4T? What 4T?

[Anthony '58]

We have the same economy as in the 1920s, the same hard sectionalism as in the 1850s, and the same faddish hostility toward taxes as in 1765-1775 - all late Unravelings.

Forget about whether we have achieved the regeneracy yet.  We haven't even achieved the catalyst yet!

[Odin]

(05-15-2016, 09:52 AM)Anthony Wrote: We have the same economy as in the 1920s, the same hard sectionalism as in the 1850s, and the same faddish hostility toward taxes as in 1765-1775 - all late Unravelings.

Forget about whether we have achieved the regeneracy yet.  We haven't even achieved the catalyst yet!

We have a demagogue businessman pandering to Fascist sentiments as the Republican candidate. On the Democratic side Hillary almost got knocked off her coronation carriage by somebody who openly calls himself a Socialist. People are absolutely enraged at the Establishment and you don't think we are 4T? This whole election campaign so far screams "4T". Trump and Bernie would not have happened in a 3T. Trump in a 3T would have been Ross Perot 2.0. Sanders in a 3T would have gotten the same support as Dennis Kucinich.

[Emman85]

We don't have the same economy as the 1920s, the only thing that's happened is economic inequality has increased since 2008(the most agreed upon catalyst. I can see some parallels to the 1850s, many members on this forum even consider that decade as part of the Civil War 4T(I personally don't). All this does is point to a pre regeneracy early 4T phase.

Overall I agree with Odin, 2016 on many fronts screams 4T, we would have to be in a social moment. Many pundits are already making comparisons between '16 and '68, the last social moment. Remember in the 4T the supply of order is still very low but the demand for order rises, that is exactly what is happening in the US and across Europe currently. Trump especially embodies this demand for a new civic order, he(and Sanders) is seen as an insurgent against The Establishment, I have personally never seen an election year like this where both left and right have been "red pilled" against their own parties.

[Anthony '58]

Trump is no fascist - indeed, he is a Malthusian populist who has just blown out the Social Darwinists and taken over their party.  As for Hillary, she has a 3 million popular vote lead over Sanders - so she almost lost to him?  I think not.

And the economy is even worse than in the 1920s, in that the income and wealth inequality are even greater - and Trump wants to recreate the boom of 1926 (unemployment 1.9%) by cutting off immigration and driving wages up.  As for the sectionalism: In the 1850s, we were on the brink of civil war over slavery.  Now we're on the brink of civil war over wedding cakes and bathrooms!  So the mid-2010s are the late 1850s on both steroids and HGH (Generations observed 1857 as the start of the Civil War Crisis, however).

And the demand for order is rising?  It's plummeting - at least in the 1980s the right wasn't clamoring for abolishing the IRS altogether - which would mean at least a national sales tax, and maybe even a per-person head tax.  They were content with a 28% top tax rate; even the "populist" Donald Trump would make it 25%.

[Kinser79]

Anthony, Odin here calls anyone who isn't to the Left of LBJ a fascist so take him with a block of salt.

As for the clamor for order, I would argue that order does not necessarily require the federal government to establish it. If anything the focus is moving towards the states and a return to federalism as the federal government is seen to be largely worthless (which it is).

[Galen]

(05-16-2016, 08:45 AM)Anthony Wrote: And the demand for order is rising?  It's plummeting - at least in the 1980s the right wasn't clamoring for abolishing the IRS altogether - which would mean at least a national sales tax, and maybe even a per-person head tax.  They were content with a 28% top tax rate; even the "populist" Donald Trump would make it 25%.

Actually, it is the ability and confidence in the state to deliver order that is in question.  In the twenties the US was a creditor nation but now it is the largest debtor.  The ability of the Federal Government to tax and borrow are at or close to their maximum levels.  That leaves printing, despite the protests of economic illiterates, which can only take you so far.  When the dollar is no longer reserve currency of the world the US will have no choice but to scale back its spending.

This is probably part of a much longer term trend.  See the works of James Dale Davidson and Lord Rees-Mogg for a better explanation.  They were about twenty years ahead of events when they wrote The Great Reckoning.

[Mikebert]

Check out the thread above: Is it the regeneracy yet?  My most recent post has it all spelled out, using three different cycles to trianglulate on our current position.  The only problem is it calls for Trump to win, which I have a hard time believing.

