05-31-2019, 02:37 PM
(02-06-2019, 11:29 AM)Hintergrund Wrote: IMO there are two big reasons the current time doesn't feel like a Crisis (or more like a mix of Crisis and Unraveling - more precise, like a Crisis managed with Unraveling methods, so we get the worst of both):None of the obvious problems of our time (global warming. economy that works for fewer and fewer people. endless pointless wars, low marriage/birth rates have been addressed in way that could generate majority support I think it clear that mean on both sides of the aisle could support policy that actually addressed the last their of these.
1. Fewer children born - when FDR was elected (for better or for worse), the population pyramid of the US really was a pyramid, not a bell or urn. 80% of the G.I. generation voted for him - imagine if there had been twice the number of youngsters when Obama was elected.
2. People live longer. Theoretically, during the first years of the Crisis (let's say it started in 2008) the last Silents in power should have been ushered out. Like the SCOTUS judges under FDR. But enough powerful Silents are still alive and kicking, and they know the rules of the game better than anyone else, unfortunately. I'm thinking of people like Pelosi, but also of billionaires who still run hedgefunds (Buffett, Soros!) - and lobby behind the scenes!
That's the reason we aren't simplifying the laws and other rules. That's the reason even Trump's government hasn't lead to the deportation of some hundred thousand criminal Mexicans. That's the reason the "experts" responsible for the Financial Crisis weren't punished.
As for point 1, this is one of the problems above. Birth rates fell 13% from the 2007 peak to 2018. Last 4T birth rates fell 12% from the 1930 peak. The implication is low birth rate may reflect one of the other points, an economy that works for fewer and fewer people. But the impact of the 4T on birth rates isn't really relevant. There are more than enough millennials (and GenZ) to set their preferred policy (they are the majority of the electorate). They just don't vote. I cannot see this as an explanatory factor for why this 4T doesn't feel like a crisis.
As for point 2 my generational model accounts for rising longevity. Given a 4T in 1929-1946 it forecasts the next 2T to have been in 1964-1981 and the subsequent 4T in 2002-2023. The model is explicitly based on the age of societal leaders defined as the average of the mean ages of Congressmen, Senators, Governors and Supreme Court Justices. It is intended to represent both the senior, old guard (Senators & SC Justices) and the young turks (Congressmen & Governors). Its current value is ca. 62 years implying that the generation centered on 1957 is in charge. Since more of this distribution would fall in the Boomer gen than any other we can say the Boom is in charge. Four years from now the century will move to 1961, at which point GenX will not make up a larger fraction of the distribution and we can say that the Boomers will have left power. (This concept is where the 2002-2023 dates come from).
The issue has been that clear-cut problems (see discussion above) have not been addressed and the end of the 4T is just 4 years away.
One could reject the age-based turning construction described above and revert to the idea of relatively fixed-length turnings that S&H assumed. In this case the average length of a turning is either (2001-1860)/8= 17.6 years or (2008-1860)/8 =18.5 years in length. Implying this 4T either ending about now (2001 start) or about 2026 (2008 start). Anyway you slice it we are more than halfway trough the 4T and none of the obvious problems (global warming, economy that works for fewer and fewer people, endless pointless wars, low marriage/birth rates) have been addressed in way that might achieve widespread support.
That is, neither of these can explain the core issue of why this 4T doesn't feel like a crisis.
My explanation is that this 4T doesn't feel like a crisis because it is NOT a crisis. The S&H theory belongs to a larger category of long cycles. These include Economic cycles (Kondratieff Price and interest rate cycles, stockmarket cycles), War cycles (e.g. Wright, Modelski, Klingberg cycles), Political cycles (Schlesinger, Elazar, Skowronek cycles) as well was as S&H generational cycles. Almost all of these, over a century of historical testing, have failed to predict what would happen. The apparent failure of the S&H cycle (see above) is par for the course.