Tag: crisis

Politics

I’m Worried

I’ve been worried before. Big world or national events happen and it’s natural to wonder what the fallout will be. But time moves on and things get back to normal. The worry dissipates. However, this moment in time feels different. There are so many things that have taken a turn for the worse, it’s hard to see a path back to stability. For the first time in my life, I’m actually concerned about where we’re headed. Not just a yell at the TV and vote the bums out concern, but an oh shit I can see things turning very dark kind of worry.

I’d been thinking about this in an abstract way as we’ve watched the events of the last few years unfold. But I just recently finished a book that really made me think. It’s called “The Fourth Turning“. It’s not new – it was published in 1997. I don’t remember how I stumbled upon it, but I devoured it. I read it on a Kindle, but wish I’d had a paperback version. It’s the kind of book you write in the margins, go back and re-read tables and charts, and place copious post-it notes.

In a nutshell, the premise is that human history runs in 80-year cycles that are broken up into roughly 20-year blocks, or “turnings”. What’s fascinating, and prophetic, is that the four turnings have repeated consistently from the beginning of human history. The four turnings are as follows:

  • High – A period of stability, growth, prosperity, and conformity
  • Awakening – a period of spiritual awakening and rebellion against conformity
  • Unraveling – a period in which individualism triumphs over crumbling institutions
  • Crisis – This is the fourth turning. War, revolution, and a profound loss of trust in institutions

The three recent crises in recent American history are the revolutionary war (1776), the civil war (1861), and WWII (1941). The last High period was the post WWII boom, the Awakening was the ’60’s to the early 80’s, and the Unraveling was 90’s to the 20’s. It certainly feels like we’re currently in or at the cusp of a new Crisis.

This was the author’s prediction in 1997:

“History is seasonal and winter is coming. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and the twin emergencies of the Great Depression in World War II. The risk of catastrophe will be high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.”

(The Fourth Turning, Strauss & Howe, 1997)

It’s not hard to see that our ruling class has led us to an abyss – financially, politically, and culturally. Bonds, treasuries, and stocks are in free-fall. We’re $31 trillion dollars in debt. The debt service alone will soon be eating into any entitlement or discretionary spending. And yet, we keep printing and spending money like drunken sailors. Inflation is quickly wiping out any savings and wage growth for most of the population. We’re clearly in a recessionary period, probably heading towards stagflation.

Politically, the world is extremely dangerous right now. World powers are jockeying for position, power, and control over global resources. We’re probably the closest we’ve ever been to a tactical nuclear engagement. Meanwhile, the public face of our own government is an inept octogenarian with dementia. It’s unclear who’s actually running our government, but that cabal has mismanaged (either via utter incompetence or on purpose) virtually every aspect of the American fabric. While I wasn’t thrilled with the election of the current administration, never in a million years would I have thought things could unravel as fast as they have.

And finally, we’ve lost the culture that maintains a society. I honestly believe we’ve abandoned any sense of ourselves as “Americans“. We’ve been driven into loose groups separated by race, gender, and political ideology. Wokeness and the onslaught of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity has driven a wedge into society that I don’t think we’ll recover from. There is no common ground anymore. Pick your camp and defend at all costs (via mean tweets and cancel culture).

We’re at the end of the Unraveling period. Society is divided, we’re at the brink of a financial collapse, and weak leadership invites global power shifts. The scope and scale of government overreach and authoritarianism we’ve seen the last few years really frightened me. Not so much that government would do it, but how willing many in society accepted it. The loss of trust in law enforcement, health services, and public officials is not recoverable.

So, what will the trigger be for the fourth turning? A nuclear move by Putin in Ukraine? The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines? A new “George Floyd” moment that spawns civil unrest? A resurgence of Covid and new lockdowns? The next 2008 financial crisis? Food or energy shortages? All seem possible right now.

