Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

To all:
... with respect to average earnings and growth.
From 1920 to 2003 ...

God Bless him! I get so tired of financial advisors trying to wow me with their trends that go "all the way back" to 1935. Of course the market looks impervious if you remove the single most significant economic event in the 20th century!

The scary part is that his numbers discount the possibility that we are on the cusp of just such another saecular event.

Dear Scott,

Originally Posted by scott 63

> God Bless him! I get so tired of financial advisors trying to wow
> me with their trends that go "all the way back" to 1935. Of course
> the market looks impervious if you remove the single most
> significant economic event in the 20th century!

I have several comments in response to your posting.

First, as I'm sure you know, most "analysts" and "financial
advisors" don't go anywhere nearly that far back. Most analysts
consider the 1980s to be ancient history. I've seen one analyst after
another compare the 2001 recession to the 1992 and 1981 recessions (I
think those are the right dates).

Second, I've been wondering for a long time how so many
financial analysts could be living in their fantasyland of not being
concerned about astronomically high price/earnings ratios for stocks
today. This weekend I just learned what the "reasoning" is. It's
called the "Fed Model," and it's based on a paragraph and a graphic
buried deep in the middle of a 1997 Federal Reserve report. The
graphic and the paragraph are as follows:

Originally Posted by The Fed, 1997

> The run-up in stock prices in the spring was bolstered by
> unexpectedly strong corporate profits for the first quarter.
> Still, the ratio of prices in the S&P 500 to consensus estimates
> of earnings over the coming twelve months has risen further from
> levels that were already unusually high. Changes in this ratio
> have often been inversely related to changes in long-term Treasury
> yields, but this year's stock price gains were not matched by a
> significant net decline in interest rates. As a result, the yield
> on ten-year Treasury notes now exceeds the ratio of
> twelve-month-ahead earnings to prices by the largest amount since
> 1991, when earnings were depressed by the economic slowdown. One
> important factor behind the increase in stock prices this year
> appears to be a further rise in analysts' reported expectations of
> earnings growth over the next three to five years. The average of
> these expectations has risen fairly steadily since early 1995 and
> currently stands at a level not seen since the steep recession of
> the early 1980s, when earnings were expected to bounce back from
> levels that were quite low.
> http://www.federalreserve.gov/boardd...rtSection2.htm

At some point I'll write about this at greater length, but basing an
entire financial strategy on this paragraph is a complete crock of
shit. Forget about 1935 -- this "strategy" is based on a graph that
goes back to 1982. That's how vacuous these idiots are.

Third, the date 1935 is a carefully chosen date to perpetrate
the "Dow 36,000 Hoax." 1935 is near the botton of the 1930s stock
market crash, so if you want show that the stock market is going to
surge to 36,000, you run your extrapolation forward from 1935. This
hoax was perpetrated by Jim Glassman in a book that came out just
before Nasdaq crash in 2000.

I'm constantly reading absolute garbage from so-called financial
analysts or advisors, and it gets me angrier and angrier because a
lot of people will be hurt.

That's why I was so shocked by the Adam Barth article - because it
does the analysis in the correct way.

Originally Posted by scott 63

> The scary part is that his numbers discount the possibility that
> we are on the cusp of just such another saecular event.

I don't see it that way. It's true that the "Dow 4500" statement is
buried in a paragraph 2/3 of the way through the story, since the
editor didn't want to appear sensationalistic, but once you've
accepted "Dow 4500," then you have no choice but to believe that
there's going to be a crash.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
john@GenerationalDynamics.com
http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

I took a financial planning class and asked for data going back at least a century. I got a chart that goes back to 1890. Then I bought David Fischer's The Great Wave, which has continuous price data going back to the middle of the Middle Ages, and some sporadic ones from antiquity. (On one chart the Siege of Athens was plainly visible, though not labeled as such.)

If it's any consolation, Fisher thinks we're in for a repeat of the Victorian Equilibrium (Mega-High in my terms) after the current 4T is over. Good news for those wanting a rest; bad news for people who love high interest rates. (i.e. retirees and coupon-clippers). I find it a good backup to Generational Dynamics *and* to 4T.

(P.S. He proves, to me, that the long economic 'cycle" is indeed not a sine wave, but a capacitor discharge.)

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Second, I've been wondering for a long time how so many
financial analysts could be living in their fantasyland of not being
concerned about astronomically high price/earnings ratios for stocks
today. This weekend I just learned what the "reasoning" is. It's
called the "Fed Model," and it's based on a paragraph and a graphic
buried deep in the middle of a 1997 Federal Reserve report. The
graphic and the paragraph are as follows:

Because most of them hacks, and even the ones who aren't hacks with private clients (or rather private clients with $$$$$) are often hacks on TV and in print.

John, my only objection to what I've read ( The Website) consists with two things. 1) I think you over-emphasize the role of the Middle-East I think China is the real threat not the Arabs.2) you define civilizations exclusively in religious terms. I'm not certain that's valid. it seems to me Civilizations are based on concepts like how you live, eat etc.. So while it is appropriate to claim that Islam is a separate civ, I'm not certain you can make the same claim for an Orthadox civ. If religion is the primary criteria then the secular worldview first created in the Enlightenment must be mentioned. Thus your clash of Civilizations may include these other civilization clashing against a secular worldview that has spread continents and transcended languages.

Originally Posted by Idiot Girl

> I took a financial planning class and asked for data going back at
> least a century. I got a chart that goes back to 1890. Then I
> bought David Fischer's The Great Wave, which has continuous price
> data going back to the middle of the Middle Ages, and some
> sporadic ones from antiquity. (On one chart the Siege of Athens
> was plainly visible, though not labeled as such.)

> If it's any consolation, Fisher thinks we're in for a repeat of
> the Victorian Equilibrium (Mega-High in my terms) after the
> current 4T is over. Good news for those wanting a rest; bad news
> for people who love high interest rates. (i.e. retirees and
> coupon-clippers). I find it a good backup to Generational Dynamics
> *and* to 4T.

> (P.S. He proves, to me, that the long economic 'cycle" is indeed
> not a sine wave, but a capacitor discharge.)

I actually agree that the world has a good chance of being something
of a paradise after the crisis war is over, at least for a few years.

