2021: generational tipping point

[pbrower2a]

I was going to post this elsewhere but it was too much a shift from the direction of the thread (which was about music).

I can predict this: that America will come out of the Crisis of 2020 (with the War on COVID-19 as its focus) much changed. The deaths will not be largely of young males as is the case in shooting wars, but people will in general come out of this war with different attitudes on politics and culture. Except for regional effects and ethnic divides in vulnerability it will have pushed people to be more rational, more trusting of credible authority, and more likely to defer gratification. People not so rational, people who trust nobody or trust questionable sources or dubious figures of authority (such as Treacherous Reckless Unconscionable Muddler as President), and less willing to sacrifice hedonism for safety (think also of people who take selfies in dangerous circumstances or in an earlier time were reckless sexually or used IV drugs when AIDS was a death sentence) will be disproportionately among those who die directly or endure shortened lives. Americans of all origins will want economic changes that make America safer from dangerous infections even if such compromises profits and wages. Just imagine how people think of COVID-19 if its deaths correlate heavily to poverty or ethnicity. I expect that the Insurrection of January 6 will also have its effects on political attitudes.

Much that people tolerate in a 3T because it is seemingly profitable activity or harmless fun vanishes when it is shown to bring economic or personal disaster.

[beechnut79]

(02-01-2021, 11:17 AM)mamabug Wrote:

(02-01-2021, 04:25 AM)nguyenivy Wrote: Will the shared experience of being in school & university during the pandemic forcing the switchover to online ed by a generational marker? It seems to match up pretty well as a defining characteristic, so the generation would have birth years around 1998 - 2016 which cuts into the S-H Millennial birth years a bit, with the oldest finishing university about now and the youngest having been in their first year of school last spring when everything switched, and people born after 2016 not remembering either Trump or pandemic (assuming the pandemic ends soon). Given how long this has gone on for, it may make a huge impact down the line, especially with all the resumption & closures going on every so many months. There is bound to be a lot of anxiety around this unstable life from such a young age.

I don't think it will effect those who were in University, the impact of online education on those over 18 is, arguably, less impactful as well as not being as universal experience given that not everyone goes straight to University post-HS.

Those graduating HS this year or later are still in play as being on the Millenial/Zoomer border.  Their lived experience is vastly different from those just one year older.  Greater rates of academic failure, social isolation, depression, suicidal ideation, obesity, child abuse, child hunger, developmental delays, and so on.   This is in addition to the economic instability impacting their families.  

Anecdotal time - I live in a working-to-middle class area that is high immigrant and minority.  My son is a senior at what the district likes to call a 'minority majority school.'   Per him, many of his classmates are either working or desperately trying to find work in order to help keep their families financially solvent.  This was NOT the case just a year ago.  My state has been pretty generous with unemployment, but that is no longer plugging the holes.  IMO, there is a crash coming and we are about to find out it is a lot harder to restart an economy than to shut it down.

Your last sentence brings to mind what is often said regarding smoking—that it is very easy to start yet often extremely hard to quit. But in spite of everything we probably are yet at least nowhere the misery level that the Great Depression produced.

[beechnut79]

(02-01-2021, 12:59 PM)nguyenivy Wrote:

(02-01-2021, 11:17 AM)mamabug Wrote:

(02-01-2021, 04:25 AM)nguyenivy Wrote: Will the shared experience of being in school & university during the pandemic forcing the switchover to online ed by a generational marker? It seems to match up pretty well as a defining characteristic, so the generation would have birth years around 1998 - 2016 which cuts into the S-H Millennial birth years a bit, with the oldest finishing university about now and the youngest having been in their first year of school last spring when everything switched, and people born after 2016 not remembering either Trump or pandemic (assuming the pandemic ends soon). Given how long this has gone on for, it may make a huge impact down the line, especially with all the resumption & closures going on every so many months. There is bound to be a lot of anxiety around this unstable life from such a young age.

I don't think it will effect those who were in University, the impact of online education on those over 18 is, arguably, less impactful as well as not being as universal experience given that not everyone goes straight to University post-HS.

Those graduating HS this year or later are still in play as being on the Millenial/Zoomer border.  Their lived experience is vastly different from those just one year older.  Greater rates of academic failure, social isolation, depression, suicidal ideation, obesity, child abuse, child hunger, developmental delays, and so on.   This is in addition to the economic instability impacting their families.  

