The Crisis That Never Ended

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-26-2020, 12:29 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(03-25-2020, 08:24 PM)TheNomad Wrote: But my point being, I find it amazing some are saying "The Crisis" as if it happened last week.  For some, there was no Crisis, for others, there was, for some, The Crisis they have been living for a LONG time.

I'm coming around to the idea that the crisis period started in 2008.  I think there's a difference between the crisis period, a two decade turning, and the actual crisis, which is usually a war that lasts about half a decade - the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War Two.

I'm not sure the actual crisis can be something other than a war.  I'm also skeptical about Covid-19 being the actual crisis, as I don't see how it can last for 5 years.  It might last for 1 year, but I don't think that's long enough for people to forget their political differences - that is, for a true regeneracy.

In addition, I think a crisis requires substantial destruction among the economic and political elites.  I'm not seeing how the Covid-19 crisis destroys Google or Facebook or Microsoft.

I doubt it.  I think there are a legit nominee for a false Trigger and Regeneracy, and a far less legit one.

September 11 generated a big Trigger style change compatible with Pearl Harbor, the more so as we were not eager to get involved in the Middle East before then.  Bush 43 did not call for a full mobilization though.  The American people were asked to address the conflict by going shopping.  He was conservative, so he was trying to put conservative values in place. Crises have gone the other way.  They lost the wars involved, did not fully implement the values change.  The bickering between the red and blue continued.  While there was a values change and lessons learned, I label it as a false and failed Regeneracy.

Obama’s administration did open up with a big deal financial crisis and the end of the stay at home against cut and run debate, but he did not punish the elites that caused the crisis in the public’s mind, and he did not win a clear victory with health care.  He got it passed, but with much doubt and no clear consensus.  He did not open up on other fronts of the blue agenda once he lost the majority in both houses of Congress.  Again, he did not end the debate between red and blue.  Much of what was achieved was undone by his successor.  To my mind, this is not even worth calling a false Regeneracy.  There was no clear consensus that the new values were taking over.

Covid-19 does present a legitamate choice between values.  Either you honor what the blue say about science against fantasy, or you die.  I am guessing most will eventually accept the new values.  Trump will eventually be remembered by cycle theory fans along with Buchanan and Hoover, failed presidents that showed that trying to implement the old values led to failure.

Some previous crisis did destroy the political power of various groups of elites.  The royalist colonial imperialists and the agricultural southern land owners were forced into a very big step back.  The Robber Barrons after the last crisis survived quite well.  While a few of the elite lost power in the stock crash, those who survived survived well without major changes in the style or amount of influence they claimed.  Granted, FDR empowered the people, the labor unions, and established benefits.  The government was on the side of the people rather than the Robber Barons through the Progressive Era.  It wasn’t until the Conservative Era that the Robber Barons started to recover fully, weakening the people’s attempt to get their share of the wealth, shipping jobs abroad, and increasing the division of wealth.  It took a while, but eventually the Robber Barons did quite well.

I do anticipate we will have to return to Tax and Spend to pay for all the emergency measures Covid-19 is forcing.  I do anticipate that to pay for Covid-19, renewable energy, bridges and global warming the Robber Barons and the division of wealth are going to take a big hit.  If we are going to start solving problems again, if big government acknowledges science and recognizes that certain problems exist and have to be solved, we cannot afford to have so much wealth siphoned out of the economy.

So I wouldn’t see the Crisis so much as destroying companies, but rather changing the power of the Robber Barons to influence government.  It would be a tidal shift in class warfare.  They will have more trouble establishing their false reality to dupe the majority into giving them the lion’s share of the wealth.