With a reduced population, there'll be plenty of food for everyone,
and there'll be little poverty. Furthermore, there'll be
super-intelligent computers running around doing all sorts of tasks
for us - from a 24-hour a day nursemaid to someone to do the
plumbing.

What more could we ask?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
john@GenerationalDynamics.com
http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by milo

> Because most of them hacks, and even the ones who aren't hacks
> with private clients (or rather private clients with $$$$$) are
> often hacks on TV and in print.

It's worse than that. Brokers and analysts who can see what's going
to happen stand to lose their entire incomes if they advise people not
to buy stocks. So the only brokers still in business are the ones who
are willing to lie or at least downplay the danger. So their
livelihood depends on lying.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
john@GenerationalDynamics.com
http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Chris,

Originally Posted by spudzill

> John, my only objection to what I've read ( The Website) consists
> with two things. 1) I think you over-emphasize the role of the
> Middle-East I think China is the real threat not the Arabs.

Last year I wrote an article called "The Six Most Dangerous Regions
in the world today."
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...i.danger041120

Since then I've added the following graphic to my web site:



There are six regions and two further issues. If "something happens"
in any one of these 8 areas, then it will start the "cascade" that we
talk about in this forum, and the chain reaction will ignite all the
others within two years or so.

So you can argue that the Chinese are more dangerous to us than
the Arabs (a conclusion that is indeed quite arguable). But the
issue that the graphic addresses is that all of them are equally
dangerous because any one of them can start the cascade.

As far as emphasizing Muslims on my web site, hey, those were Muslims
bombing the London subways, not the Chinese.

Originally Posted by spudzill

> 2) you define civilizations exclusively in religious terms. I'm
> not certain that's valid. it seems to me Civilizations are based
> on concepts like how you live, eat etc.. So while it is
> appropriate to claim that Islam is a separate civ, I'm not certain
> you can make the same claim for an Orthadox civ. If religion is
> the primary criteria then the secular worldview first created in
> the Enlightenment must be mentioned. Thus your clash of
> Civilizations may include these other civilization clashing
> against a secular worldview that has spread continents and
> transcended languages.

The concept of "civilization" goes back at least a century to
Tolstoy, though other historians have come up with different
definitions. I really didn't want to challenge the historians' view
of what the civilizations are, so I simply went with the nine
civilizations defined by Huntington in Clash of Civilizations:
Western, Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic (Chinese), Hindu,
Orthodox, Buddhist, and Japanese.

Now, if you look at that list, the Islamic, Hindu, Orthodox and
Buddhist civilizations are indeed based on religion, but the Western,
African, Latin American, Sinic and Japanese are not.

On the other hand, I would agree with you on a more fundamental point:
It's not religions that define civilizations, but civilizations that
define religions. Societies are formed based on cultural issues, and
they they adopt a religion and mold it to fit their culture.

The "clash of civilizations" phrase is convenient because it carries
along with it a concept of a war that will be more than just an
"ordinary world war."

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
john@GenerationalDynamics.com
http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

World Wars are ordinary? Very Scary. :shock:

(A web site reader raised some interesting theoretical questions
in a private communication, so I'm posting his messages and my
replies here.)

From Clark:

I like your site. You show a long term growth line fitted to the
stock average. I think you mention long term real growth is 4.7%.
Long term depends on how you define it. I know it's difficult to
extrapolate further back than you have based on stock prices.
However, I think it's safe to say that all of the wealth in the world
would have been worth at least a million dollars in 1 A.D. and it
might be worth 100 trillion now. This would imply a long term growth
rate of 0.9%. Therefore, I believe Prechter's scenario is possible.
In other words, we can revert back to a longer term mean.

This would be due to a longer term turn than the generational cycle.
I don't think the generations coming in now are necessarily analogous
to past generations and in the next crisis they may not behave
similarly to past generations. The current "prophet" generation
doesn't seem very inspirational to me. Bush a great president? I'm
not counting on it. And when Ben Helicopter Bernanke takes over I
shudder to even think about what he might do. Probably create the
worst financial catastrophe ever. He will have a lot of help though.
In fact, I think it'll be so bad that there won't be a trough war
because it'll take at least 70 years to put this thing back together.
There may be a lot of terrorism though.

Clark

Dear Clark,

> However, I think it's safe to say that all of the wealth in the
> world would have been worth at least a million dollars in 1 A.D.
> and it might be worth 100 trillion now.

You can't make up two numbers out of the air and expect to do a
meaningful exponential growth curve fit. In measuring growth of
stock indexes, for example, what you're looking at is how much money
investors are willing to invest in publicly held securities. How much
money were investors willing to invest in 1 AD? Possibly not more
than a few hundred dollars, which would cause a different result.

> I don't think the generations coming in now are necessarily
> analogous to past generations and in the next crisis they may not
> behave similarly to past generations.

Read "Generations" by Strauss and Howe.

> The current "prophet" generation doesn't seem very inspirational
> to me.

The generational mechanism is that the prophet generation provides
the inspiration, but each member of the prophet generation has a
different vision. It's the nomad generation that determines what
happens by selecting one of the many conflicting visions and
implementing it.

> Bush a great president? I'm not counting on it. And when Ben
> Helicopter Bernanke takes over I shudder to even think about what
> he might do. Probably create the worst financial catastrophe ever.

These are all political guesses. Whatever financial catastrophe will
occur is already in the cards and predetermined, irrespective of what
any politician does.

> In fact, I think it'll be so bad that there won't be a trough war
> because it'll take at least 70 years to put this thing back
> together. There may be a lot of terrorism though.

You need to stop looking at your "feelings" and "wishes," and start
looking at "evidence" and "analysis."

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
john@GenerationalDynamics.com
http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

(From Clark)

Hi John,

Thanks for responding.

> You can't make up two numbers out of the air and expect to do a
> meaningful exponential growth curve fit. In measuring growth of
> stock indexes, for example, what you're looking at is how much
> money investors are willing to invest in publicly held securities.
> How much money were investors willing to invest in 1 AD? Possibly
> not more than a few hundred dollars, which would cause a different
> result.

