If you don’t feel the mood of the country turning towards confrontation and civil chaos, you are either a lackey for the establishment, a government paid drone, or propagandized to such an extent you have chosen to be willfully ignorant of your surroundings. This Fourth Turning seemed somewhat dormant since 2012, but government, corporate, and consumer debt continued to balloon; the divide between left and right grew as the Deep State conducted a coup against a duly elected president; and global disorder accelerated in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and South America.
The core elements of debt, civic decay, and global disorder are now coalescing into a perfect storm of consequences for a nation and world built upon a teetering edifice of unpayable debt, unfulfilled promises, the unbridled greed of a blood thirsty ruling class, and the unbelievable delusions of people who think a world built upon borrowing to consume is sustainable.
The dichotomy between what is happening in the real world and what is happening in the world of the financiers will lead to violent upheaval on a timeline not anticipated by the ruling class. There is a good reason gun stores were overwhelmed with business at the outset of this over-hyped flu pandemic. As Strauss and Howe pointed out twenty three years ago, trust in the government, central bankers, the corporate media, and “experts” is disintegrating rapidly. The anger and disillusionment grows by the day and pockets of resistance are propagating throughout the country.
The un-Constitutional destruction of rights and liberties by overbearing governors, mayors and Federal bureaucrats is pushing desperate citizens towards insurrection. The police who carry out the unlawful orders of their superiors for a paycheck should realize they live among those they are bullying and pushing around. There is blowback coming and they should act accordingly. When people have lost everything they had and any hope for the future, while witnessing the privileged continuing to reap the benefits of a rigged financial system, civil disobedience will increase and blood will begin to be shed. The bubble of abnormalcy will be popped.
It is weirdly fascinating to watch a Fourth Turning unfold, while in the midst of it, and knowing we are entering the phase where people have died in numbers that put this pandemic fatality count to shame during the previous two American Crisis periods. From 1861 to 1865 almost 5% of the male population of the country were killed. That would equate to about 8 million today. From 1939 to 1945 an estimated 65 million people were killed.
The 100,000 or so who will die in 2020 from this virus is just a prelude to the death and destruction to follow. The trigger for the climactic phase of this Fourth Turning is not a virus that will not kill 99.97% of the American population, but the economic consequences of the over-reaction and authoritarian response to the virus. I’ve lost respect for numerous bloggers who desperately try to paint Sweden’s response as disastrous in an effort to support their own narrative of doom.
Sweden’s decision to allow its people and businesses to use reasonable precautions and not lock down their country in the dictatorial Chinese way, has resulted in cases per million being in line with the rest of European countries and lower than the U.S. The louder these bloggers scream, the surer you can be they have been proven wrong.
It is mesmerizing to watch those on the left, along with the Republican “Never Trumpers”, flail about as the Obama/Clinton attempted coup against Trump unravels before their very eyes. The reaction of these people, along with their toadies at CNN, MSNBC and the other left wing media, reveals an unbridgeable chasm between those believing in the rule of law and people who are willing to do anything for power.
The pure hatred from those on the left for Trump and his followers can not be contained. They despise the deplorables in flyover country with such a passion, the spittle foaming on their lips as they describe them as gun toting, uneducated, white racists, is an indication of their fury and hate. What these entitled, suit wearing, botox injected, arrogant idiot yet idiot establishment whores fail to realize is we despise them equally and we’re armed and ready. While psychopaths in suits, worthless politicians, government errand boys and remote working white collar parasites of the establishment continue to get paid, they continue to prohibit the lowly wage earner from making a living. A price will be paid.
How this plays out before November will ignite further civil strife and discontent. People have already begun taking to the streets and as this unnecessary shutdown further impoverishes the masses, things will turn nasty. Government attempting to have neighbors rat on neighbors for not obeying the Nanny State commands will backfire on the rats. Animosities and grudges will sway the actions of many, once the gloves come off.
The majority of rule following sheep believe what they are being told by their elected leaders, non-elected self proclaimed medical “experts” and the feckless shills on their boob tube. They do not see what is coming, just over the horizon. The divergence of opinion on how we should proceed from this point onward is immense, with biases, delusions, and inability to grasp the unintended consequences of the actions taken thus far, driving the narratives. Listening to Trump bloviate about the tremendous economic boom which will occur when we re-open the country is laughable. He sounds like a carnival barker.
He allowed himself to be bamboozled by medical “expert” hacks and their immensely flawed garbage in-garbage out models into destroying our economy, and he may end up paying the price in November as the economy is mired in a 2nd Great Depression.
The destruction caused by this man-made depression is permanent. The millions of small businesses demolished are not coming back. The unemployment rate will never approach 3.5% again, unless the BLS says 30 million people just left the labor market because they got independently wealthy in the stock market.
The number of corporate and personal bankruptcies will exceed anything seen in history. The mortgage, credit card and auto loan defaults are going to make 2009 look like a cake walk. The fear and panic inflicted by the government upon the psyches of the masses has insured bars, restaurants, airlines, cruises, stadiums, movie theaters and anywhere crowds formerly gathered will draw a fraction of what they did three months ago. This will lead to more bankruptcies.
The remote working arrangements forced upon companies will result in a glut of office space, as companies save money by no longer renting overpriced offices. The coming commercial real estate collapse will be one for the record books. Malls, which were barely staying alive before Covid-19, are done, as major retailers declare bankruptcy on a daily basis. Closed stores no longer employ workers.
People whose jobs are gone, with their meager savings depleted, will not be spending on frivilous gadgets and baubles. They won’t be eating out three times per week. They will just be trying to sustain themselves. A society built upon 70% of its GDP coming from consumption is now doomed. The well oiled mechanism of lending money to people so they can buy shit they can’t afford and paying them just enough to make the minimum payments has malfunctioned.
The state and local governments dependent upon sales taxes, gasoline taxes, income taxes, tolls, and property taxes to pay for their bloated bureaucracies are going to be overwhelmed with massive deficits, as their revenue streams have evaporated. This will bring the government pension crisis to a head years earlier than expected. The normal government action would be to increase taxes on the plebs. The plebs are broke and will not stand for higher taxes. They’ll demand government layoff workers. This will just throw another log on the fire of discontent. The us versus them mindset will grow ever larger until violence breaks out.
The average American suffered economic hardship throughout the 1930s, just as average Americans continued to suffer economic hardship since 2008. But the real economic hardship has just begun. As Americans dealt with privation and poverty in the late 1930s the coming global conflict was brewing. Animosities, prejudices and resentments, exacerbated by economic turmoil, stirred militaristic ambitions of hubristic rulers in Europe and Asia. The parallels with the current international dynamic may not be the same, but they do rhyme. Three months ago, the truly chaotic perilous segment of this Fourth Turning seemed far off in the distance. Now it approaches with the speed of a ballistic missile.
The possibility of global catastrophe is not taken seriously by the vast majority of Americans. Their ignorance of history is appalling and a pathetic indictment of our educational system. It’s been seventy-five years since the last global conflict and most of the people who experienced the horror are dead. We’ve forgotten the past and are condemned to relive it, just as we do every eighty or so years.
The extreme volatility seen in financial markets over the last two months only happens during bear markets. The historical perspective and insight into market valuations of the 30 something Harvard and Wharton MBA traders doesn’t reach past last Tuesday. This bear market bounce, generated on nothing but Fed liquidity and belief in Powell’s infallibility, will give way once again to a waterfall like collapse in the equity markets. This will be the final nail in the coffin of trust in the Fed. If this crackup occurs as the election approaches, the consequences and actions taken will propel the global disorder into a new stratosphere. A storm is brewing.
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