Has the regeneracy arrived?

[Warren Dew]

(01-07-2017, 03:30 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Besides, I don't think this crisis is going to be solely about the fight between yuppies and rednecks.  There's still geopolitics to consider here.  I don't think the Empire is done with us just yet, or we with it.

Which empire?

[SomeGuy]

(01-07-2017, 05:51 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 03:30 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Besides, I don't think this crisis is going to be solely about the fight between yuppies and rednecks.  There's still geopolitics to consider here.  I don't think the Empire is done with us just yet, or we with it.

Which empire?

Our's.

[Warren Dew]

(01-07-2017, 05:55 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 05:51 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 03:30 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Besides, I don't think this crisis is going to be solely about the fight between yuppies and rednecks.  There's still geopolitics to consider here.  I don't think the Empire is done with us just yet, or we with it.

Which empire?

Our's.

Makes sense, thanks.

I think our best course would be to play balance of power politics with the empire and try to constrain shooting wars to it.  I'm not sure how the regeneracy occurs in that case, though.

[SomeGuy]

Quote:Makes sense, thanks.

I think our best course would be to play balance of power politics with the empire and try to constrain shooting wars to it.  I'm not sure how the regeneracy occurs in that case, though.

Not a problem.  

Yeah, there are much more sensible ways to manage what we have than what we have been doing recently.  Not sure if we're going to implement any of them, all though easing tensions with Russia is a good start.

By the way, I caught your comments over at fivethirtyeight around election time.  Good stuff, for the most part.  And God, the meltdown over there around election time was beautiful to behold, especially considering the rampant, smug douchebaggery going on in the comments section there just before, wasn't it?

[flbones too]

Boomers don't want to cooperate.

[David Horn]

(01-07-2017, 03:30 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 11:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-06-2017, 04:25 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Again, reread the book!  A regeneracy does not imply that all problems are solved, only that a consensus has been reached about how society is going to try to solve them, and that the populace is willing to allow them to play it out for the remainder of the 4T.

Considering the intense anger on the Left, and the total determination to slash-and-burn on the Right, when and how do you see us arriving at a consensus?  If you are assuming the force of external events, what are they?  Because, frankly, the political standoff between urban and rural, religious and secular, open and closed is getting more intense every day.  These differences involve world views that are deep and baked in.  They don't just change on a whim.
The rule for changing entrenched beliefs is life-changing trauma.  Is that your assumption?   Geography and demographics make a parting of the ways out of the question, That doesn't leave many options.

There might not be a cultural consensus, but there's a prime opportunity for the Republicans to forge a political one.  Whether they take it, or piss it away like the Dems did 2009, remains to be seen.  Remember that past crises were not characterized by uniformity of opinion, they remained bitterly divided, only that one side managed to get completely in the driver's seat and stay there long enough to drive the country somewhere new.

Besides, I don't think this crisis is going to be solely about the fight between yuppies and rednecks.  There's still geopolitics to consider here.  I don't think the Empire is done with us just yet, or we with it.

The problem with a Trump mandate is the obvious one: he never received one, and a majority of the country mistrusts him.  The GOP has the reins of power almost everywhere, yet a true majority in very few of those places.  Blustering won't make up for that, though Trump seems ready to try.

I don't see this Presidency ending well.

[Warren Dew]

(01-07-2017, 06:20 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:Makes sense, thanks.

I think our best course would be to play balance of power politics with the empire and try to constrain shooting wars to it.  I'm not sure how the regeneracy occurs in that case, though.

Not a problem.  

Yeah, there are much more sensible ways to manage what we have than what we have been doing recently.  Not sure if we're going to implement any of them, all though easing tensions with Russia is a good start.

By the way, I caught your comments over at fivethirtyeight around election time.  Good stuff, for the most part.  And God, the meltdown over there around election time was beautiful to behold, especially considering the rampant, smug douchebaggery going on in the comments section there just before, wasn't it?

Thanks.  The meltdown was pretty funny, and not restricted to 538; even my dad sent me and my brother an email asking how in the world we could vote for Trump.  I briefly thought there might be an opportunity to open some minds, but they all seem to be back in the leftist bubble now, shaken but still in denial about reality.