OK, that is all true, but here's my point. If we can say with a high
degree of confidence that the 2 numbers I threw out are a maximum and
a minimum, respectively, then we can determine a maximum overall
economic growth rate over a longer time period than 120 years. And,
yes, I understand that the 2 points are arbitrary and that doesn't
make the analysis rigorous and so on. But my point is that the
resulting compound growth rate of 0.9% is significantly less than the
underlying 3% (or so) economic growth rate of the last 120 years that
underpinned the growth in the stock averages. Pick a penny in 1 A.D.
if you want and you still only get 1.9%. My conclusion is that a
reversion to average underlying growth rates could take the S&P close
to Prechter's target. Population trends may also play a role in that.
The number of births in the US peaked in 1961.

> The generational mechanism is that the prophet generation
> provides the inspiration, but each member of the prophet
> generation has a different vision. It's the nomad generation that
> determines what happens by selecting one of the many conflicting
> visions and implementing it.

I don't recall Strauss and Howe saying that so I'm assuming that's
your idea and I think it's correct.

> These are all political guesses. Whatever financial catastrophe
> will occur is already in the cards and predetermined, irrespective
> of what any politician does.

I think the fact that there is going to be one is nearly
predetermined because it appears that we're very close and nothing can
be done at this point to avert it. The severity, though, can be
affected by decisions and events. Would you say that the decision to
cut the Fed Funds rate to 1% versus some other decision after the
Internet Bubble collapsed will have no bearing on the severity of the
coming collapse or that cutting to that level was predetermined? It
would seem to me that if the bubble had been allowed to continue to
slowly deflate, the outcome would have been entirely different. I
think your website makes a statement to the effect somewhere. What
I'm saying is that the severity will be extremely high due to an
accumulation of bad decision making that is unprecedented and very
likely to continue. Allowing unregulated derivatives to grow to the
level that they have would be one example of that.

> You need to stop looking at your "feelings" and "wishes," and
> start looking at "evidence" and "analysis."

Nobody wishes for a war. I was of the opinion at one time that a
crisis war would occur in the 2020s. I've changed my mind since. The
reason is that my analysis agrees with Strauss and Howe post
Revolutionary War but I had not analyzed any history prior to that
point and my pre Revolutionary War analysis does not agree with
theirs. My analysis looks at leading edge Europe instead of just
England. Recent events do seem to indicate that a crisis war is
likely. But recent events are based on the perception of US military
capability. An economic collapse may change that entirely. The US
government may no longer exist for all we know.

Clark

Dear Clark,

> OK, that is all true, but here's my point. If we can say with a
> high degree of confidence that the 2 numbers I threw out are a
> maximum and a minimum, respectively, then we can determine a
> maximum overall economic growth rate over a longer time period
> than 120 years. And, yes, I understand that the 2 points are
> arbitrary and that doesn't make the analysis rigorous and so on.
> But my point is that the resulting compound growth rate of 0.9% is
> significantly less than the underlying 3% (or so) economic growth
> rate of the last 120 years that underpinned the growth in the
> stock averages. Pick a penny in 1 A.D. if you want and you still
> only get 1.9%. My conclusion is that a reversion to average
> underlying growth rates could take the S&P close to Prechter's
> target. Population trends may also play a role in that. The number
> of births in the US peaked in 1961.

There really is a problem in deciding what you want to measure.

Here's a problem that's been sitting in my (virtual) stack of tasks
for a couple of years now: The DJIA grew at 4.7% per year from
1890-2002, while the S&P 500 index great at 1.6% per year from
1871-2004.

Now, why the huge range of percentages, since they should presumably
be measuring the same thing? I believe that the answer lies in the
selection of the 30 companies in the DJIA and the Byzantine
methodology for computing the index, but I haven't really researched
it. (If this stuff interests you, you might wish to research it
yourself; if you do, let me know what happens.)

One possibility is that if you pick the 30 "best" companies in the
country, they you get a high growth rate, but if you select a more
"average" collection of 500, then you get a lower growth rate. If
that turns out to be the explanation, then your 0.9% figure is quite
reasonable, and your 1.9% rate is even more so.

I'm really not familiar with Bob Prechter, except on the shallowest
basis. I understand that he's predicting a new 1930s-style Great
Depression based on an analytic comparison between the 1920s bubble
and the 1990s bubble, and that's a valid comparison to be making. I
gather that he also does a number of very interesting historical
comparisons which are mostly valid, but the one thing that's missing
is to integrate generational cycles with the Elliot Wave theory.
That would be extremely valuable, and would add greatly to his
theory.

If you want me to say more about Bob Prechter, please summarize what
he's saying, and I'll react to that.

> I think the fact that there is going to be one is nearly
> predetermined because it appears that we're very close and nothing
> can be done at this point to avert it. The severity, though, can
> be affected by decisions and events. Would you say that the
> decision to cut the Fed Funds rate to 1% versus some other
> decision after the Internet Bubble collapsed will have no bearing
> on the severity of the coming collapse or that cutting to that
> level was predetermined? It would seem to me that if the bubble
> had been allowed to continue to slowly deflate, the outcome would
> have been entirely different. I think your website makes a
> statement to the effect somewhere. What I'm saying is that the
> severity will be extremely high due to an accumulation of bad
> decision making that is unprecedented and very likely to continue.
> Allowing unregulated derivatives to grow to the level that they
> have would be one example of that.

I generally agree with the statement that there are policies we could
follow that would affect the severity of the crisis. But that's only
a theoretical statement, since in practice almost no one believes
that there's a crisis at hand, so no one is willing to take steps to
ameliorate the outcome. For example, if people believed that a
crisis is at hand, then Democrats and Republicans could get together,
as they did in the 1980s, to reduce the severity of the financial
crisis, but there's obviously no political will to do so.

The specific question about the reduction of the Fed Funds rate to 1%
is interesting. I do believe that it postponed the crisis for a few
years, and probably makes things worse in the long run. But if
Greenspan had tried NOT to reduce the rate, then he would have been
fired immediately.

> I don't recall Strauss and Howe saying that so I'm assuming
> that's your idea and I think it's correct.

I stated it explicitly, but I believe they hinted at it. Indeed, one
person pointed out to me that the Heroes play their role too: They
steerthe Nomads toward bolder policies to solve problems, and then
the Nomads select from among the Prophets' conflicting visions. (In
the London bombings, it's the "hero" generation that's setting the
bombs because their Nomad/Prophet parents refuse to take bolder
action.)