Anecdotal time - I live in a working-to-middle class area that is high immigrant and minority.  My son is a senior at what the district likes to call a 'minority majority school.'   Per him, many of his classmates are either working or desperately trying to find work in order to help keep their families financially solvent.  This was NOT the case just a year ago.  My state has been pretty generous with unemployment, but that is no longer plugging the holes.  IMO, there is a crash coming and we are about to find out it is a lot harder to restart an economy than to shut it down.

Makes sense that those still in school this school year are having it even harder than last where everyone still had school till the March shutdowns. This school year is an overall mess right from the start. About restarting an economy being even more difficult, another issue there is the number of industries that are reliant on discretionary spending that usually can only happen when economic times are good. Once the pandemic is under control, I expect smaller more local discretionary/recreation stuff to pick up but not the bigger things like international travel until the pandemic is fully in the rearview mirror across the world.

But the travel and hospitality industry is very bullish about a robust recovery post-pandemic. Have often wondered though why we keep hearing every year that new spending records were achieved in this industry or that. Am very skeptical of said claims.

[beechnut79]

(01-31-2021, 10:29 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-31-2021, 12:58 AM)mamabug Wrote:

(01-30-2021, 10:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The Tea Party is the opposite of "populist," a term that has been horribly deformed into meaning an ignorant populace that favors dictators. That's not its true meaning. Its meaning is a movement to bring power back to the common people. 

You are allowing your dislike of their proposed solutions to color your understanding of what the movement actually involved.  Primarily, it was a reaction against TARP and bailouts of Wall Street paid for by imposing taxes on the independent middle class along with an increasing regulatory burden that benefited big business. Yes, since it is on the right, it tends to take an 'anti taxation' approach but that doesn't turn it into a movement of the elites.   

You could say the difference between the Tea Party and OWS is that the former aspired to become the 1% through their own efforts while the latter sought to make them pay for the systemic advantage they'd been given.  Both had in common the feeling that the system was rigged against the common people and wanted to bring power back to them.  The left through refactoring the system to advantage those they saw as being oppressed and the right by restoring what they saw as the fundamental values that had made the country work.  IMO, neither side was fully right or fully wrong in their proposed solutions.  They also had a lot more in common than either wanted to admit, but in the 3T slide into 4T era it became increasingly difficult for each not to point to one side of American Politics and blame it for all the problems.

Divide and conquer.  There's a reason it's listed in the 36 stratagems.

I agree for the most part, but have to take issue with the Tea Party that the free market is a viable solution to the free market.  I remember the first time I head Carl Icahn argue the greed-is-good mantra.  I knew we were going to be subject to a long period of the rich getting richer and everyone else fighting to stay above water -- and so it has become.  The GOP hates regulation, but has no working alternative.  Trickle-down never does.  Enterprise solutions create a small number of hyper successful and send the bill to the rest.  In short, not one GOP solution has performed -- even a little.  To quote a famous Republican economist Herbert Stein, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”  I suspect that the stopping point has been reached.

For the supporters of the greed-is-good manta, their favorite holiday has to be the one we observe at the end of every October. Treats for the rich and powerful; tricks for most of the rest of us.

[beechnut79]

(02-03-2021, 04:06 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I was going to post this elsewhere but it was too much a shift from the direction of the thread (which was about music).

I can predict this: that America will come out of the Crisis of 2020 (with the War on COVID-19 as its focus) much changed. The deaths will not be largely of young males as is the case in shooting wars, but people will in general come out of this war with different attitudes on politics and culture. Except for regional effects and ethnic divides in vulnerability it will have pushed people to be more rational, more trusting of credible authority, and more likely to defer gratification. People not so rational, people who trust nobody or trust questionable sources or dubious figures of authority (such as Treacherous Reckless Unconscionable Muddler as President), and less willing to sacrifice hedonism for safety (think also of people who take selfies in dangerous circumstances or in an earlier time were reckless sexually or used IV drugs when AIDS was a death sentence) will be disproportionately among those who die directly or endure shortened lives. Americans of all origins will want economic changes that make America safer from dangerous infections even if such compromises profits and wages. Just imagine how people think of COVID-19 if its deaths correlate heavily to poverty or ethnicity. I expect that the Insurrection of January 6 will also have its effects on political attitudes.

Much that people tolerate in a 3T because it is seemingly profitable activity or harmless fun vanishes when it is shown to bring economic or personal disaster.

But the effect of the sexual revolution came a full turning earlier as it was on the 2T/3T cusp when the lure of sexual recklessness soured with the advent of the AIDS scare. To me that pretty much popped the balloon of the hedonistic culture.