[Warren Dew]

(01-08-2017, 12:46 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 03:30 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 11:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-06-2017, 04:25 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Again, reread the book!  A regeneracy does not imply that all problems are solved, only that a consensus has been reached about how society is going to try to solve them, and that the populace is willing to allow them to play it out for the remainder of the 4T.

Considering the intense anger on the Left, and the total determination to slash-and-burn on the Right, when and how do you see us arriving at a consensus?  If you are assuming the force of external events, what are they?  Because, frankly, the political standoff between urban and rural, religious and secular, open and closed is getting more intense every day.  These differences involve world views that are deep and baked in.  They don't just change on a whim.
The rule for changing entrenched beliefs is life-changing trauma.  Is that your assumption?   Geography and demographics make a parting of the ways out of the question, That doesn't leave many options.

There might not be a cultural consensus, but there's a prime opportunity for the Republicans to forge a political one.  Whether they take it, or piss it away like the Dems did 2009, remains to be seen.  Remember that past crises were not characterized by uniformity of opinion, they remained bitterly divided, only that one side managed to get completely in the driver's seat and stay there long enough to drive the country somewhere new.

Besides, I don't think this crisis is going to be solely about the fight between yuppies and rednecks.  There's still geopolitics to consider here.  I don't think the Empire is done with us just yet, or we with it.

The problem with a Trump mandate is the obvious one: he never received one, and a majority of the country mistrusts him.  The GOP has the reins of power almost everywhere, yet a true majority in very few of those places.  Blustering won't make up for that, though Trump seems ready to try.

In the House, in addition to winning a majority of the seats, the Republicans also won a substantial majority of the popular vote.  Trump may not have a mandate, but the Republicans in the House do.

[Mikebert]

(01-06-2017, 04:59 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Remember, I did say that he doesn't have to be a good president in order to be a transformational one.  Once that order is gone, hey, it's gone, and the 1T would just be picking up the pieces in its wake.  Which was one of the outcomes outlined in T4T.

Presidents who come in after triggers are transformational--a 4T is beginning--Hoover was transformational.  The hand he was dealt sucked so bad it was virtually unplayable and so he and his party lost.  The problem is that unless there is a catastrophe, elites will not perceive that they have a problem and so have no incentive to cooperate in a fix  But if there is a catastrophe on your watch then you are fucked, as Hoover was.  It's a Catch 22.

The guy who comes in as part of a regeneracy inherits a serious problem (for elites) that did not happen on his watch.  Even if he fails to solve it like FDR in his first term or Obama in his, he can still gain re-election.

Trump's problem is he is coming in at a top, like Hoover.

[SomeGuy]

(01-08-2017, 12:46 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 03:30 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 11:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-06-2017, 04:25 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Again, reread the book!  A regeneracy does not imply that all problems are solved, only that a consensus has been reached about how society is going to try to solve them, and that the populace is willing to allow them to play it out for the remainder of the 4T.

Considering the intense anger on the Left, and the total determination to slash-and-burn on the Right, when and how do you see us arriving at a consensus?  If you are assuming the force of external events, what are they?  Because, frankly, the political standoff between urban and rural, religious and secular, open and closed is getting more intense every day.  These differences involve world views that are deep and baked in.  They don't just change on a whim.
The rule for changing entrenched beliefs is life-changing trauma.  Is that your assumption?   Geography and demographics make a parting of the ways out of the question, That doesn't leave many options.

There might not be a cultural consensus, but there's a prime opportunity for the Republicans to forge a political one.  Whether they take it, or piss it away like the Dems did 2009, remains to be seen.  Remember that past crises were not characterized by uniformity of opinion, they remained bitterly divided, only that one side managed to get completely in the driver's seat and stay there long enough to drive the country somewhere new.

Besides, I don't think this crisis is going to be solely about the fight between yuppies and rednecks.  There's still geopolitics to consider here.  I don't think the Empire is done with us just yet, or we with it.

The problem with a Trump mandate is the obvious one: he never received one, and a majority of the country mistrusts him.  The GOP has the reins of power almost everywhere, yet a true majority in very few of those places.  Blustering won't make up for that, though Trump seems ready to try.

I don't see this Presidency ending well.

Dave,

You're trying to move the goalposts.  It's a representative democracy, holding both houses of Congress, the White House, and the majority of state houses IS a "true majority".  They have a window, and if they genuinely can't maintain effective popular support than they will lose those seats, but it's the seats themselves that matter, and until they lose those seats they have all the majority they need.

