12-19-2020, 09:50 AM
(12-19-2020, 05:11 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(12-17-2020, 05:09 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It is wise to stop well short of stressing an engineering object, a processing assembly, or a social order even to near its breaking point. So avoid heating some flammable oil beyond its auto-ignition point...
The red philosophy of not solving problems hits home above. War was cost effective once, at least for the winner. We are learning with nukes, insurgency and proxy war that it is cost effective no longer. Elites think speculative booms are great. We are learning, some of us, not so great. Repairing or replacing bridges is prudent. We will get around to it someday. Likely, just after we get around to dealing with the environment.
Yes, collecting oily rags is a bad hobby to have. We do know better. Some of us. The problem is those who never learn.
Some nitpicks:
1. The red "philosophy" comes with blindness to the consequences. Others may see the problem, but those deep into the "red" philosophy dig in deeper, seeing a fault in failure to go along with what to them seems undeniable except to the foolish and wicked. It's in part the Dunning-Kruger effect in which people who become more attached to their follies as they refuse to learn about them. Comforting illusion or inconvenient truth?
2. War is cost-effective for warriors who can plunder, feudal lords who can take over the lands or serfs of another feudal lord across the border or subjugate freehold farmers into serfdom. That of course is in the Agricultural Age, when birthrates were high. The classic horrors of Malthus (war, plagues, and famine) were available to cull the population of any country whose population outgrew its food supplies, which was easy to do with limited land and poor farming techniques.
In more recent times, wars are unattractive drudgery to those who have just undergone the last Crisis War; they usually get disappointing results in a 2T. They become much more attractive when youth are more expendable in a 3T and profit overtakes all as an objective. Then comes the Crisis, and the perception of cost-benefit ration becomes more favorable to war... especially among leaders who have a low regard for the value of human life but bloated ideas of their own competence as leaders.
To be sure, rearmament may not itself cause war; it is lucrative in part because it is exempt from market decisions. It poses one huge risk: despots see the shiny new warships, bombers, fighters, cannons, missiles, and tanks and of course solders as toys.
War is much more unpredictable than its initiators think. The dog-and-pony shows create the image of soldiers and sailors of unqualified loyalty to the Leader. Initial aggression such as subversion and diplomatic bullying can pay off very well, only to intensify the climate of danger. Then come the casualty lists, with the worst ones getting worse and worse. Perception and reality are two different things.
3. It is the speculative booms that lead to financial panics that destabilize politics and often bring the worst in political life. The generational cycles suggests that:
In the immediate aftermath of a financial panic (this is typically when a 3T becomes a 4T), capital is gutted. Because there is no capital to invest in a speculative boom, there is no such boom. Early in a 4T expenditures go into recovery measures, but should there be a major war, the government gets every resource possible invested into the war.
In a 1T there isn't much loose capital lying around. People remember what happened in the last such boom. People have plenty of ideas of how to spend their money. Economic inequality is at a minimum, and shortages related to a 4T get resolved. Capital goes into plant and equipment, into real estate for common use, and perhaps some infrastructure.
In a 2T life, or at least culture, gets less materialistic. People try to 'find themselves' and trade off drudgery of the factory for something less likely to create things in favor of creating something more abstract and 'meaningful'.
In a 3T people quit pretending that there is any noble purpose in life, but economic inequality gets more severe. Fewer people have big chunks of money, and people look for easy income. That means speculation.
Every adult generation renounces the speculative boom once it happens, and the children of the last years of the heady boom have their own ideas, vague as they might be, that wild speculation is a good way to go broke. People who have no idea of how the last speculative boom went bad have their own rationales for participation in it. Thus come such rationales as
"It's the only game in town"
"The Good Lord isn't making any more real estate"
"I'll be smart enough to time the market"
"Taxes will eat my gains if I sell out"
"Nothing else pays off adequately"
"We are going into a new era with new rules, and this boom is a portent"
People may not be considering this:
"The only game in town may be a fraud -- a Ponzi scheme or a chain letter".
"Anything can be overpriced".
"You can't realize gains unless there is a buyer"
"A zero or near-zero return from savings is better than huge losses"
"You are better to pay taxes on income than to lack income or absorb losses"
"No, there is no new era with new rules -- just another hustle".
In a 4T, speculative booms are impossible. In a 1T they get crowded out. In a 2T people might get snookered by many things -- but not so much greedy investing. Late in a 3T people do really stupid things and seem to get away for them for a while. The elites aren;t so dumb about speculative booms for about yo years after the last Crash.
4. Rebuilding infrastructure may be crucial to improving the environment.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
