Author: Jim Quinn

“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 twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning In Part One of this article I laid out the reasons for Gray Champions arising to meet challenges during crisis periods in history. In Part Two of this article I assessed the configuration of Gray Champions throughout the world and the potential impact on the course of this Fourth Turning. The swirling fog of confusion enveloping the … Continue reading →

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“Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning the way you might today distance yourself from news, national politics, or even taxes you don’t feel like paying. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted. The Fourth Turning necessitates the death and rebirth of the social order. It is the ultimate rite of passage for an entire people, requiring a luminal state of sheer chaos whose nature and duration no one can predict in advance.” – Strauss & Howe –The Fourth Turning In Part One of this article I laid out the … Continue reading →

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“Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.” – George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones “Reflect on what happens when a terrible winter blizzard strikes. You hear the weather warning but probably fail to act on it. The sky darkens. Then the storm hits with full fury, and the air is a howling whiteness. One by one, your links to the machine age break down. Electricity flickers out, cutting off the TV. Batteries fade, cutting off the radio. Phones go dead. Roads become impassible, and cars get stuck. Food supplies dwindle. Day to day vestiges of modern civilization – bank … Continue reading →

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Yeah, keep your eyes on the road, your hand upon the wheel Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel Yeah, we’re goin’ to the Roadhouse We’re gonna have a real Good time The Doors – Roadhouse Blues Spending a week driving around a western state 1,700 miles from my stomping grounds in Pennsylvania provides a different perspective on the level of economic, social and political degradation impacting the country. With a daily commute along the crumbling, crummy, gridlocked deathtrap roadways into West Philadelphia, the squalor and decomposition of our civilization is self-evident. I live in a … Continue reading →

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“Once you strip out the effects of the debt binge, the artificial stimulus via currency depreciation, and the fabled ‘wealth effect’ from the equity market runup, real GDP growth stripped-down to its core was the grand total of 0.7% last year. Potemkin would be proud.” – David Rosenberg It appears every president finds the religion of false economic narrative once they ascend to power. Trump never stops babbling and tweeting about the fantastic economy and raging jobs market since his election. He has embraced the stock market bubble as proof of his brilliant leadership, rather than the tens of trillions in debt … Continue reading →

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“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” – Benjamin Disraeli Every month the government apparatchiks at the Bureau of Lies and Scams (BLS) dutifully announces inflation is still running below 2%. Janet Yellen then gives a speech where she notes her concern inflation is too low and she needs to keep interest rates near zero to save humanity from the scourge of too low inflation. I don’t know how I could survive without 2% inflation reducing my purchasing power. This week they reported year over year inflation of 1.9%. Just right to keep Janet from raising … Continue reading →

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What’s missing in this famous painting? In 1983, Solzhenitsyn received the Templeton Prize. This is an award presented by the Templeton Foundation in Pennsylvania. It is an annual award given to a living person who, in the estimation of the judges, “has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery or practical works.” Upon receiving the award at age 65, Solzhenitsyn delivered an address titled, “Godlessness: The First Step Toward the Gulag.” He began with a reminiscence from his childhood: More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing … Continue reading →

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“I believe the women. I think he should step aside.” – Mitch McConnell “These allegations are credible. He should step aside.” – Paul Ryan I don’t know whether Judge Roy Moore cruised around malls 40 years ago looking for teenage girls. He might be a pedophile, or the women stepping forward decades after the alleged incidents might be lying. To quote a famous scandal ridden establishment politician, “At this point what difference does it make”. He will win the run-off election for Jeff Sessions’ vacant Senate seat on December 12. He will win because we are in the midst of a Fourth Turning, where … Continue reading →

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In Part 1 of this article I provided the background regarding the phases of Fourth Turnings and where we stand nine years into this period of crisis. I will now ponder what could happen during the remainder of this Fourth Turning. “History offers no guarantees. Obviously, things could go horribly wrong – the possibilities ranging from a nuclear exchange to incurable plagues, from terrorist anarchy to high-tech dictatorship. We should not assume that Providence will always exempt our nation from the irreversible tragedies that have overtaken so many others: not just temporary hardship, but debasement and total ruin. Losing in the next Fourth … Continue reading →

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“The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. 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 twin emergencies of the Great … Continue reading →

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“So the modern world may be increasing in technological knowledge, but, paradoxically, it is making things a lot more unpredictable.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder You are hence fragile.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder I had read Nassim Taleb’s other best-selling tomes about risk, randomness and black swans – Fooled by Randomness & The Black Swan. They were not easy reads, but they were must reads. He is clearly a brilliant thinker, but I like him more because he is a prickly skeptic who scorns and ridicules academics, politicians, and Wall Street scumbags with gusto. There were … Continue reading →

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“The best way to teach your kids about taxes is by eating 30% of their ice cream.”– Bill Murray When I saw that slimy tentacle of the Goldman Sachs vampire squid, Gary Cohn, bloviating about Trump’s tax plan and how it was going to do wonders for the middle class, I knew I was probably going to get screwed again. And after perusing the outline of their plan, it is certain I will be getting it up the ass once again from my beloved government. I know everyone’s tax situation is different, but I’m just a hard working middle aged … Continue reading →

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“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” ― Thomas Jefferson Yesterday the government reported a “modest” August budget deficit of $108 billion. That’s one month folks. This is another example of how the government and their mainstream media mouthpieces portray horrifically bad, extremely abnormal financial data as normal and expected. They pretend everything that has happened since 2008 is just standard operating procedure. They follow the Big Lie theory to the extreme. The masses have been so dumbed down, desensitized, and taught to believe delusions, they … Continue reading →

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We survived our two day stay in NYC. It took just over two hours to get from Penn Station to our front door. We sure packed a lot into two days. My wife’s iGadget said we walked 11 miles on Thursday and another 11 miles on Friday. My sore feet and swollen knee confirm that calculation. As usual I found myself observing and analyzing, more than enjoying the visit. It was a sobering couple days. I’ll probably over-generalize, but I’ll give my overall impressions of the people I saw and the places we visited. We checked into our Comfort Inn … Continue reading →

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“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening – Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.” – Alan Moore Buy Silver at Discounted Prices Alan Moore, the renowned graphic novel writer, and author of the dystopian classic V for Vendetta, politically identifies as an anarchist. His view that all political states … Continue reading →

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