> Nobody wishes for a war. I was of the opinion at one time that a
> crisis war would occur in the 2020s. I've changed my mind since.
> The reason is that my analysis agrees with Strauss and Howe post
> Revolutionary War but I had not analyzed any history prior to
> that point and my pre Revolutionary War analysis does not agree
> with theirs. My analysis looks at leading edge Europe instead of
> just England. Recent events do seem to indicate that a crisis war
> is likely. But recent events are based on the perception of US
> military capability. An economic collapse may change that
> entirely. The US government may no longer exist for all we know.

Well, China has four times our population, is turning out four times
as many engineers, and is poised to start manufacturing four times as
many weapons, including thousands of nuclear missiles that could
reach any American city. Their mindset is that they could lose all of
China east of Xian (in Central China), and still destroy enough of
America that they'd win the war. And they're right.

"Everyone" has known for at least a century that the Chinese would be
the next great civilization, and the time is at hand.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
john@GenerationalDynamics.com
http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

(From Clark)

John,

I actually don't have objections to most of what you're saying. The
first thing I wrote to you was that I like the site. I believe you're
far closer to the mark than most analysts. Generational cycles are
very important but it seems to me that they are building blocks of
larger cycles and are not entirely linear. My best guess is that a
very large financial dislocation will ensue within the next few days,
months or years as you state but it may be larger than Generational
Dynamics theory allows based on a linear interpretation. This may
postpone the normal war cycle that you see coming up. However, it
will probably not stop it from occurring because necessary
prerequisites will probably still be in place when it is ready to
assert itself. My best guess is that a major war or wars will occur
from about 2050-2090. However, world population may have peaked and
be heading lower at that point and that may be a factor in terms of
how the war(s) is(are) conducted. My strategy will be to assess the
severity of the financial collapse (if it happens) and then go from
there. That is probably what you will do anyway once the preliminary
results of the collapse become evident. I think your recent
speculation about everyone trying to get out the door at the same time
is very likely. I actually completed my exit a week ago.

I was reading the thread you referred me to. I had wondered which war
you had considered to be the crisis war following the Thirty Years War
and now see from the timeline presented in the thread that it is the
War of the Spanish Succession.

First I should say that I am not an expert in history. And that's
probably a good thing. I am a Chemical Engineer by training and have
endeavored in the last 3 years to become a generalist because I
believe that occupations have become too specialized and there is a
need for nonaffiliated people who can objectively assimilate and
interpet the overall picture. Despite my comment on Bush, I am not a
Republican or a Democrat and consider political bickering to be one of
our major problems. My comment relates to my perception of his lack
of qualfications and ability. Maybe I am wrong and he will rise to
the occasion.

One thing I have noticed is that certain events may trigger the
formation of bubbles that culminate approximately 16 years later. For
example, the formation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 removed the
linkage problem in the banking system that caused previous stock
market panics and may have helped fuel the bubble that culminated in
1929. Likewise, the removal of silver from coinage in 1964 may have
led to the silver bubble in 1980. I am theorizing that the
dissolution of the former Soviet Union in 1989 resulted in temporary
US hegemony and overconfidence that could contribute to the stock
market and real estate bubbles culminating around 2005.

So back to the subject at hand. It is my first inclination to say
that the War of the Spanish Succession was not a crisis war. I had
not previously classified it as such because it occurred before the
South Sea Bubble. Casualties were certainly high enough to classify
it as such. The timing relative to the Thirty Years War and the
crisis wars that followed certainly meet the criteria. The timing
relative to the South Sea Bubble seems off though. I would expect a
crisis war to have occurred after the South Sea Bubble. It is also
my inclination to think that the end of the Cold War and what followed
caused as many deaths or premature deaths on a relative scale as the
War of the Spanish Succession and that the War of the Spanish
Succession may have somehow been a triggering event that fueled the
South Sea Bubble. But let me study the events in detail and I will
get back to you or to the forum you referred me to.

I'd appreciate your initial thoughts.

Clark

Dear Clark,

> So back to the subject at hand. It is my first inclination to
> say that the War of the Spanish Succession was not a crisis war.
> I had not previously classified it as such because it occurred
> before the South Sea Bubble. Casualties were certainly high
> enough to classify it as such. The timing relative to the Thirty
> Years War and the crisis wars that followed certainly meet the
> criteria. The timing relative to the South Sea Bubble seems off
> though. I would expect a crisis war to have occurred after the
> South Sea Bubble. It is also my inclination to think that the end
> of the Cold War and what followed caused as many deaths or
> premature deaths on a relative scale as the War of the Spanish
> Succession and that the War of the Spanish Succession may have
> somehow been a triggering event that fueled the South Sea Bubble.
> But let me study the events in detail and I will get back to you
> or to the forum you referred me to.

It's funny you should say this, because this was precisely my concern
2-3 years ago when I was really developing this stuff.

At that time, my working hypothesis was that a crisis war must be
triggered by a major financial crisis, as happened in WW II, and as
appeared was happening following the Nasdaq crash of 2000.

After a lot of research, I found that the Panic of 1857 was a major
financial crisis prior to the Civil War, and that in 1772 there was a
major British bank failure that forced many of the American colonists
into bankruptcy, and led to things like the Boston Tea Party.

However, the South Sea bubble seemed to be an enormous anomaly, as
you say, because it occurred after the War of the Spanish
Succession, rather than before.

I actually puzzled over this for many months before I finally
resolved it.

The answer is to distinguish "local" and "global" patterns.

Crisis wars and crisis war cycles are "local" patterns, because a
crisis war applies only to the region in which it occurs. In fact,
the same war can be a crisis war for one side and a non-crisis war
for the other side. This is the "Principle of Localization" that I
talk about in both of my books.

But other things are global patterns. Technology cycles are global,
because new technologies easily flow from one region to another.
There seems to be a 40-50 year technology cycle, and this gives rise
to the Kondratiev cycles that are much discussed elsewhere.

But financial patterns can be either local or global. The 1772
British bank meltdown was disastrous for the colonies, but wasn't
severe for the England or Europe. On the other hand, the South Sea
Bubble (1721) and the bankruptcy of the French monarchy (1789) were
disastrous for Europe, as was the Tulipomania bubble (1637). Even
the Panic of 1857, which was triggered by a bank failure in New York,
turns out initially to have caused a major financial crisis centered
in Hamburg, but didn't substantially affect America until after the
Civil War began.