[SomeGuy]

Quote:Presidents who come in after triggers are transformational--a 4T is beginning--Hoover was transformational.

You're playing semantic games here.  Not interested.  

Quote:The hand he was dealt sucked so bad it was virtually unplayable and so he and his party lost.  The problem is that unless there is a catastrophe, elites will not perceive that they have a problem and so have no incentive to cooperate in a fix  But if there is a catastrophe on your watch then you are fucked, as Hoover was.  It's a Catch 22.

The guy who comes in as part of a regeneracy inherits a serious problem (for elites) that did not happen on his watch.  Even if he fails to solve it like FDR in his first term or Obama in his, he can still gain re-election. 

Is that why FDR lost the 1940 election?  After all, the 1937 recession occurred under his watch, and they had never fully recovered from 1929. 

Quote:Trump's problem is he is coming in at a top, like Hoover.

Is that really the only outcome possible?  Another big financial crisis with an ineffective response, leading to a new President 4 years later?  You've developed this really annoying habit since I have been gone of coming up with hypotheticals about future events and then treating them as facts.

[pbrower2a]

(01-08-2017, 06:23 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-06-2017, 04:59 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Remember, I did say that he doesn't have to be a good president in order to be a transformational one.  Once that order is gone, hey, it's gone, and the 1T would just be picking up the pieces in its wake.  Which was one of the outcomes outlined in T4T.

Presidents who come in after triggers are transformational--a 4T is beginning--Hoover was transformational.  The hand he was dealt sucked so bad it was virtually unplayable and so he and his party lost.  The problem is that unless there is a catastrophe, elites will not perceive that they have a problem and so have no incentive to cooperate in a fix  But if there is a catastrophe on your watch then you are fucked, as Hoover was.  It's a Catch 22.[/quote]

To be technical, Hoover became President about six months before the economy tanked, and had only inappropriate solutions for the triggering event for the worst economic meltdown that any living American (and that is now a very old American) can remember. FDR became President after the politicians of the 3T were largely discredited and the economic elites were stripped of much of the economic power that they might have otherwise used to buy political influence as things got a little better.

Obama is the President truly caught in a Catch-22: he had to back the financial industry to prevent an economic meltdown already at the same stage of destructiveness as in the late winter of 1931 from making him the "new Hoover" -- but in rescuing those elites he also rescued their potential to buy political influence until by now those elites have enough power to i9mpose a pure plutocracy, a nightmarish order in which about 2% of Americans will be able to get away with enforcing any suffering necessary for the enrichment and pampering of those elites. Maybe we will have been better off to have had a full slide into the economic distress of the 1930s that smashed the narcissism of elites and gutted their economic power, in which case Barack Obama would be entering his second term as President as transformative as FDR instead of someone seemingly intent on stabbing the common man in the back on behalf of people who have no constraints upon their greed and cruelty. 

We are in for the worst four years of American politics since the prelude to the American Civil War, and we may get out of it only with political reforms that transform the American political system as profoundly as the Constitutional Convention of 1787. That best happens in 2021 (proportional representation, laws that separate economic power from political power, relegation of the Electoral College to a backup system, uniform standards of voting, perhaps even a parliamentary system), tolerably for people not yet old in 2025.... and if not then, prhaps in the wake of a military defeat analogous to that which Germany, Italy, and Japan experienced at the end of the last Crisis.

If not by 2029, then the transformation will not happen until the nasty order becomes unsustainable in an Awakening Era -- after the generations culpable in the establishment of a tyrannical order are off the scene and retribution is not possible for them. That will be around 2050 or so, when the Silent, practically all Boomers, and the vast majority of the Lost are off the scene. Why so long? That's how long it took for Franco's brutal and numbing regime took to become absurdly indefensible -- and roughly the time in which Commie regimes in central and Balkan Europe (the Commie regime in China almost fell in 1989, by the way) took to prove unsustainable through sheer censorship and police brutality. Those who have blood on their hands in the seizure and consolidation of power dare not dismount the tiger of tyranny that defends corrupt, cruel, inequitable, extremist rulers.

