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Summary: Family is the only ultimate safety net for both political and economic upheaval
The fourth turning prediction suggests a final abandon of futurist promises of social security, Medicare, and elder benefits. These New Deal projects will lie in the dust bins of history. Today's advice is to prepare for both economic and political upheaval. The federal government will need to simplify and reduce, size and scope. All levels of government need to prune legal, regulatory, and professional thickets that stymie institutional change. Government needs to thin out procedural requirements that could delay or weaken emergence measures in a crisis. Communities should improve their own functional support for schools, housing infrastructure (sewer,power,water,roads), transportation, safety, justice, social service from their own local resources and stop depending upon federal fund assistance. Personal responsibility for the future health care and income means people, today, should begin to save intensely. The saving must be signficant increase reaching 20-25 percent of their incomes. The author believes a consumption tax will benefit the middle class. A consumption tax would not tax income creating a wealth creation sphere. However, money is not the only solution. Bottomline, the family will be the ultimate safety net against disaster because of its never infinite resource capability and flexibility. At the same time, as economic hardship increases, one can expect government subsidies to vanish and new trade barriers to arise. Corporate bailouts caused from consumer spending declines will be less and less likely.
Prior to the fourth turning, the nation will be more affluent than other generations, possess more technology, encompass more diverse populations, and command more powerful weapons. This is a repeat cycle pattern characteristic of all fourth turning patterns. The boomer generation is very vulnerable and the thinness in personal savings alarming and just as they will need more benefits and support from the government, at a time, when less and less funds will be available. The unsustainable public promises will move Boomers into a devalued society state as confidence and trust decline. Confidence declines as larger groups of people realize the government is fiscally overcommitted spending beyond its capability, for elder care and debt service. The government does not have unenough resource to support a Welfare state, an illusionary promise to begin with from its inception. The turn about will be abrupt and sharp; the Boomers will be shocked, as benefits disappear. The Millennials will be faced with new debt, heavy tax burdens, and two tier wage structures reducing money in their pockets, money that would be used for consumption. The new youth will struggle to find employment.
A sudden spark will catalyze a crisis mood and in the crisis political and economic trust will implode. Plausible sparks are: a tax rebellion among the states causing treasury bills to be suspended; a house to house search for the enemy sphere leading to a national strike and bringing political and economic instability, whereupon, foreign capital decides to flee; a budget impasse which threatens to shutdown government operations, whereupon, the dollar and bonds plummet, as Wall Street panics; a widespread disease triggering control measure and the implementation of martial law where individual rights are preempted and duty required; and the formation of an confederate relationship between Russia and Iran causing Gold and Oil prices to soar. The initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses making debt repayment desperate, civic decay promise seem a disillusion, and US economic instability causing global disorder. Increased amounts of distrust will cause a downward spiral of failing confidence and remorse for things done wrong. The unraveling will support the trend towards social complexity.
A real hardship will beset the land: class conflict, race intolerance, national constitution rights waiver, and the sorrows of an empire. The very survival of the nation will be at stake. As the catastrophe escalates the social fabric, it will become less certain with increased possibilities of civil violence, geographical crackups, acceptance of authoritarian rule, and war - total war where the upward ratchet in technology will threaten extreme humanitarian destruction with a willingness to use it. The focus on survival means increased military spending and public investment in large projects. Armed conflict usually occurs around the climax of a crisis and those involve are willing to use these weapons, the most destructive weapons will be deployed.
Market devaluation will cause a severe drop in the market price. The drop in price will have preliminary short term trend, go through a period of prosperity, and then move into a long term trend of contract. The exact degree of pain caused from the recession or depression is not predictable, it will be severe. The short term correct will be horrifically painful as assets devalue and give alarm to Millennials seeking employment and boomer attempting to maintain production. The alarm will extend to multiple generations overlapped in the workforce.
However, at pinnacle of despair, the possible of social rebirth will emerge, as the remnant of the old social order disintegrates. A new civic order is predicted to emerge. Old political alliances will be broken. The Millennials will begin to shape politics that shift away from the individual rights and towards public duties; they will seek unionism and corporationism. It is also very possible that partisan two party systems will dissolve. The new regime will enthrone itself will an increased level of public authority and demand private sacrifice. America will become more isolated and abandon both global democracy and multinational diplomacy. Businesses will become more cartelized and workers more unionized.
Eventually, the economy will recover experiencing unprecedented levels of efficiency and production levels. A new renewed hope with a strong resolve on what to do emerge and the Millennials will know what to do. The American spirit will return. The great civil entropy will be reversed and trust reborn, as a new civil order is established and a new social contract will take root. Prosperity will blossom and the new economic society will enter into a new gate of history.
Another real and believable vision of the new civic order is the establishment of Zion, a city of God, as a plausible social order. The quality of Zion sets as a ideal a civic order where there is no poor among them. Zion is characterized by the building of massive projects to benefit mankind and utilize new technology to increase production. Lastly, Zion is a fortress where no weapon can prosper against it, it is a fortress of safety and the introduction of an era of peace where none will go against Zion because it is terrible.
Summary: The most profound book I have read in a long time
I have always believed history was linear, and that we were progressing somehow as a species, until I read this book.
Like many other unenlightened, I saw history in short segments, comparing today to the 50s, or to the 60s, and I saw linearities that I could then extrapolate from.
Since reading The Fourth Turning, I realize how history is cyclical, and where we are now, we have been before, in a sense. When you hearken back to the 50s, and how "good" it was, you don't need to despair, but instead realize that those times will come back. (Personally, the 50s sound awful to me.)
The Fourth Turning has profoundly reshaped my view of the world, history and my place in it. Rather than fighting history as it is being made, I recognize now that the wheel is turning, and I cannot stop it. I realize now, it is wiser to understand where we are going as a society, and to make rational preparations instead.
I recommend any thoughtful person to read this book. You will never think the same. In a way, you will pity those who do not see history as cyclical, as they are fooled at every turn.
You will understand that the current cultural war has happened before. Can you remember, progressives vs. christian teetotallers in the teens and twenties. Can you remember the, uh, abolitionists versus the pro-slavery crowd in the 1840s? The revolutionaries vs. the pro-British in the 1760s. We have been at each others throats again and again. Cyclical, hmmm.
Summary: Our Book of the Month
THE FOURTH TURNING was recently discussed during my "Book of the Month" group. The group, consisting of several active pastors of various denominations made the following observations:
PROS
The author offers a fascinating perspective, with enough support to be taken seriously.
The author offers hope for the "Baby Boomers" that their greatest challenge and opportunity lies ahead.
The author delivers an uncanny prediction of a 9-11 type of event years before it happened.
The author ends with a sobering idea:
(A child born in 1997 will anchor a memory span reaching from around the 1930s to the 2150s, a future remote beyond comprehension.)
There is certainly enough fodder in this book to spark lengthy intellectual discussion among all but the proudest and
dimmest among us.
CONS
Some of us thought it an easy read, while others thought it more difficult, but everyone agreed it was a lengthy book.
The author begins time with the reformation 1517 and doesn't go much beyond Western history.
The book did not convert anyone to its view.
The author overlooks globalization. This could prove his undoing.
FINAL REMARKS
The book is worth reading, but do not read it alone. You will want to bounce these ideas off someone else and that someone else should be prepared for an interesting discussion.
OTHER BOOKS OF THE MONTH
"Process Theology: A Basic Introduction"
by: C. Robert Mesle & John B. Cobb, Jr.
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