[Eric the Green]

(01-31-2021, 12:58 AM)mamabug Wrote:

(01-30-2021, 10:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The Tea Party is the opposite of "populist," a term that has been horribly deformed into meaning an ignorant populace that favors dictators. That's not its true meaning. Its meaning is a movement to bring power back to the common people. 

You are allowing your dislike of their proposed solutions to color your understanding of what the movement actually involved.  Primarily, it was a reaction against TARP and bailouts of Wall Street paid for by imposing taxes on the independent middle class along with an increasing regulatory burden that benefited big business. Yes, since it is on the right, it tends to take an 'anti taxation' approach but that doesn't turn it into a movement of the elites.   

You could say the difference between the Tea Party and OWS is that the former aspired to become the 1% through their own efforts while the latter sought to make them pay for the systemic advantage they'd been given.  Both had in common the feeling that the system was rigged against the common people and wanted to bring power back to them.  The left through refactoring the system to advantage those they saw as being oppressed and the right by restoring what they saw as the fundamental values that had made the country work.  IMO, neither side was fully right or fully wrong in their proposed solutions.  They also had a lot more in common than either wanted to admit, but in the 3T slide into 4T era it became increasingly difficult for each not to point to one side of American Politics and blame it for all the problems.

Divide and conquer.  There's a reason it's listed in the 36 stratagems.

I'm not aware of any tax on the middle class that was instituted to pay for TARP, most of which was loans that were paid back anyway. I would not say "primarily," but at least initially the Tea Party included some resentment against bailouts of Wall Street, in common with OWS. But again, what difference did that resentment make if the loans were paid back by those companies that received them?

Reduction of taxes was a long-term goal of these Republican Tea Party people all along. They gave Obama no chance. He was black, so they resisted him. They were the same people who supported Bush, Gingrich and Reagan. They just felt entitled to the White House, so they rose up against Obama almost immediately.

Lowering taxes only benefits the elites. The rest of us need government and its programs and investments, and they should be paid for, at least ideally in my opinion. The Tea Party thinks it can become the 1% through their own efforts. They never will. Self-reliance is a fine virtue, and small business and entrepreneurs have their place, but this virtue alone is not a basis for economic policy.

The elites are economic. Big business. Teachers and professors and actors and such are not elites. They are just people whom Tea Party types hate because they spread knowledge, and that hurts their social conservatism and the power of their self-reliance ideology. A regulatory burden does not benefit big business; that's why big business is the leading opponent of regulation and taxes. The Tea Party opposing taxes and regulations benefits only big business. That is why the common folk in the Tea Party (and the Trump Cult is again the same people) are in the Republican Party, always the Party of Big Business.

Regulations are not always just and correct, but most of the time they consist of requirements for behavior that business should adopt voluntarily anyway. Taxes can be too high, but the Democratic Party generally raises taxes on the more-wealthy people. Republicans oppose this on the trickle-down, "job creater" philosophy, which they benefit from. It is Republican borrow and spend-on-war policies that raise the national debt, which is what the Tea Party supposedly opposes because it might raise taxes.

Nice try there. But divide and conquer is about social conservatism; dividing us by race, gender, age and education. Bringing out the base that supports Trump.

[beechnut79]

(02-03-2021, 02:11 PM)But Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-31-2021, 12:58 AM)mamabug Wrote:

(01-30-2021, 10:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The Tea Party is the opposite of "populist," a term that has been horribly deformed into meaning an ignorant populace that favors dictators. That's not its true meaning. Its meaning is a movement to bring power back to the common people. 

You are allowing your dislike of their proposed solutions to color your understanding of what the movement actually involved.  Primarily, it was a reaction against TARP and bailouts of Wall Street paid for by imposing taxes on the independent middle class along with an increasing regulatory burden that benefited big business. Yes, since it is on the right, it tends to take an 'anti taxation' approach but that doesn't turn it into a movement of the elites.   

You could say the difference between the Tea Party and OWS is that the former aspired to become the 1% through their own efforts while the latter sought to make them pay for the systemic advantage they'd been given.  Both had in common the feeling that the system was rigged against the common people and wanted to bring power back to them.  The left through refactoring the system to advantage those they saw as being oppressed and the right by restoring what they saw as the fundamental values that had made the country work.  IMO, neither side was fully right or fully wrong in their proposed solutions.  They also had a lot more in common than either wanted to admit, but in the 3T slide into 4T era it became increasingly difficult for each not to point to one side of American Politics and blame it for all the problems.

Divide and conquer.  There's a reason it's listed in the 36 stratagems.