Quote:The guy who comes in as part of a regeneracy inherits a serious problem (for elites) that did not happen on his watch.  Even if he fails to solve it like FDR in his first term or Obama in his, he can still gain re-election.

[/quote]

Obama got re-elected, but he lost his House majority in 2010; he lost the Senate majority in 2014. America becomes a single-Party state on January 20. I now wish I had married that Irish woman when I had a chance. so that I could be a safe distance from tyranny. I am not sure that I will survive the next four years

[Warren Dew]

(01-09-2017, 12:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-08-2017, 06:23 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-06-2017, 04:59 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Remember, I did say that he doesn't have to be a good president in order to be a transformational one.  Once that order is gone, hey, it's gone, and the 1T would just be picking up the pieces in its wake.  Which was one of the outcomes outlined in T4T.

Presidents who come in after triggers are transformational--a 4T is beginning--Hoover was transformational.  The hand he was dealt sucked so bad it was virtually unplayable and so he and his party lost.  The problem is that unless there is a catastrophe, elites will not perceive that they have a problem and so have no incentive to cooperate in a fix  But if there is a catastrophe on your watch then you are fucked, as Hoover was.  It's a Catch 22.

To be technical, Hoover became President about six months before the economy tanked, and had only inappropriate solutions for the triggering event for the worst economic meltdown that any living American (and that is now a very old American) can remember. FDR became President after the politicians of the 3T were largely discredited and the economic elites were stripped of much of the economic power that they might have otherwise used to buy political influence as things got a little better.

Yes.  Hoover failed to save the money in the failing banks from destruction, and exacerbated the problem by using trickle down techniques - sending money to big corporations and local governments for infrastructure projects in the hopes that it would trickle down to the common man.  It didn't.

Quote:Obama is the President truly caught in a Catch-22: he had to back the financial industry to prevent an economic meltdown already at the same stage of destructiveness as in the late winter of 1931 from making him the "new Hoover" -- but in rescuing those elites he also rescued their potential to buy political influence until by now those elites have enough power to i9mpose a pure plutocracy, a nightmarish order in which about 2% of Americans will be able to get away with enforcing any suffering necessary for the enrichment and pampering of those elites. Maybe we will have been better off to have had a full slide into the economic distress of the 1930s that smashed the narcissism of elites and gutted their economic power, in which case Barack Obama would be entering his second term as President as transformative as FDR instead of someone seemingly intent on stabbing the common man in the back on behalf of people who have no constraints upon their greed and cruelty.

Obama wasn't in a Catch-22 at all.  The money in the banks, this time around, was already protected from destruction through the FDIC.  Nor was he forced to use the trickle down techniques that he ended up using.  Nor would he have been blamed for any negative effects - let's not forget that the unemployment rate continued to rise for two years under his watch, but he still gained reelection by blaming Bush.

Obama was simply stupid enough to listen to the bankers' advice - including that of his own Treasury appointee - on the issue.  Of course they wanted the banks bailed out, instead of the more sensible course of letting the bad, failing, banks fail and only bailing out the depositors.

Obama bears full responsibility for "stabbing the common man in the back", as you so aptly put it.  And that's why Trump is likely to be an improvement.

[pbrower2a]

The Catch-22 with President Obama was political and partisan. Had he failed to back Big business in 2009, then the economic meltdown that began in 2009 would not have stopped so soon and been reversed. His Party would have endured severe losses in the 2010 election and in 2012, and he would have been one-and-done. By 2013 Republicans would have been able to begin their dreams of destroying unions, cutting wages, abolishing laws against workplace dangers and environmental degradation, shifting taxes from the Master Class to everyone else, privatizing everything that could somehow turn a profit, and perhaps establishing a harsh "Christian" morality in which abortion, homosexuality, and contraception are outlawed.

But his recovery was not swift enough for people to recognize it as such.

Question: would the Republican leadership of a basically one-Party state have been better in 2013 than as it will emerge in 2017? That is the realm of speculative fiction.

I expect Donald Trump to be unspeakably awful. Politics in a single-Party state as we are becoming is nothing more than enforcement of the desires of the well-connected. The question is whether the Republican Party will ever allow any transition of power to anything else.

[Eric the Green]

(01-09-2017, 01:21 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-09-2017, 12:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-08-2017, 06:23 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-06-2017, 04:59 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Remember, I did say that he doesn't have to be a good president in order to be a transformational one.  Once that order is gone, hey, it's gone, and the 1T would just be picking up the pieces in its wake.  Which was one of the outcomes outlined in T4T.