[pbrower2a]

We had a false resolution with the Tea Party movement. It has been good at consolidating power for elites, but bad at everything else.

[Kinser79]

(05-19-2016, 09:38 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: We had a false resolution with the Tea Party movement. It has been good at consolidating power for elites, but bad at everything else.

Not so fast there skippy.

If one subscribes to micro-turning theory and also that the 4T was catalyzed around 2005, with a full blown kick off around 2008 then we would see the start of both the Tea Party and Occupy movements as clearly indicative of micro-2Ts. Which would mean that we are in the deep throws of a micro-3T right now. With the micro-2T coming a bit early.

In short the election is centered around a culture war, much like the larger 3T previous itself was centered around a culture war.

[pbrower2a]

(05-16-2016, 12:40 PM)Galen Wrote:

(05-16-2016, 08:45 AM)Anthony Wrote: And the demand for order is rising?  It's plummeting - at least in the 1980s the right wasn't clamoring for abolishing the IRS altogether - which would mean at least a national sales tax, and maybe even a per-person head tax.  They were content with a 28% top tax rate; even the "populist" Donald Trump would make it 25%.

Actually, it is the ability and confidence in the state to deliver order that is in question.  In the twenties the US was a creditor nation but now it is the largest debtor.  The ability of the Federal Government to tax and borrow are at or close to their maximum levels.  That leaves printing, despite the protests of economic illiterates, which can only take you so far.  When the dollar is no longer reserve currency of the world the US will have no choice but to scale back its spending.

Your money, unless it is super-dollars printed in North Korea or other questionable sources, is government debt. So long as the printing of debt does not exceed productivity, there is no inflation. Of course the printing of money can only go so far; just look at Venezuela. Venezuela should be the third-richest country by GDP per capita in the Americas, but the country is a mess with a breakdown of social order. The oil wealth is going to kleptocrats.

Quote:This is probably part of a much longer term trend.  See the works of James Dale Davidson and Lord Rees-Mogg for a better explanation.  They were about twenty years ahead of events when they wrote The Great Reckoning.

[/quote]

Yeah, sure. For the last fifty years or more the American economy has been on the brink of collapse unless it returned to the Gold Standard and the economic norms of the 1920s or earlier. How has that prophecy worked?

[Galen]

(05-21-2016, 06:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Yeah, sure. For the last fifty years or more the American economy has been on the brink of collapse unless it returned to the Gold Standard and the economic norms of the 1920s or earlier. How has that prophecy worked?

You have linear expectations in a non-linear world.  What the consequences of a fiat monetary system are really not in question, only the timing is.

[Odin]

(05-21-2016, 08:24 AM)Galen Wrote:

(05-21-2016, 06:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Yeah, sure. For the last fifty years or more the American economy has been on the brink of collapse unless it returned to the Gold Standard and the economic norms of the 1920s or earlier. How has that prophecy worked?

You have linear expectations in a non-linear world.  What the consequences of a fiat monetary system are really not in question, only the timing is.

"Jesus is about to return, I promise!!!!"

[pbrower2a]

(05-21-2016, 08:24 AM)Galen Wrote:

(05-21-2016, 06:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Yeah, sure. For the last fifty years or more the American economy has been on the brink of collapse unless it returned to the Gold Standard and the economic norms of the 1920s or earlier. How has that prophecy worked?

You have linear expectations in a non-linear world.  What the consequences of a fiat monetary system are really not in question, only the timing is.

You missed the irony.

[Kinser79]

(05-21-2016, 08:11 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-21-2016, 08:24 AM)Galen Wrote:

(05-21-2016, 06:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Yeah, sure. For the last fifty years or more the American economy has been on the brink of collapse unless it returned to the Gold Standard and the economic norms of the 1920s or earlier. How has that prophecy worked?

You have linear expectations in a non-linear world.  What the consequences of a fiat monetary system are really not in question, only the timing is.

You missed the irony.

Probably because you've confused irony with idiocy. Every fiat currency has ultimately failed.