This country, and the world, just doesn’t feel stable right now. I honestly don’t remember feeling that before. I don’t know what the answer is. I’m not sure if there is one. History sure seems to be good at repeating itself. We’re just not very good at recognizing it. But maybe that book is hogwash? There’s no doubt that the danger of pattern matching is that it’s very easy to start seeing patterns everywhere to reinforce your desired outcome.

I just don’t know. But I’m worried.

Government, Solving the wrong problem

A Return To Chaos

In about a week we’ll be watching the most consequential election of our times… according to the news. It’s for the governorship of Virginia. I’m sure there’s other elections going on in the country, but for some reason all the smart people believe the outcome of this one will signal the how the rest of the elections will go for the next four years. Whatever. The democrats are apparently worried and have brought out the heavy hitters to help campaign. No, not Brandon but Obama. And yesterday the former and current acting president said something during his speech that caught my ear.

“We’re not going to go back to the chaos that did so much damage” said Obama. Hmmm. Just exactly what damage is he referring to? That’s a serious question. I’m not talking about the four years of hysterical teeth gnashing and wailing brought about by Trump Derangement Syndrome. That’s entirely an issue brought about by the left and fueled by the “media”. Madonna and Ashely Judd wearing pink pussy hats and caterwauling like scalded cats about blowing up the white house and being nasty women perfectly encapsulates the TDS that started right after the election and grew steadily for four years. While annoying, that’s not destruction.

So what exactly did the bad orange man destroy? The economy? Jobs? Gas prices? Border security? A rapid vaccine development in the face of a pandemic? Trust me, there’s plenty not to like about the guy but I can’t think of any actual harm that happened or was exacerbated on his watch other than triggered snowflakes devastated by mean tweets.

It must be really painful for the left right now, as evidenced by the complete radio silence about this president. Nobody is even attempting to defend anything the administration is doing. CNN spends its time covering ani-vaxxers, an actor shooting someone, and never ending analysis of the Laundrie murder. MSNBC still covers the devastating capitol insurrection 24×7. Meanwhile kids, pull up a chair and lets think about the achievements under the current administration:

  • A disastrous Afghanistan pull out that got US solders and marines killed, droned a car full of kids, and left behind hundreds of Americans. Oh, and gifted the Taliban $80 some odd billion dollars in military hardware. Tens of thousands of unvetted Afghans have been brought in as refugees and released into the country.
  • Rapidly accelerating inflation, gas prices, food costs, and a worker shortage that nobody can explain.
  • A supply chain crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen before. Hundreds of ships anchored offshore with no way to offload. Store shelves are empty, manufacturing is shut down, and consumer goods like cars and appliances are non-existent. Meanwhile the transportation secretary who was already AWOL on this issue, goes on paternity leave (and nobody in the media even notices).
  • A mishandling of public health messaging that’s so inept it’s causing reasonable people to question vaccines simply because they no longer trust the governments message. Public health officials demanding you “follow the science” while actually ignoring the science. Our covid czar Fauci is caught lying about funding gain of function research in, wait for it… Wuhan. A president to actually believes millions of people should lose their jobs if they don’t submit to the jab.
  • An unimaginable border crisis that grows by the day. A record 1.7 million unvaccinated and unvetted people intercepted and released into the country. Hundreds of thousands more that snuck in without detection. New caravans of thousands are heading to the border at this moment. Secret flights are sending folks to cities across the country in the middle of the night. The Vice President, appointed as the border czar is… simply AWOL. But dammit, we will investigate the border patrol riding horses. The public imagery is horrific!
  • From a foreign policy standpoint, we’ve managed to piss off the French, provoke the China/Taiwan issue and North Korea is back to launching missiles. Straight out of the gate our secretary of state attempted to lecture Chinese officials and got his ass handed to him. Speaking of China, they’re now actively posturing and provoking militarily on the sea and in the air.
  • Crime and murder are at all time highs across the country. Meanwhile the attorney general appears to be more concerned with parents attending school board meetings.