So I've come to see that there are major generational financial
financial crises that are global in nature: Tulipomania bubble (1637),
South Sea Bubble (1721), French Monarchy bankruptcy (1789), Hamburg
Crisis of 1857, and 1929 Wall Street crash. These occur every 70
years or so, and the bubbles occur at precisely the times that the
senior financial leaders/managers change from a generation that grew
up during the previous financial crisis to the generation that grew up
after the previous financial crisis.

So there's no conflict from the fact that the South Sea bubble occurs
after the War of the Spanish Succession. It turns out that there was
a financial crisis in England and Europe during the war, but it was a
local financial crisis. Once the war ended, giddy post-war investors
started investing in shares of the South Sea company, just as they'd
giddily invested in tulips 70-80 years earlier, and the bubble burst
in 1721.

Incidentally, this analysis of local and global patterns is discussed
at length in chapters 4-6 of my new book, Generational Dynamics for
Historians, which can be read for free on my web site.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
john@GenerationalDynamics.com
http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

John,

I’d like to start by discussing 2 cycles that share periodicity with and thus reinforce the generational cycles most of the time. I’ll try to give a very brief summary of them consistent with the issues raised previously.

The larger of these cycles could be called “social organization” or “world view” cycles and appears to have started with the advent of modern history around 1490. The first of these is the Exploration/Commercial Age and the second is what I term the Industrial/Information Age, although most would disagree that the Information Age is a late stage extension of the Industrial Age. The Exploration/Commercial Age is composed of roughly 4 saeculums and reached a peak in 1720 with the South Sea Bubble in England and the Mississippi Scheme in France. The Industrial/Information Age thus far seems to be proceeding in an analogous manner. Each of the 4 saeculums within these social organization cycles seems to share the general characteristics of a particular generational cycle within the saeculum. To illustrate, we could call the 4 successive saeculums within the social organization cycle a High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis and within each of these 4 cycles occur the shorter cycles and turns that Strauss and Howe discuss. The current unraveling we are in is thus occurring within a larger Unraveling, as did the War of the Spanish Succession and the South Sea Bubble and Mississippi Scheme (this interpretation is not consistent with Strauss and Howe). If correct, the implication is that we are heading into a larger Crisis period analogous to the 60 or so year period that followed the bursting of the South Sea Bubble.

The smaller of these cycles is the demographic or birthrate cycle. The US government has published birthrate data since 1909. A plot of this data shows that birthrates bottomed around 1931-39, peaked around 1957-61, bottomed around 1972-78 and have been recently making a slightly lower peak than in 1957-61. The fact that birthrates did not rise significantly higher than the 1957-61 peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s also indicates that a longer term turn than a standard 4th turning may be at hand.

After completing my study, I was able to intelligently search for comparable work and found that the above ideas are not original but they are subject to diverse interpretations. There is a long term view by Harry Dent that is approximately 40 pages long which discusses most of the above in about the last 5 pages. Dent has this article available for free on his website. The difference between Dent’s view and mine, however, is that he talks mostly in terms of 80 year technology cycles and demographically based spending cycles that, in his view, predict a peak in the stock market around 2009 or 2010. The similarity is that (as I can best recall without going back to the article) he is forecasting a 60-70 year depression after 2010 (prior to reading this article, I was only aware of his great boom theory). On the other hand, Robert Prechter, using a technique called “Elliott Wave”, has nearly reconstructed the cycles I mentioned by piecing together stock market data from England and the US going back to about 1700 and has been calling for the start of a depression of similar length for several years. The only significant difference in his labeling is that he shows (using my terms above) the High within the Industrial/Information Age ending in 1842 instead of about 20 years later as the saeculum would indicate.

By looking at generational cycles as building blocks of larger cycles, then, it appears that there could be a larger stock market correction ahead than would be indicated by a regression to the mean over the time period covered by the official Dow Jones data (1885 to present) because none of this data covers a larger Crisis cycle. I think Prechter’s price projections are as good as any in this regard if the scenario is indeed deflationary, which I believe is likely, but not entirely predictable.

Part of the concern I had with my work was that the Exploration/Commercial Age cycle was about one generational cycle shorter than 4 saeculums and that the 1701-1720 time frame seemed to have both crisis and unraveling characteristics (similar to 1989-present). The theory of localization is very helpful in elucidating the fact that a crisis (or, more specifically, Crisis War such as The War of the Spanish Succession) can occur in one country while an unraveling simultaneously continues unabated in another seemingly interdependent country and then actually intensifies as the crisis passes. Viewed in this way, it does seem very plausible that as the peak of the larger social organization cycle is approached, a longer term Crisis can overlap an Unraveling while the dominant powers (or power in the current case) are consolidating power and still in the throes of an unraveling within the larger Unraveling.

Clark

Dear Clark,

I have little more than a passing acquaintance with the range of
cycles that you're asking about, so I'm hoping that Mike Alexander or
one of the other people with more expertise in that area might be
able to help you out.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
john@GenerationalDynamics.com
http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Clark,

It's not clear what the cycles you refer to are in terms of. Elliot wave is technical analysis method first developed in the 1930's. Pretcher is probably the most famous exponent of the Elliot wave. He is credited for forecasting the 1987 crash, but since then has been very bearish. Recently he has expanded his ideas to more than just the stock market, but I am not familiar with this work.

Harry Dent has blended the Kondratiev long wave, which is often considered to be an innovation or technological cycle with the saeculum to give an 80-year cycle. Into this he weaves demographics. His focus is economic and uses his cycle ideas in his consulting work.

Both of these analysts are primarily concerned with economic or financial matters.

The "Super-Nomads" and the fifth era

Strauss and Howe characterized generational cycles as having four
20-year eras, totalling roughly 80 years - 20 years for the crisis
era and 60 years for the three inter-crisis eras. They don't
consider the possibility of a fifth era, even though three of six
Anglo-American crisis periods they talk about are over 100 years
long. In my own analysis of over 100 inter-crisis periods throughout
time and history, the average inter-crisis period was about 60 years,
but 15% of them were over 80 years long, indicating that there's an
additional era, a fifth era, in about 1 out of 6 crisis cycles.