[pbrower2a]

(05-21-2016, 08:38 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-21-2016, 08:11 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-21-2016, 08:24 AM)Galen Wrote:

(05-21-2016, 06:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Yeah, sure. For the last fifty years or more the American economy has been on the brink of collapse unless it returned to the Gold Standard and the economic norms of the 1920s or earlier. How has that prophecy worked?

You have linear expectations in a non-linear world.  What the consequences of a fiat monetary system are really not in question, only the timing is.

You missed the irony.

Probably because you've confused irony with idiocy.  Every fiat currency has ultimately failed.

...which is like saying that every person eventually dies, so why struggle?

Plenty of reasons exist for fiat currencies to fail. After a military disaster that ends with an unconditional surrender or a hostile takeover by another country, the old money either becomes worthless or is allowed to be exchanged only at extremely-disadvantageous terms. Any country is likely to face a catastrophic defeat, be taken over by a  neighbor that treats the people of the occupied country badly... with the first step a severe devaluation of the currency.



By 1944 this note could not buy a book of matches. When Douglas MacArthur returned as he promised, this 'funny money' was void. Unlike Confederate currency it does not even have numismatic value.

US currency has had some of its value gutted due to inflation, but slowly enough that people have never been obliged to hoard goods as a hedge against inflation.

[Galen]

(05-21-2016, 08:38 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-21-2016, 08:11 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You missed the irony.

Probably because you've confused irony with idiocy.  Every fiat currency has ultimately failed.

As near as I can tell the half-life of any fiat currency seems to be about twenty-five years.  The US has been doing this since 1971 and the dollar has been propped up by the Cold War and the petrodollar system.  In order to figure out how long the dollar is going to last it is necessary to ask a different question: How long does the petrodollar system have left?

[pbrower2a]

(05-22-2016, 12:28 AM)Galen Wrote:

(05-21-2016, 08:38 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-21-2016, 08:11 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You missed the irony.

Probably because you've confused irony with idiocy.  Every fiat currency has ultimately failed.

As near as I can tell the half-life of any fiat currency seems to be about twenty-five years.  The US has been doing this since 1971 and the dollar has been propped up by the Cold War and the petrodollar system.  In order to figure out how long the dollar is going to last it is necessary to ask a different question: How long does the petrodollar system have left?

The backing of any currency is what one can buy with it, whether it is oil, steel, wheat, electrical power, motion pictures, porcelain, or weapons. Gold is arbitrary, fitting certain values well and others badly. South Korean currency is valuable. North Korean currency is worthless. That has nothing to do with gold reserves.

The US dollar as a fiat currency has done adequately on the whole -- but better as people got used to it. Within ten years America got near-zero inflation.

Petrodollars? Those have themselves been shaky, depending heavily upon the price of oil. Cold War? It's over.

There is no magic in gold. Bismuth would do just as well.

[Kinser79]

(05-21-2016, 10:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: ...which is like saying that every person eventually dies, so why struggle?

Not quite. In general money is not animate unless the commodity of exchange is expressed in goats, chickens and slaves. Rather, any currency that exists purely on the say so of a government (or any other entity for that matter) will eventually fail. Those who control the currency simply can't help themselvs.

Quote:By 1944 this note could not buy a book of matches. When Douglas MacArthur returned as he promised, this 'funny money' was void. Unlike Confederate currency it does not even have numismatic value.

That would be an example of a fiat currency ending due to a governmental entity ending. That does happen but is not the only way a fiat currency ends.

As for numismatic value, as a collector of currency, it does have numismatic value (not a great numismatic value mind you) but some have made a point to collect occupation currency from WW2 not only from the Allies but also the Axis. There are also some who collect Military Payment Certificates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_p...ertificate

I happen to have one such collection focusing primarily on MPCs from the Vietnam era. I happened to have inherited some really good pieces of those enough that I've taken it upon my self to search them out.

Quote:US currency has had some of its value gutted due to inflation,

About 98% since 1913, the bulk of that since 1971 when Nixon unpegged the Dollar to gold because the gold outflows became too great and threatened to cause chaos.

Quote: but slowly enough that people have never been obliged to hoard goods as a hedge against inflation.

