dead hands.
Domestic
Many things will have to change, institutions that were built up over the last 3 generations. The Federal Reserve Bank, Social Security, the medical insurance system, public sector pensions, the Dollar as world reserve currency, the bureaucratic and civil service systems of public sector employment. I would be curious what you think.