We've had lengthy discussions of long mid-crisis periods in this
thread in the past, but the discussion has always been theoretical.

However, recent news events -- the Iraq war and the London Sunday
bombings -- have made them highly relevant to what's going on in the
world today.

On my web site, I've pointed out several times that the Iraqi
insurgency, especially the suicide bombings, is comprised mostly of
Saudis and Jordanians, not Iraqis. I attributed this to the fact
that Saudi Arabia and Jordan are in crisis periods, while Iraq is
just beginning an awakening period.

Robert Pape's Dying to Win

When Robert Pape's book, Dying to Win : The Strategic Logic of
Suicide Terrorism came out, I commented on it extensively,
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...0.i.050718pape
showing that London suicide bombers were in the Hero generation
following the India-Pakistan crisis war, and the partitioning of the
Indian subcontinent into Muslim and Hindu portions, but leaving the
Kashmir region in dispute. I showed that Pape's analysis makes a lot
of sense in light of the concept of crisis wars.

However, there's a lot more. Pape presents an analysis of the
nationality of al-Qaeda suicide attackers, and finds that they come
from several different countries, but that they overwhelmingly come
from just two countries: Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

Now, as it turns out, these two countries have had above-average
mid-cycle times since their last crisis wars. Saudi Arabia's last
crisis war was the Ibn Saud conquest, ending in 1925, and Morocco's
was the Rif War, ending in 1927. This is the kind of result that you
would expect from Generational Dynamics, and it provides a fairly
dramatic confirmation of parts of Generational Dynamics. That's why
Pape's work has been very exciting to me.

The suicide bombers from Saudi Arabia and Morocco came of age in the
"fifth era" following a crisis war. If a crisis war had occurred on
schedule during the fourth era, then these suicide bombers'
generation would be Artists; and Artists get to be that way because
they suffer a kind of "generational child abuse" from growing up
during a crisis war. Since there was no crisis war, there was no
generational child abuse, and the characteristics that S&H assigned
to Artists aren't going to be there any more.

What happens in the Fifth Era?

So what happens to Heroes and Artists when there's no crisis war?

I can only speculate. Maybe the would-be Heroes become frustrated
because they don't fulfill their destiny of becoming heroes. Maybe
the would-be Artists inherit the heroes' frustration, and become even
more disaffected than Nomads do.

Because of their increased tendency to become suicide bombers, I call
them "Super-Nomads."

The willingness to die for one's country in a genocidal crisis war is
well established: you only have to look at the tens of thousands of
young Americans willing to get shot down like fish in a barrel on the
beaches of Normandy in 1944.

Civil War

But suicide bombers go several steps further in their willingness to
be genocidal: They're willing to kill civilians, they're willing to
commit suicide altruistically, in a way that's not officially
approved by their governments.

Here's another issue: What would cause someone to pick up a machete,
go next door, kill your neighbor and dismember his body, kill his
children, rape his wife, and then kill her and dismember her body?
And what would cause large masses of people to do the same thing?

That's what happened in the Balkans and Rwanda in the 1990s. The
hypothesis is that civil wars are more likely to occur during "fifth
eras," as the frustration builds up among the thrwarted heroes for
not having a war. Three examples:

(*) United States, 1861-65: The previous crisis war was the
Revolutionary War, ending in 1782, 79 years earlier.

(*) Rwanda 1994: Rwanda's last crisis war was the Belgian Congo
invasion of German-held Rwanda, 1916-1918, ending 76 years earlier.

(*) Balkans, 1991-95: Previous crisis war was WW I, ending in 1918,
73 years earlier.

Of course other civil wars occur in the fourth era, as scheduled, so
this is nothing more than a hypothesis.

But this observation also has relevance to today's events, since
Mexico is also in a "fifth era": Its last crisis war was the Mexican
Revolution, ending in the early 1920s. Today, we see law and
order breaking down completely in Mexico, with drug lords taking
control in the north and Zapatista paramilitaries becoming
increasingly violent in the south. Mexico is due for a new civil
war, and it will certainly spill over into California and the rest of
southwestern America.

Nomads versus Super-Nomads

If these speculations are true, then they show a very important
commonality between the Nomads and the Super-Nomads.

In a normal crisis period, the Prophets provide the vision, but each
Prophet has his own individual vision. It's actually the Nomads who
make the choices, since they decide which Prophets' visions to
implement. Thus, the Nomads decide what's going to happen during the
crisis.

In a fifth era crisis war, the unfolding of events seems to be quite
different. The Nomads are now too old to provide more than a vision,
but the would-be Hero generation can't select from among the Nomads
"visions," since the frustrated Heroes are programmed to do what the
Nomads decide to do, rather than making the decisions themselves, and
the Nomads aren't the "vision generation" anyway..

So the Super-Nomads take things into their own hands -- by suicide
bombings, terrorism, and a rebellion that "spirals out of control"
into a civil war. This would explain, for example, what's happening
in Mexico today, and may even provide insight into what's happening
in Saudi Arabia.

One more point. Ever since I did the analysis that revealed that no
crisis war ever occurs less than 41 years after the end of the
previous one, I've found that to be a continuing source of wonder and
amazement. I've mentioned it frequently on my web site with respect
to the impossibility of a civil war in Iraq, despite the fact that
that pundits and politicians talk about civil war in Iraq in
practically every other sentence. But how could it be possible for
nations to consistently avoid another crisis war? Hasn't any nation
ever been unexpectedly invaded, and forced to fight for its existence
in a genocidal war? Apparently not, and that means that with all the
politicians and pundits in the world claiming that we should find a
way to abolish war, apparently people in the Austerity (High) and
Awakening eras know how to at least avoid crisis wars.

Well, this new speculation about Super-Nomads and the fifth era
provides the other side of the coin. If people in the first and
second eras have no trouble preventing crisis wars, then people in the
fifth era do everything they can to make sure that a new crisis war
occurs.