Apparently you don't remember the stagflation of the 1970s. That being said, no the US has not had hyperinflation yet--I don't think that all inflation is "Hurr omgz hyper inflationz!!!#$one!". I leave such notions to the economically illiterate. That being said, just because hyperinflation hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that it can't, and the Fed tripling its balance sheets will eventually have to wash through the economy and at best we will experience stagflation.

[Kinser79]

(05-22-2016, 01:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The backing of any currency is what one can buy with it, whether it is oil, steel, wheat, electrical power, motion pictures, porcelain, or weapons. Gold is arbitrary, fitting certain values well and others badly.

Gold has several advantages to other commodities for the backing of a currency, though theoretically one could back their currency with oil, or steel or even electrical power.  The main advantage with gold is that it is easily fungible, is relatively rare and has intrinsic value beyond its industrial uses.  And yes gold has industrial uses, one can obtain more gold by recycling 1 ton of used cell phones than running 1 ton of gold bearing ore.

Quote:South Korean currency is valuable. North Korean currency is worthless. That has nothing to do with gold reserves.

The South Korean Won is backed by a combination of USD, GBP, Euro, JPY and RMB (commonly called the Yuan).  By being directly convertible the South Koreans can purchase raw matterials and will accept those currencies in exchange for finished goods--as well as their own of course.  The SKW is typically not used by a reserve currency except by countries who do extensive trade with South Korea so it is internationally speaking statistically irrelevant.

The North Korean Won is not convertible with any other currency though they will accept RMB for their primary exports which isn't much.

You're comparing apples to potatoes here.

Quote:The US dollar as a fiat currency has done adequately on the whole -- but better as people got used to it. Within ten years America got near-zero inflation.

The US has near-zero inflation by using a measure of cooked books (CPI does not include the following sectors Fuel and Food, which are major economic sectors), and by exporting inflation--that is releasing Dollar Denominated Bonds for foreign consumption because in comparison to Euro, Yen, Pounds or RMB  it has less convertibility problems, also the US is a major trading country, and also oil can only be bought from the Saudis in Dollars.

Quote:Petrodollars?

Oil, aka petroleum, is bought and sold on world markets in USD.  It does not matter if it is bought in Shanghai or sold in Caracas.  Right now the only countries accepting anything else for oil is Russia--they will accept Dollars or Rubles, and Iran who is accepting gold, RMB and Indian Rupees (which I'll probably refer to as INR for the rest of the thread).

Quote:Those have themselves been shaky

This statement indicates that you are out of your depth.  The price of oil doesn't matter, it is that the price of oil is in USD that does matter.  It is only as shakey as the willingness of the US Military to force oil exporting countries to use USD.  I have news for you...we're not going to war with Russia.  Unlike Iraq and Libya they can defend themselves.  The Saudis, Kuwaitis and Venezuelians are on the take, and Nigeria has no better offers (though there have been rumors circulating that they have been getting real cozy with Beijing).

Quote:, depending heavily upon the price of oil.

It doesn't matter except to exporting countries what the price of oil is, as long as it is in dollars everyone needs to buy dollars to put gas in their tanks, buy jet fuel, and fuel their tractors--and in more backwards parts of the world light their homes.  This doesn't even take into consideration that oil is a component factor either in production or transportation of most goods, plastics are almost entirely created from oil.

 

Quote:Cold War? It's over.

Yes, but when the Dollar was unpegged from gold the threat of the big scary USSR made Europe and Japan fall into line.  The end of the Cold War was a major blow to the fiat Dollar as a reserve currency, particularly as Japan and Germany liberalized their financial markets.  That said the Germans would prefer that the Euro never becomes a reserve currency excluding countries that primarily trade with the Euro Zone.  Having a reserve currency has some clear problems associated with it.

Quote:There is no magic in gold. Bismuth would do just as well.

I'm afraid that the industrial uses of bismuth outweigh its potential as a medium of exchange. At least with gold most of the applications it is used for can be covered with by Copper.  Also bismuth does not have a tradition of being used as a medium of exchange unlike precious medals (platinum, gold and silver).

[Galen]

(05-22-2016, 01:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: There is no magic in gold. Bismuth would do just as well.

Probably not.  Repeal the legal tender laws that force people to accept dollars in all transactions in the US.  I bet we would find out real fast what was really money.  I am pretty sure that it wouldn't be Federal Reserve notes or other pieces of paper.