Winners and Losers of this 4T

[David Horn]

(09-09-2020, 02:11 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-09-2020, 12:45 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-09-2020, 10:16 AM)sbarrera Wrote: As for what kind of country we live in, I would have to say we do live in a country in deep denial. I'm not sure about turning around the Xers but there are plenty of Boomers too in that state.

Tell me about it.  

I live near so many of those folks it's sickening.  At some point, the Kool-Aid has to run out, and then maybe There's a shot.  But it will have to come from them.  Outside persuasion isn't going to work.

David Horn Wrote:

sbarrera Wrote:I do think the COVID pandemic will force us away from neoliberalism - I mean, it already has with the "stimulus" which would be more accurately named if it were called "relief". But I'm not sure how progressive or green we will emerge from the other side; there are other scenarios and we seem to lack collective will. Eric, I know you are very hopeful for the New Age vision coming to be but I detect a more Gilded Age future coming since Americans seem to prefer corporate solutions and favoring the rich.

This may happen, at least for a while, but those solutions don't actually solve anything.  AGW doesn't care.  COVID doesn't care either. And reverse Robin Hood has a defined end point that can't be breached. If there is no viable resolution now, then the 2T will be explosive.

Last time around the high was about the right length, but the awakening ran short and the crisis triggered late during the generational alignment.  We saw the progressive era come to an end with the Chicago Democratic convention and the election of Nixon.  We saw the sick seventy failures start to roll in after that, Watergate, the Fall of Saigon, Stagflation, the Oil Crisis, the Hostage Crisis. The crisis trigger came late.  The result was a very long 3T.  It wouldn't shock me if the awakening came fairly early this time.  We can solve CIVID and racist violent policing fairly quickly.  If there are no further crisis triggers, and they have been rare for major powers, a lot of people will want to get mercenary kind of quick.

But as you say global warming will not wait for the culture.  I anticipate a next prophet generation with green values and this generation is not apt to wait patiently.  In this case the 2T may be early as well as explosive.

The idea of a reverse Robin Hood might make progress in a post racist environment.  The dominant Republicans had elitist and racist tendencies.  Both worked to take wealth away from the working poor and the minorities, which stifled reverse Robin Hood.  We are not ready for all to be equal, but having a right to food, shelter, health care and a retirement plan is viable.  With productivity much greater, resources scarcer, less drive for luxuries and the elites not able to grab a super share of the wealth, we could see a very different economy.  Maybe not in the crisis.  Rethinking the economy is looking like it won't happen under Biden, in spite of the supposedly radical Democrats being accepted into the main line.  Perhaps in your explosive 2T?

Unlike Eric, I don't have a magic system to say how this will go down, but we're still hell-and-gone from enough voting power to push through real solutions.  The youth are getting disenchanted and angry at everyone.  This is not going to get resolved through politics any time soon. I'm not sure the perpetually screwed are willing to wait. Where that goes is hard to say, but the most angry are also the most tech-savvy segments of the populace.