A study of the fifth era and its "Super-Nomad" coming of age
generation is a worthwhile and highly relevant subject for anyone
wishing to do research in Generational Dynamics.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
john@GenerationalDynamics.com
http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Wall Street Journal: Bye Bye Boomers

The Wall Street Journal

September 20, 2005

Bye-Bye Boomers?
Companies May Face Exodus
As Workers Hit Retiring Age;
Some Bosses Are Afraid to Ask

By KELLY GREENE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 20, 2005; Page B1

When executives at Platte River Power Authority, an electric company
in Fort Collins, Colo., surveyed its employees 18 months ago, they
were stunned by a particular finding: 40% of the company's 200 workers
said they intended to retire over the next five years.

With little chance of hiring from other stretched power plants -- and
apprenticeships for technicians typically taking at least four years
-- executives faced a stark reality. "We've got to be moving right
now," says Dave Green, human-resource manager. He is scrambling to
hire trainees and recently created a new job -- plant assistant -- to
fill apprenticeships as soon as they open up.

Across a wide swath of industries, companies are starting to address
the impending exodus of baby boomers -- the 76 million Americans born
between 1946 and 1964. The oldest boomers will begin turning 60 years
old next year. Just two years later, they can start collecting Social
Security benefits. Many company retirement benefits kick in around the
same time: most workers in traditional, defined-benefit pension plans
become fully vested between the ages of 55 and 62. And those with
401(k)s or other defined-contribution plans can tap them with no
restrictions starting at age 59½.

Many baby boomers, of course, may decide to stay on the job longer
than previous generations -- particularly to shore up savings. Still,
the number of potential retirees is stark: more than 40% of the U.S.
labor force will reach the traditional retirement age by the end of
this decade, according to a new study by the Conference Board, a New
York research organization. In the next seven years, the number of
U.S. workers between ages 55 and 64 will grow 51% to 25 million,
meaning the fastest-growing portion of the work force is the one at
most risk of retiring soon. At the same time, the number of workers
between ages 35 and 44 is expected to shrink by 7%.

Some sectors could be particularly hard-hit. About half the country's
400,000 electric-utility workers, such as those at Platte River, will
be eligible to retire in the next five years, says Michael Ashworth, a
researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Half the U.S. government's civilian work force will also be eligible
to retire in the same time period. And 40% of the manufacturing work
force is expected to retire in the next 10 years, the National
Association of Manufacturers warns. Overall, that could leave a
shortage of five million skilled workers between 2010 and 2012.

To be sure, some fields are poised to lose large portions of their
work forces because they have attracted fewer young people in recent
years. And to corporate cost cutters, the thinning ranks might not
seem like such a bad thing, especially in industries such as
manufacturing where jobs continue to move overseas.

"A lot of companies do welcome the chance to have older workers leave,
especially those with seniority-based pay systems, because they can be
replaced with cheaper workers," says Peter Cappelli, a management
professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

Still, retirements don't necessarily substitute well for layoffs, says
Mr. Ashworth. "You're no longer targeting who you're losing, and
you're losing your most experienced people."

Some experts think the impact won't be as stark as the numbers
suggest. Fully 70% to 80% of baby boomers expect to continue working
in later life, several studies show. And amendments to the federal Age
Discrimination in Employment Act outlawed age-based mandatory
retirement in most industries in the 1970s. The upshot: most boomers
can work as long as they like, barring layoffs. "Right now I have no
plans to stop," says Leola Williams, a 73-year-old housekeeping
manager at Baptist Health South Florida Inc. in Miami.

Still, many companies simply don't know how many of their workers plan
to retire, and when -- in part because they fear that asking will open
the door to age-discrimination claims, says Jeri Sedlar, co-author of
the Conference Board's report. There are no federal rules against
asking employees retirement-related questions. But the formal
collection of such information could be used as fodder in a lawsuit if
a company later laid off, fired, demoted, or failed to promote the
workers who had been surveyed.

Some companies have sidestepped these concerns by querying workers
anonymously or asking employees of all ages about their plans five
years from now, says Linda Barrington, research director at the
Conference Board.

In fact, when the Platte River utility decided to poll its employees
about their exit strategies, "we reassured them ahead of time that we
were not planning their retirement parties," says Mr. Green, the
human-resource manager.

Some companies that are concerned about a wave of retirements are
getting creative, including offering programs that let employees
technically retire, yet stay connected to their employers.

For instance, Southern Co., an Atlanta-based electric utility with
26,000 employees, found that many workers already had made plans to
retire in the next five or 10 years, but were also interested in
coming back to work on a temporary basis. As a result, the company
created a "retiree reservists pool" for its Georgia unit, a database
of several hundred retired workers who can be called on during
hurricanes and other emergencies to train new hires, and to staff
short-term projects. Southern's human-resources department is trying
to expand the concept to other business units.

Lincoln National Corp., a financial-services firm in Philadelphia with
5,500 workers, put together a task force last year to design flexible
work arrangements for older employees who want to work part time or
take longer vacations. Already, the firm is tapping older managers as
mentors for new trainees.

International Business Machines Corp. similarly taps some retirees to
work on special projects so they can share their expertise with
younger workers. And the company's 330,000 current employees are being
encouraged to post detailed descriptions of their job experience in an
online directory called the "Blue Pages," so that employees far from
retirement can find "knowledge before it walks out the door," says
Eric Lesser, an associate partner in IBM's business-consulting
services unit in Cambridge, Mass.

Home Depot Inc. last year launched a partnership with AARP to recruit
older workers, many of them laid off from other companies. "We needed
more experience, more reliability, and people who were great with
customers," says Dennis Donovan, executive vice president of human
resources at the Atlanta home-improvement retailer.

Home Depot, with more than 325,000 workers, offers health coverage
even to part-timers, which was enough to lure Dick Kiefer, 65, who
retired from a thrift shop at age 62, but worked the bulk of his
career as an appliance salesman for the former Montgomery Ward & Co.
in Des Moines, Iowa. Now he qualifies for Medicare but is keeping his
Home Depot job -- and recently increased his hours to 40 a week from
25.

"There's no stress," he says. Being on his feet all day means "you
have to wear thick-soled shoes, but I've never known anything else."

