11-22-2023, 08:47 PM
Remember: for all the talk of apocalypse in a 4T, a 4T is itself a transition. 4T apocalypse is eventually unsustainable because destructive revenge and pervasive regimentation become unsustainable. A 4T is in part the replacement of 3T values with 1T values."Every one for himself" gives way to "no man is an island". Slow and steady as an objective in economic life replaces the desire for a "killing in the market". People begin to accept low-yield, illiquid long-term investments instead of high-risk, high-return investments that are highly marketable... until some panic as in 1857, 1929, or 2008 after which the high-flying assets crash and burn in the final stage of the 3T. In a 1T people save, buy life insurance, and invest in single-family housing. It is telling that the Dow-Jones never reached the once-heady values of the speculative boom in the late summer of 1929 until 1952, and even then with much-deflated money in an era of higher taxes on 'unearned' incomes (dividends and interest). Economic results tend to even outin contrast to the wide dispersion of a 3T. In corporate board rooms, investments in plant and equipment become preferable to mergers and acquisitions.
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.