I'm not aware of any tax on the middle class that was instituted to pay for TARP, most of which was loans that were paid back anyway. I would not say "primarily," but at least initially the Tea Party included some resentment against bailouts of Wall Street, in common with OWS. But again, what difference did that resentment make if the loans were paid back by those companies that received them?

Reduction of taxes was a long-term goal of these Republican Tea Party people all along. They gave Obama no chance. He was black, so they resisted him. They were the same people who supported Bush, Gingrich and Reagan. They just felt entitled to the White House, so they rose up against Obama almost immediately.

Lowering taxes only benefits the elites. The rest of us need government and its programs and investments, and they should be paid for, at least ideally in my opinion. The Tea Party thinks it can become the 1% through their own efforts. They never will. Self-reliance is a fine virtue, and small business and entrepreneurs have their place, but this virtue alone is not a basis for economic policy.

The elites are economic. Big business. Teachers and professors and actors and such are not elites. They are just people whom Tea Party types hate because they spread knowledge, and that hurts their social conservatism and the power of their self-reliance ideology. A regulatory burden does not benefit big business; that's why big business is the leading opponent of regulation and taxes. The Tea Party opposing taxes and regulations benefits only big business. That is why the common folk in the Tea Party (and the Trump Cult is again the same people) are in the Republican Party, always the Party of Big Business.

Regulations are not always just and correct, but most of the time they consist of requirements for behavior that business should adopt voluntarily anyway. Taxes can be too high, but the Democratic Party generally raises taxes on the more-wealthy people. Republicans oppose this on the trickle-down, "job creater" philosophy, which they benefit from. It is Republican borrow and spend-on-war policies that raise the national debt, which is what the Tea Party supposedly opposes because it might raise taxes.

Nice try there. But divide and conquer is about social conservatism; dividing us by race, gender, age and education. Bringing out the base that supports Trump.

Was the January 6 insurrection  the last gasp for Trumpageddon?

[jleagans]

(02-03-2021, 04:06 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I was going to post this elsewhere but it was too much a shift from the direction of the thread (which was about music).

I can predict this: that America will come out of the Crisis of 2020 (with the War on COVID-19 as its focus) much changed. The deaths will not be largely of young males as is the case in shooting wars, but people will in general come out of this war with different attitudes on politics and culture. Except for regional effects and ethnic divides in vulnerability it will have pushed people to be more rational, more trusting of credible authority, and more likely to defer gratification. People not so rational, people who trust nobody or trust questionable sources or dubious figures of authority (such as Treacherous Reckless Unconscionable Muddler as President), and less willing to sacrifice hedonism for safety (think also of people who take selfies in dangerous circumstances or in an earlier time were reckless sexually or used IV drugs when AIDS was a death sentence) will be disproportionately among those who die directly or endure shortened lives. Americans of all origins will want economic changes that make America safer from dangerous infections even if such compromises profits and wages. Just imagine how people think of COVID-19 if its deaths correlate heavily to poverty or ethnicity. I expect that the Insurrection of January 6 will also have its effects on political attitudes.

Much that people tolerate in a 3T because it is seemingly profitable activity or harmless fun vanishes when it is shown to bring economic or personal disaster.

Really great points here.  Any cohort-wide effect that targets specific groups should be considered influential in generational identity considerations.

[pbrower2a]

(02-03-2021, 11:22 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(02-03-2021, 04:06 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I was going to post this elsewhere but it was too much a shift from the direction of the thread (which was about music).

I can predict this: that America will come out of the Crisis of 2020 (with the War on COVID-19 as its focus) much changed. The deaths will not be largely of young males as is the case in shooting wars, but people will in general come out of this war with different attitudes on politics and culture. Except for regional effects and ethnic divides in vulnerability it will have pushed people to be more rational, more trusting of credible authority, and more likely to defer gratification. People not so rational, people who trust nobody or trust questionable sources or dubious figures of authority (such as Treacherous Reckless Unconscionable Muddler as President), and less willing to sacrifice hedonism for safety (think also of people who take selfies in dangerous circumstances or in an earlier time were reckless sexually or used IV drugs when AIDS was a death sentence) will be disproportionately among those who die directly or endure shortened lives. Americans of all origins will want economic changes that make America safer from dangerous infections even if such compromises profits and wages. Just imagine how people think of COVID-19 if its deaths correlate heavily to poverty or ethnicity. I expect that the Insurrection of January 6 will also have its effects on political attitudes.

Much that people tolerate in a 3T because it is seemingly profitable activity or harmless fun vanishes when it is shown to bring economic or personal disaster.