Presidents who come in after triggers are transformational--a 4T is beginning--Hoover was transformational.  The hand he was dealt sucked so bad it was virtually unplayable and so he and his party lost.  The problem is that unless there is a catastrophe, elites will not perceive that they have a problem and so have no incentive to cooperate in a fix  But if there is a catastrophe on your watch then you are fucked, as Hoover was.  It's a Catch 22.

To be technical, Hoover became President about six months before the economy tanked, and had only inappropriate solutions for the triggering event for the worst economic meltdown that any living American (and that is now a very old American) can remember. FDR became President after the politicians of the 3T were largely discredited and the economic elites were stripped of much of the economic power that they might have otherwise used to buy political influence as things got a little better.

Yes.  Hoover failed to save the money in the failing banks from destruction, and exacerbated the problem by using trickle down techniques - sending money to big corporations and local governments for infrastructure projects in the hopes that it would trickle down to the common man.  It didn't.

Quote:Obama is the President truly caught in a Catch-22: he had to back the financial industry to prevent an economic meltdown already at the same stage of destructiveness as in the late winter of 1931 from making him the "new Hoover" -- but in rescuing those elites he also rescued their potential to buy political influence until by now those elites have enough power to i9mpose a pure plutocracy, a nightmarish order in which about 2% of Americans will be able to get away with enforcing any suffering necessary for the enrichment and pampering of those elites. Maybe we will have been better off to have had a full slide into the economic distress of the 1930s that smashed the narcissism of elites and gutted their economic power, in which case Barack Obama would be entering his second term as President as transformative as FDR instead of someone seemingly intent on stabbing the common man in the back on behalf of people who have no constraints upon their greed and cruelty.

Obama wasn't in a Catch-22 at all.  The money in the banks, this time around, was already protected from destruction through the FDIC.  Nor was he forced to use the trickle down techniques that he ended up using.  Nor would he have been blamed for any negative effects - let's not forget that the unemployment rate continued to rise for two years under his watch, but he still gained reelection by blaming Bush.

Obama was simply stupid enough to listen to the bankers' advice - including that of his own Treasury appointee - on the issue.  Of course they wanted the banks bailed out, instead of the more sensible course of letting the bad, failing, banks fail and only bailing out the depositors.

Obama bears full responsibility for "stabbing the common man in the back", as you so aptly put it.  And that's why Trump is likely to be an improvement.

You expect a cabinet of bankers and robber barons to be an improvement in that respect?

[Odin]

(01-09-2017, 01:21 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-09-2017, 12:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-08-2017, 06:23 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-06-2017, 04:59 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Remember, I did say that he doesn't have to be a good president in order to be a transformational one.  Once that order is gone, hey, it's gone, and the 1T would just be picking up the pieces in its wake.  Which was one of the outcomes outlined in T4T.

Presidents who come in after triggers are transformational--a 4T is beginning--Hoover was transformational.  The hand he was dealt sucked so bad it was virtually unplayable and so he and his party lost.  The problem is that unless there is a catastrophe, elites will not perceive that they have a problem and so have no incentive to cooperate in a fix  But if there is a catastrophe on your watch then you are fucked, as Hoover was.  It's a Catch 22.

To be technical, Hoover became President about six months before the economy tanked, and had only inappropriate solutions for the triggering event for the worst economic meltdown that any living American (and that is now a very old American) can remember. FDR became President after the politicians of the 3T were largely discredited and the economic elites were stripped of much of the economic power that they might have otherwise used to buy political influence as things got a little better.

Yes.  Hoover failed to save the money in the failing banks from destruction, and exacerbated the problem by using trickle down techniques - sending money to big corporations and local governments for infrastructure projects in the hopes that it would trickle down to the common man.  It didn't.

