(05-23-2018, 07:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(05-22-2018, 10:25 PM)TheNomad Wrote:(05-22-2018, 07:10 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Welcome Nomad
I use a generation model to structure the saeculum. Basically I start with a core social moment, the Revolutionary era, which I date from 1774 (1st Continental Congress) to 1789 (Constitution ratified). I define a dominant gen who comes of age (age 21) during this time and subtract 21 from the 1774-89 dates to get birth dates. I then add the average age of political leaders (from Howe's database) to determine when they came to power, which defines the next social moment. I then repeat the process over and over again generation the cycle down through to today. The projected 4T from this approach is 2005-2023, which is based on when Boomers (as predicted by the model, which is slightly different from he S&H dates) are supposed to be in power based on that two century old starting point.
Now empirically, one can make a case for a 4T start in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005/6, 2008, 2010 or 2016. I favor 2008 for the start of the social moment and expect it to last until around 2024. One can fill it out on each end with a couple of cusp years if one likes.
As for what's left in the 4T, well I note that there are many cycles like the S&H one and these offer insight that can be used to flesh out the S&H-derived picture. For example Steve Skowronek has an interesting presidential cycle that I find useful. If you search on his name you can read a bit on it. An interesting twist would be if Trump turns out to the a disjunctive-type president in his cycle.
Then there is the Schlesinger cycle and the associated critical elections. Social moments since the Transcendental 2T has all had a critical election. Current candidates for these are 2008 and 2016. If Trump wins re-election then 2008 is ruled out as a critical election. If he loses then 2016 is eliminated. If the parties just keep on switching every two terms as they have since 1992, then neither will be and this critical election rule will be violated, suggesting that something has changed fundamentally with the cycles.
There is also an economic cycle called the K-cycle, which has been aligned with turnings over the last century. A 3T/4T turning transition is associated with the start of the "winter season" of the K-cycle, which has happened most recently in 1929 and 2008.
Based on all this, I am looking for a recession to start later this year and Trump to not win re-election as a result, thus confirming the 2008 critical election and making a 2008 4T start a very good bet.
I believe the stock market is extremely overvalued and will eventually decline, but it is taking its sweet time. When it does it should go down to 8000 on the Dow or below, which is a long way down, which I think would probably give us another financial crisis and serious recession, making Trump a disjunctive president and the next president a FDR/Reagan-type figure according to the Skowronek model. Such a set of events would serve as an S&H 4T climax like 1781 or 1941, which is usually the last big event of the 4T. It would then sputter out some years later.
That's a lot of information lol.... I appreciate it. I do hope you're wrong. No matter what my political beliefs, no one can really say our economy is not revived. I will say people got left behind along the way. Some never re-entered the job force. I am not personally savvy with market stats. However, the unemployment rate is even a little too low. Inflation is not very present. If there is another financial crisis, it would take a lot longer than 5-6 years to heal again from that. When you get to the end of a cycle, there is the blurring of is it crisis or high -- you are saying 2023-24, if we crash again, that upswing will be really late. Contrarily, there has not been an enormous re-inventing of our civilization. I must say, if we are to crash again, it can only be with such force we may not continue as a people. When I think that, I have to conclude the "soft reboot" has already happened. Now, we are moving into full-on rebuilding from it. There remain some issues of public nature and infrastructure has never been addressed, etc.. all those things might become apparent over that period.
What do you think? I really am here to learn and understand others as well as to stick to my guns if I just don't see it
Trump is horrid. It's not that I am a liberal; if it takes an arch-reactionary traditionalist like Sir Winston Churchill to fend off dangers that fit the "demonic" category, then so be it. We would be doing well enough with an arch-conservative who has the integrity, wisdom, eloquence, imagination, respect for precedent and protocol, mastery of history, and overall decency of Obama. Donald Trump has the "reactionary" part down well, but nothing else.
If you have seen the movies Their Darkest Hour and Dunkirk, then you are reminded in cinematic form of how dangerous a Crisis Era can be if you missed your history lessons. You also recognize how different Churchill was from Trump. Churchill reserved his sharpest deprecation for the Enemy... and recognized that people not conservative (or Conservative) had as much stake in keeping the Wehrmacht, SS, and Gestapo out of Britain as did the usual constituency for conservatism. He also respected the limits of human capacity to endure hardship and the need to preserve old decencies -- like a free press and a competitive politics necessary for keeping him honest. Trump sees any form of opposition to his selfish, bigoted agenda as treachery.
Yes, there were British people in the 1930s calling for making Britain great again -- the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists. Sure -- great in human suffering in concentration camps, torture chambers, and ghettos. By 1940 the BUF was irrelevant (some of its figures, like "Lord Haw-Haw", having gone to Germany and doing treason), and Britain had a focus on survival -- to not be defeated.
The extreme selfishness, arrogance, and ruthlessness of our current President (what Howe and Strauss consider the most dangerous traits of an Idealist generation) could create a Crisis in itself. He could create a political mess without precedent in American history through a bungled foreign policy. In the event of an economic meltdown he might offer solutions completely wrong for America, such as show projects that cost greatly and do little good. (America did such great projects as Hoover dam, the Pasadena Freeway and the original segment of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the George Washington and Golden Gate bridges still useful to this date, but as a rule there was cost-benefit analysis.
The best idealist leaders are erudite, principled, and cultured. They know enough to leave the practical details to people who have shown the flair for the nitty-gritty of enterprise and administration -- and the grunt work to people who will do it out of economic necessity and a recognition that they are the only ones fit to do it.
For this Crisis to go well, Donald Trump really must go, as must his cronies and stooges. Such will take until at least January 2021.
I'll be honest you sound profound in your knowledge. You have good mastery of past cycles which I do not. I'm trying to get more expansive as I read the text or read your post. However, a lot of what you are saying is the same as I have been hearing for many years. With respect it is much fearmongering and simply saying someone is awful or the politics are raw. I've seen so much preaching of doom. I'm trying to look at events and consensus from what I see that are indicators.
I'm not seeing you apply that mastery to the events of this Crisis and what you think they mean/meant in terms of a new arm of the Saeculum passing or coming. You say trump must go for the crisis to end, but that's unrealistic. In the past, there was one side of a political spectrum that pushed out the other. But that doesn't mean a complete bonfire of everyone on a side. They are still around. I called trump a POSSIBLE ABERRATION in the model. But even after reading your post and others, I feel like YES there is a resurrection of neocon that is trying to happen. The vultures are swooping hoping to take advantage of trumps invitation. But that doesn't mean the seachange has not already occurred. I think the GENERAL CONSENSUS (and this is what the authors use to portray a to portray shift in cycle) the GENERAL CONSENSUS is trump is an aberration and I doubt in 2018 elections and definitely not in 2020 elections that a neocon mindset will or could prevail.
We thought it was impossible last time. But the current "powers" (and the general dislike of it) along with the genera consensus will become clear very soon. But one must look beyond the current to prognosticate. It shouldn't be about what we see now. I think that is the whole point of the books.