Generational Chaos Ahead

[Dan '82]

http://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlin...haos-ahead

Quote:“This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent that the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”
– George Orwell

After a lifetime of watching financial markets, the speed at which traders react still amazes me. Sometimes it seems to me like they hail from the “ready, shoot, aim,” school of thinking. Economic trends almost never turn on a dime; and though we can look back and find a moment that was the exact bottom or top, there were forces building that caused people to move from one side of the boat to the other, tilting the economy or markets or society in a different direction. New data can alter our probabilities – but rarely as fast as trading algorithms seem to think. Long-term trends, by definition, change slowly.
I had that thought in mind when I asked Neil Howe to be our kick-off speaker at the Strategic Investment Conference and invited Niall Ferguson to wrap it all up three days later. As historians, they both gaze back through time to identify patterns and draw lessons. They were the bookends who framed the wide-ranging discussions in between. They have both been very influential in helping me develop my understanding of the world.
As I said two weeks ago, the experts I brought to the conference, even the ones I expected to be raging bulls, were mostly bearish. The surprise was Niall Ferguson, who has become the new raging bull. That’s pretty much the one thing you can count on at my conference: surprises! But you can see that even Niall is deeply concerned about much of what is happening in the world...



http://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlin...haos-ahead

[Eric the Green]

What I wonder about is what my minister referred to yesterday. She is an early core boomer, and she said there had been an awakening (referring to the 2T without being date-specific or knowing the generations/turnings theory). In that awakening child rearing changed from what my friend said was the "mean streak" that all male parents seemed to have before, and how people used to be disciplined with violence at home and school but no longer are. Young men in our culture before the awakening were considered to be by nature always in training for war, at least until the peace movement of the sixties, and so as children had to be taught and disciplined that way. Xers like Classic Xer and Millennials like Cynic Hero still retain this view of the world. Is this awakening during the 2T still changing how children are raised in the USA, and even the world? If so, wouldn't that affect to some degree what the generation archetypes are like?

As Boomers and then Xers came of age and became parents, this meanness, violence and strict approach lessened. With Gen Xer children, the permissiveness often became neglect. I noticed that many Boomers became easy-going flower children to one degree or another during the 2T, who believed and to some extent practiced a more-loving approach to people and children. At that time I experienced them as friendly, and that they considered themselves part of a cultural wave or movement as described by John Lennon.

Gen Xers I know are usually reasonably friendly, but they are often skin-heads rather than long-hairs, and often have a competitive attitude of aggressive survivalism. They sometimes tend to look upon the world as an unfriendly place against which you have to defend yourself by being mean if necessary, and they might have a redoubtable, scowling or resigned and pessimistic kind of look. And in the 3T, Boomers reverted to the arrogance and haughtiness of their 1T childhood and became more rigid in their attitudes.

So, did this awakening my minister described take hold, lasting beyond the 2T? To what extent? Violence at least is frowned on, I think, but were parents in the 3T and today mean and strict to their children? Does the same mean streak continue among American men today, in the wake of the Awakening, and to what extent has it changed? How has child abuse contributed to the old days and the new?

We know from many reports that boomers are and were often very protective helicopter parents who sheltered their millie and homie children from the perceived dangers of the world. The dangers abated, but the attitude persists among Xer parents today. To that extent, the pattern has continued.

Considering the Orwell quote, I notice that Boomers are the most self-critical and tend to put themselves down more than other generations do, which doesn't stop other generations from also putting them down more than they do to other generations.

[pbrower2a]

(06-20-2016, 10:23 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: What I wonder about is what my minister referred to yesterday. She is an early core boomer, and she said there had been an awakening (referring to the 2T without being date-specific or knowing the generations/turnings theory). In that awakening child rearing changed from what my friend said was the "mean streak" that all male parents seemed to have before, and how people used to be disciplined with violence at home and school but no longer are. Young men in our culture before the awakening were considered to be by nature always in training for war, at least until the peace movement of the sixties, and so as children had to be taught and disciplined that way. Xers like Classic Xer and Millennials like Cynic Hero still retain this view of the world. Is this awakening during the 2T still changing how children are raised in the USA, and even the world? If so, wouldn't that affect to some degree what the generation archetypes are like?

One can react to weak or ineffective discipline by becoming an authoritarian brute. I'm not saying that about Classic X'er or Civic Hero because I cannot know for sure.

Quote:As Boomers and then Xers came of age and became parents, this meanness, violence and strict approach lessened. With Gen Xer children, the permissiveness often became neglect. I noticed that many Boomers became easy-going flower children to one degree or another during the 2T, who believed and to some extent practiced a more-loving approach to people and children. At that time I experienced them as friendly, and that they considered themselves part of a cultural wave or movement as described by John Lennon.

But as the Awakening Era ended, Corporate America became extremely authoritarian. It offered harsher terms of employment and cut wages. It imposed hardships that had not existed in recent years so that it could maximize profits.  

Quote:Gen Xers I know are usually reasonably friendly, but they are often skin-heads rather than long-hairs, and often have a competitive attitude of aggressive survivalism. They sometimes tend to look upon the world as an unfriendly place against which you have to defend yourself by being mean if necessary, and they might have a redoubtable, scowling or resigned and pessimistic kind of look. And in the 3T, Boomers reverted to the arrogance and haughtiness of their 1T childhood and became more rigid in their attitudes.

As the economy became increasingly a jungle, what else could one expect? People would find a harsh and unforgiving world at work.

Quote:So, did this awakening my minister described take hold, lasting beyond the 2T? To what extent? Violence at least is frowned on, I think, but were parents in the 3T and today mean and strict to their children? Does the same mean streak continue among American men today, in the wake of the Awakening, and to what extent has it changed? How has child abuse contributed to the old days and the new?

The only Awakening in operation in the 1980s was the "Born Again" Awakening in which people could come to find meaning in their own hardships on behalf of their supposed betters. The pay cuts are good for earning rewards in creating someone else's wealth. The Right ensured that there was nothing else available except mindless consumerism and entertainment.  

Quote:We know from many reports that boomers are and were often very protective helicopter parents who sheltered their millie and homie children from the perceived dangers of the world. The dangers abated, but the attitude persists among Xer parents today. To that extent, the pattern has continued.

X'ers griped about working conditions and bosses to their Millennial children who had little cause to accept the 3T ethos of all from the many, all to the few.

Quote:Considering the Orwell quote, I notice that Boomers are the most self-critical and tend to put themselves down more than other generations do, which doesn't stop other generations from also putting them down more than they do to other generations.

Boomers may be self-critical if they are not part of the economic and bureaucratic elites, but if they are part of those elites they see themselves as Masters of the Universe (a reference to The Bonfire of the Vanities, a wildly-successful best-seller that actually had something to say).