Quote:Obama is the President truly caught in a Catch-22: he had to back the financial industry to prevent an economic meltdown already at the same stage of destructiveness as in the late winter of 1931 from making him the "new Hoover" -- but in rescuing those elites he also rescued their potential to buy political influence until by now those elites have enough power to i9mpose a pure plutocracy, a nightmarish order in which about 2% of Americans will be able to get away with enforcing any suffering necessary for the enrichment and pampering of those elites. Maybe we will have been better off to have had a full slide into the economic distress of the 1930s that smashed the narcissism of elites and gutted their economic power, in which case Barack Obama would be entering his second term as President as transformative as FDR instead of someone seemingly intent on stabbing the common man in the back on behalf of people who have no constraints upon their greed and cruelty.

Obama wasn't in a Catch-22 at all.  The money in the banks, this time around, was already protected from destruction through the FDIC.  Nor was he forced to use the trickle down techniques that he ended up using.  Nor would he have been blamed for any negative effects - let's not forget that the unemployment rate continued to rise for two years under his watch, but he still gained reelection by blaming Bush.

Obama was simply stupid enough to listen to the bankers' advice - including that of his own Treasury appointee - on the issue.  Of course they wanted the banks bailed out, instead of the more sensible course of letting the bad, failing, banks fail and only bailing out the depositors.

Obama bears full responsibility for "stabbing the common man in the back", as you so aptly put it.  And that's why Trump is likely to be an improvement.

If my memory serves me right BUSH was still president when TARP was passed, and it needed to pass because the alternative would have been worse than the Great Depression. When people were saying "The world is going to end if this doesn't happen" they were being fucking serious. The populist idiots on the left and the right who think the bailout was merely some selfish act rather than an emergency measure to prevent absolute disaster are economically illiterate.

Obama only got political fallout because the GOP was able to use the Tea Party to wash their hands of Bush's role in the 2008 Crash.

[Mikebert]

(01-08-2017, 07:36 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:  It's a representative democracy, holding both houses of Congress, the White House, and the majority of state houses IS a "true majority".  They have a window, and if they genuinely can't maintain effective popular support than they will lose those seats, but it's the seats themselves that matter, and until they lose those seats they have all the majority they need.

Precisely. Republicans had this in 2001 and over 2003-2006. Dems had it in 2009-10. So of the 16 years since 2000, one or the other party has had control 3/8's of the time. The take a look at the graph of pre capita GDP Warren and I posted. The current economy problem began in 2001 in this data. The terrorism problem also came to the public's attention in 2001. It is clear that today's problems were present and apparent by 2001. Both parties had ample opportunity to deal with them. Neither did.

Take a look at my extension of Warren's graph. You can see we have been here before. A downward deviation from trend growth also occurred early in the 20th century. A similar deviation has become noticeable after 2007. You can see that the deviation was fairly modest for two decades and then got much bigger after 1929. The current deviation is also modest. During the first of these deviation periods immigration was sharped restricted over 1921-24, more than a decade into the deviation period. That is we should see immigration restriction if history repeats. Trump ran on this, I expect to see it, and so I put it on his report card. It didn't work then and I doubt it will work now. So it goes.

Now when the GOP took the helm in 1921, we were at a stock market bottom. Supply-side nostrums implemented during the 1920's were able to generate an invest-led boom that lasted for most of the decade. Trump is coming in with the stock market already in the #3 position for most overvalued in history. I find it hard to believe the bull market is going to run another 8 years. It will probably peak soon and then we will have a recession, which would be consistent with the normal length of the modern business cycle. So I don't think Trump is going to get the sort of results Harding/Coolidge got. He is more likely to be telescoped right into Hoover's position. If we actual are 4T now, were cannot wait more than a decade for the 1932 moment and another decade after that to respond.

When I throw out these different dates I am using different cycle traditions. That is I am trying on different viewpoints to see what they say and bouncing them off folks here. By using different cycles and different common version of the cycle, you get different views. For example the monetary K-cycle has us within a few years of 1940 in the last cycle. Had Clinton won the political cycle would also have us around 1940, but she didn't so it is up in the air. M&T would have us around 1895 give or take a decade. Turchin's secular cycle has us around 1940.

The K-cycle, Turchin's cycle and the political cycle has signposts so you can tell where you are in the cycle if you are close to one of them. The S&H and M&T cycles have no signposts you have to rely on people's opinions to know your location, which makes them less useful.

[SomeGuy]

Mike,

The 2001 recession was shallow enough (despite the "jobless recovery", something which started happening in the early '90s) and the real estate bubble followed sufficiently soon thereafter, that people didn't really notice the deviation (which, as I remember from the chart you posted, was quite small at that time) until 2008.

