The Winter of Our Discontent
In Part 1 of this article I discussed the catalyst spark which ignited this Fourth Turning and the seemingly delayed regeneracy. In Part 2 I pondered possible Grey Champion prophet generation leaders who could arise during the regeneracy. In Part 3 I will focus on the economic channel of distress which is likely to be the primary driving force in the next phase of this Crisis.
There are very few people left on this earth who lived through the last Fourth Turning (1929 – 1946). The passing of older generations is a key component in the recurring cycles which propel the world through the seemingly chaotic episodes that paint portraits on the canvas of history. The current alignment of generations is driving this Crisis and will continue to give impetus to the future direction of this Fourth Turning. The alignment during a Fourth Turning is always the same: Old Artists (Silent) die, Prophets (Boomers) enter elderhood, Nomads (Gen X) enter midlife, Heroes (Millennials) enter young adulthood—and a new generation of child Artists (Gen Y) is born. This is an era in which America’s institutional life is torn down and rebuilt from the ground up—always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival.
The Fed has printed $3.5 trillion out of thin air in the last six years while keeping interest rates anchored at 0% for their Wall Street owners, with the net impact of punishing senior citizens and other risk averse savers while further enriching their gambling casino owners who dictate the monetary policy for the world. As widowed grandmothers across the land have seen their life sustaining interest income evaporate, even the downwardly manipulated CPI has risen 14% since 2008. Using a real inflation measure, most Americans have seen their daily living expenses rise by more than 30% since 2008, but Yellen and her cronies yammer about deflationary fears.
Economic distress intensifies by the day for average American household as their real income has been falling for 15 years, while the cost of food, energy, healthcare, education, rent, housing, and vehicles have soared. Government imposed property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, fees, and tolls have risen exponentially over this time frame as the parasite sucks the host dry. Millions of households have been lured into debt by the Wall Street debt machine and their corporate media mouthpieces as consumer debt has grown from $1.5 trillion to $3.4 trillion since 2000, and mortgage debt has grown from $6.5 trillion to $13.5 trillion.
The extreme distress felt by households has been caused by their foolish choice to try and maintain their lifestyles by replacing declining income with debt. They are now enslaved by the chains of $1.3 trillion in student loan debt, $1.1 trillion of auto loan debt, $1 trillion of credit card debt, and $13.5 trillion of mortgage loan debt. Has keeping up with the Joneses been worth it? The stress of meeting the monthly obligations with declining income has become unbearable for many.
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