In times past, any one of those issues would be enough to hamstring a president for the duration of their term. All of this and we’re not even a year into this administration. The growing list of crises is causing actual damage, with no relief in sight. There doesn’t appear to be anyone in the administration even attempting to get out in front of any of this. All efforts appear to be solely on getting the two, five, seven, ten trillion (I’ve lost track of what it is now) in new spending passed. Because printing new trillions of dollars during inflation/stagflation is clearly sound economic policy.

No offense, but I preferred the previous chaos and damage.

Cool, Daily Life, Health

I Don’t Know The Answer
  • The one thing that stands out for me about this moment in history is that nobody knows who to listen to. There’s approximately 1.27 million opinions, from experts to hucksters, on every single subject. How is the average person supposed to figure out the right answer about anything? For example, based upon some random crap I read on the internet I decided it wouldn’t be a bad thing to start adding vitamin D3 and Zinc to my system. But how much? The dosage on the bottle says 2,000 iu a day. One doctor I read says you need at least 20,000 a day. Another says start with 10,000 a day for two weeks and then 5,000 iu daily as maintenance. How are you supposed to know? I think this quote from Eric Weinstein says it all. He’s probably one of the smartest humans on the planet. PhD in mathematical physics, managing director of Thiel Capital, and founder of the intellectual dark web… “I have not been able to understand our experts explaining what is going on with either the virus, its origins, our masks, our vaccines, or vaccine alternatives. I admit it: I totally can’t grasp our experts on COVID.” If he can’t figure it out, how are the rest of us supposed to? What a mess.

  • Our supply chain is in crisis mode. I’m not sure people fully grasp how bad the current scenario is. Literally every product and component we consume is at risk. Car dealership lots are empty. Appliances can’t be found. Bike shops are out of bike tubes and tires. A local pizza shop owner is wrapping to-go pizza in foil because he can’t get cardboard boxes. He *thinks* he’ll survive the winter because he pre-purchased flour and other baking supplies. The LA and Long Beach ports are seeing record congestion. Currently there are 97 massive cargo ships anchored offshore, waiting for a slot to unload. Retailers are panicking about the Christmas shopping season, as they may have empty shelves. If manufacturing components aren’t available, layoffs start and businesses go under. Will things straighten themselves out eventually? Hopefully. But it wouldn’t take much to knock down this house of cards. Meanwhile, I went to Costco the other day. Every single cart I saw was loaded up with the ginormous package of toilet paper and paper towels. They are now back to limiting purchase to one per customer. I still don’t understand what it is about hoarding toilet paper… but better go get you some.

  • I have an acquaintance who knows I briefly contemplated buying a drone. He frequently sends me drone related info and shares stories of how much he enjoys his. I still don’t know that I could justify buying one. I worry that it will be one of those purchases that you use a bunch for a while and then it would never come out of the case again. I think I’d have to be seriously making videos before I’d consider it again. What struck me the other day is that it turns out he uses his drone for still photography, not the standard flying videos. Beautiful landscape photos, just from a much different angle/perspective. I like that sort of thinking out of the box. It shows that just when you think everything in photography (or any other art form) has been done, someone comes along and thinks about things differently.


  • Semi related to the supply chain crisis, but for different reasons… If you are not into shooting sports you may not realize this, but guns and ammo are currently non-existent. Ammo that I used to buy for $300 a case is now $1,500 a case in the rare occasion you can actually find it. I was at a large sporting goods store the other day and their gun cases were empty. The manager said that they get 5-7 guns in a day, and they sell them the same day. The population is worried. Gun and ammo sales spike with unrest and uncertainty. I’ve never seen this level of shortages before. I’m not entirely sure what it means… but it’s probably not a good sign.

  • I recently watched a MasterClass by Tom Morello, the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine. I’m not a guitar player, but I thoroughly enjoyed the behind the scenes look at how the songs were created, his influences, and what it’s like to be a performer. I’d encourage giving it watch, even if that sort of music isn’t your cup ‘o tea.

Song of the day: Knife Party & Tom Morello – Battle Sirens (Live Version)