I also think that trying to force a direct one-to-one comparison with the 1930s via your political cycle is a bit misguided.  History rhymes, it doesn't repeat.

Also, M & T had the peak of the 17th k-wave in 1914, and in their book postulated a 19th k-wave peak around 2030.  This would put us no earlier than 1900, if we're going to do it like that.  In the Berlusconi thread, I gave an argument for why the high-growth/deconcentration/coalition-building bit should be started no later than the mid-90s, and that the k-wave should peak around 2020-2025.  This would place us more in the 1905-1910 range.  If I am not mistaken, Turchin has the peak of civil unrest occurring in 2020.  So, all in all, I am still more inclined to a Crisis climax starting around 2020.

[TeacherinExile]

(01-08-2017, 12:46 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 03:30 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 11:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-06-2017, 04:25 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Again, reread the book!  A regeneracy does not imply that all problems are solved, only that a consensus has been reached about how society is going to try to solve them, and that the populace is willing to allow them to play it out for the remainder of the 4T.

Considering the intense anger on the Left, and the total determination to slash-and-burn on the Right, when and how do you see us arriving at a consensus?  If you are assuming the force of external events, what are they?  Because, frankly, the political standoff between urban and rural, religious and secular, open and closed is getting more intense every day.  These differences involve world views that are deep and baked in.  They don't just change on a whim.
The rule for changing entrenched beliefs is life-changing trauma.  Is that your assumption?   Geography and demographics make a parting of the ways out of the question, That doesn't leave many options.

There might not be a cultural consensus, but there's a prime opportunity for the Republicans to forge a political one.  Whether they take it, or piss it away like the Dems did 2009, remains to be seen.  Remember that past crises were not characterized by uniformity of opinion, they remained bitterly divided, only that one side managed to get completely in the driver's seat and stay there long enough to drive the country somewhere new.

Besides, I don't think this crisis is going to be solely about the fight between yuppies and rednecks.  There's still geopolitics to consider here.  I don't think the Empire is done with us just yet, or we with it.

The problem with a Trump mandate is the obvious one: he never received one, and a majority of the country mistrusts him.  The GOP has the reins of power almost everywhere, yet a true majority in very few of those places.  Blustering won't make up for that, though Trump seems ready to try.

I don't see this Presidency ending well.

I don't see it ending well for Trump either, but neither did I see it ending well for a second Clinton administration.  Financial Crisis 2.0, heading our way (2018-2020), this time originating overseas--foreign bank failures and sovereign debt crises--hitting our shores through the same transmission mechanism as before--credit derivatives.  Still, Trump's proposed economic stimulus can't help but boost the US economy and stock market (not the bond market, whose secular bull trend ended last year) in the short run.  Indeed, equities could reach the "euphoric" stage that typically marks the end of every bull market.  If that comes to pass, that bodes well for Republicans in the mid-terms, but it could all blow up in their face prior to 2020, just as it did for Bush the Younger at the tail end of his second term.   

I don't know how everyone else feels, but when I hear the word "mandate," I want to stick two fingers down my throat.  Every American president, however controversial the outcome or how narrow his margin of victory, has been given at least a grudging permission to lead by virtue of an electoral majority.  Granted, Hillary won the popular vote by a not insignificant margin, nor did Trump win by the kind of landslide evidenced in past presidential elections--FDR (1936); LBJ (1964); Nixon (1972); Reagan (1984).  And yet, Trump does have "the wind at his back."  Or, as Eric might say, the "stars are aligned" in his favor.  (At least for the time being.)  The GOP has a working Congressional majority and a Supreme Court that will soon be tipped in their favor.  And, I think just as important and often overlooked--Republicans now control both chambers in 32 states.  Think of the implications of that, the most far-reaching being the ability to pass Constitutional amendments with a "conservative" bent.  (Of course, the GOP would need at least 38 states in that case, if I am not mistaken.) That prospect, however remote, would be an ideological tsunami that swamps Democratic ambitions and policies for many years to come...

[SomeGuy]

Second the point about the next big issue in the financial markets coming from overseas.  I was calling for that in 2013 on T4T forum, and conveniently that thread was preserved.  When it occurs and what the US response will be, and consequently how it affects us, is still up in the air.