But the effect of the sexual revolution came a full turning earlier as it was on the 2T/3T cusp when the lure of sexual recklessness soured with the advent of the AIDS scare. To me that pretty much popped the balloon of the hedonistic culture.

Nope. The hedonism took different directions. Even the advice "use a f---ing condom when you f---" didn't require much of a compromise. At a certain point, most of the new AIDS cases came from IV drug use, which is not what most people consider fun. Go shopping. Take a cruise.

[beechnut79]

(02-04-2021, 06:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-03-2021, 11:22 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(02-03-2021, 04:06 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I was going to post this elsewhere but it was too much a shift from the direction of the thread (which was about music).

I can predict this: that America will come out of the Crisis of 2020 (with the War on COVID-19 as its focus) much changed. The deaths will not be largely of young males as is the case in shooting wars, but people will in general come out of this war with different attitudes on politics and culture. Except for regional effects and ethnic divides in vulnerability it will have pushed people to be more rational, more trusting of credible authority, and more likely to defer gratification. People not so rational, people who trust nobody or trust questionable sources or dubious figures of authority (such as Treacherous Reckless Unconscionable Muddler as President), and less willing to sacrifice hedonism for safety (think also of people who take selfies in dangerous circumstances or in an earlier time were reckless sexually or used IV drugs when AIDS was a death sentence) will be disproportionately among those who die directly or endure shortened lives. Americans of all origins will want economic changes that make America safer from dangerous infections even if such compromises profits and wages. Just imagine how people think of COVID-19 if its deaths correlate heavily to poverty or ethnicity. I expect that the Insurrection of January 6 will also have its effects on political attitudes.

Much that people tolerate in a 3T because it is seemingly profitable activity or harmless fun vanishes when it is shown to bring economic or personal disaster.

But the effect of the sexual revolution came a full turning earlier as it was on the 2T/3T cusp when the lure of sexual recklessness soured with the advent of the AIDS scare. To me that pretty much popped the balloon of the hedonistic culture.

Nope. The hedonism took different directions. Even the advice "use a f---ing condom when you f---" didn't require much of a compromise. At a certain point, most of the new AIDS cases came from IV drug use, which is not what most people consider fun. Go shopping. Take a cruise.

By 1987 a story which appeared in Esquire Magazine stated that by that time money had become the new sex, with Wall Street as whorehouse in chief. Used to like to say that the term Yuppie was used to describe the lifestyle which developed when the priorities of the Me Generation shifted from personal and sexual gratification to material and financial gratification. Was it AIDS alone that killed off the sexual revolution or were there other things? I keep hoping that someday at least some types of sex work will be legal throughout the US. When might the PTB realize that prohibition of this activity has been every bit the failure that it was with liquor a century ago?

[pbrower2a]

(02-04-2021, 10:44 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(02-04-2021, 06:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-03-2021, 11:22 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: But the effect of the sexual revolution came a full turning earlier as it was on the 2T/3T cusp when the lure of sexual recklessness soured with the advent of the AIDS scare. To me that pretty much popped the balloon of the hedonistic culture.

Nope. The hedonism took different directions. Even the advice "use a f---ing condom when you f---" didn't require much of a compromise. At a certain point, most of the new AIDS cases came from IV drug use, which is not what most people consider fun. Go shopping. Take a cruise.

By 1987 a story which appeared in Esquire Magazine stated that by that time money had become the new sex, with Wall Street as whorehouse in chief. Used to like to say that the term Yuppie was used to describe the lifestyle which developed when the priorities of the Me Generation shifted from personal and sexual gratification to material and financial gratification. Was it AIDS alone that killed off the sexual revolution or were there other things? I keep hoping that someday at least some types of sex work will be legal throughout the US. When might the PTB realize that prohibition of this activity has been every bit the failure that it was with liquor a century ago?

Maybe this is an indelible part of the American way of life: people trying to improve society by making American more hostile to recreational sex. The effects are to either turn sex into a secretive activity that people do only with the stealth of crime, to make people  crave it more and become obsessed with it, or to compel people to seek substitutes. Figuring that real wages started to fall in the 1980's, income and the indulgence that it allowed also became an object of mass craving. Those still doing well (Reaganomics made certain that the people who would endure the hardships of low wages and little career advancement necessary for keeping consumer costs low were young) would get to display wealth and high income as if a sexual signal to attract desirable spouses. If one was broke one might be able to seduce people nearly destitute... but because economic gain and indulgence had become the purpose of life, what good would that do? Remember that many poor people have problems other than poverty. One might get sex regularly, but little else.