Write to Kelly Greene at kelly.greene@wsj.com
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1...545779,00.html

Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) http://CareerJournal.com
(2) mailto:kelly.greene@wsj.com
Copyright 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

The "Super-Nomads" and the fifth era

Strauss and Howe characterized generational cycles as having four
20-year eras, totalling roughly 80 years - 20 years for the crisis
era and 60 years for the three inter-crisis eras. They don't
consider the possibility of a fifth era, even though three of six
Anglo-American crisis periods they talk about are over 100 years
long. In my own analysis of over 100 inter-crisis periods throughout
time and history, the average inter-crisis period was about 60 years,
but 15% of them were over 80 years long, indicating that there's an
additional era, a fifth era, in about 1 out of 6 crisis cycles.

We've had lengthy discussions of long mid-crisis periods in this
thread in the past, but the discussion has always been theoretical.

However, recent news events -- the Iraq war and the London Sunday
bombings -- have made them highly relevant to what's going on in the
world today.

On my web site, I've pointed out several times that the Iraqi
insurgency, especially the suicide bombings, is comprised mostly of
Saudis and Jordanians, not Iraqis. I attributed this to the fact
that Saudi Arabia and Jordan are in crisis periods, while Iraq is
just beginning an awakening period.

Robert Pape's Dying to Win

When Robert Pape's book, Dying to Win : The Strategic Logic of
Suicide Terrorism came out, I commented on it extensively,
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...0.i.050718pape
showing that London suicide bombers were in the Hero generation
following the India-Pakistan crisis war, and the partitioning of the
Indian subcontinent into Muslim and Hindu portions, but leaving the
Kashmir region in dispute. I showed that Pape's analysis makes a lot
of sense in light of the concept of crisis wars.

However, there's a lot more. Pape presents an analysis of the
nationality of al-Qaeda suicide attackers, and finds that they come
from several different countries, but that they overwhelmingly come
from just two countries: Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

Now, as it turns out, these two countries have had above-average
mid-cycle times since their last crisis wars. Saudi Arabia's last
crisis war was the Ibn Saud conquest, ending in 1925, and Morocco's
was the Rif War, ending in 1927. This is the kind of result that you
would expect from Generational Dynamics, and it provides a fairly
dramatic confirmation of parts of Generational Dynamics. That's why
Pape's work has been very exciting to me.

The suicide bombers from Saudi Arabia and Morocco came of age in the
"fifth era" following a crisis war. If a crisis war had occurred on
schedule during the fourth era, then these suicide bombers'
generation would be Artists; and Artists get to be that way because
they suffer a kind of "generational child abuse" from growing up
during a crisis war. Since there was no crisis war, there was no
generational child abuse, and the characteristics that S&H assigned
to Artists aren't going to be there any more.

What happens in the Fifth Era?

So what happens to Heroes and Artists when there's no crisis war?

I can only speculate. Maybe the would-be Heroes become frustrated
because they don't fulfill their destiny of becoming heroes. Maybe
the would-be Artists inherit the heroes' frustration, and become even
more disaffected than Nomads do.

Because of their increased tendency to become suicide bombers, I call
them "Super-Nomads."

The willingness to die for one's country in a genocidal crisis war is
well established: you only have to look at the tens of thousands of
young Americans willing to get shot down like fish in a barrel on the
beaches of Normandy in 1944.

Civil War

But suicide bombers go several steps further in their willingness to
be genocidal: They're willing to kill civilians, they're willing to
commit suicide altruistically, in a way that's not officially
approved by their governments.

Here's another issue: What would cause someone to pick up a machete,
go next door, kill your neighbor and dismember his body, kill his
children, rape his wife, and then kill her and dismember her body?
And what would cause large masses of people to do the same thing?

That's what happened in the Balkans and Rwanda in the 1990s. The
hypothesis is that civil wars are more likely to occur during "fifth
eras," as the frustration builds up among the thrwarted heroes for
not having a war. Three examples:

(*) United States, 1861-65: The previous crisis war was the
Revolutionary War, ending in 1782, 79 years earlier.

(*) Rwanda 1994: Rwanda's last crisis war was the Belgian Congo
invasion of German-held Rwanda, 1916-1918, ending 76 years earlier.

(*) Balkans, 1991-95: Previous crisis war was WW I, ending in 1918,
73 years earlier.

Of course other civil wars occur in the fourth era, as scheduled, so
this is nothing more than a hypothesis.

But this observation also has relevance to today's events, since
Mexico is also in a "fifth era": Its last crisis war was the Mexican
Revolution, ending in the early 1920s. Today, we see law and
order breaking down completely in Mexico, with drug lords taking
control in the north and Zapatista paramilitaries becoming
increasingly violent in the south. Mexico is due for a new civil
war, and it will certainly spill over into California and the rest of
southwestern America.

Nomads versus Super-Nomads

If these speculations are true, then they show a very important
commonality between the Nomads and the Super-Nomads.

In a normal crisis period, the Prophets provide the vision, but each
Prophet has his own individual vision. It's actually the Nomads who
make the choices, since they decide which Prophets' visions to
implement. Thus, the Nomads decide what's going to happen during the
crisis.

In a fifth era crisis war, the unfolding of events seems to be quite
different. The Nomads are now too old to provide more than a vision,
but the would-be Hero generation can't select from among the Nomads
"visions," since the frustrated Heroes are programmed to do what the
Nomads decide to do, rather than making the decisions themselves, and
the Nomads aren't the "vision generation" anyway..

So the Super-Nomads take things into their own hands -- by suicide
bombings, terrorism, and a rebellion that "spirals out of control"
into a civil war. This would explain, for example, what's happening
in Mexico today, and may even provide insight into what's happening
in Saudi Arabia.

One more point. Ever since I did the analysis that revealed that no
crisis war ever occurs less than 41 years after the end of the
previous one, I've found that to be a continuing source of wonder and
amazement. I've mentioned it frequently on my web site with respect
to the impossibility of a civil war in Iraq, despite the fact that
that pundits and politicians talk about civil war in Iraq in
practically every other sentence. But how could it be possible for
nations to consistently avoid another crisis war? Hasn't any nation
ever been unexpectedly invaded, and forced to fight for its existence
in a genocidal war? Apparently not, and that means that with all the
politicians and pundits in the world claiming that we should find a
way to abolish war, apparently people in the Austerity (High) and
Awakening eras know how to at least avoid crisis wars.

Well, this new speculation about Super-Nomads and the fifth era
provides the other side of the coin. If people in the first and
second eras have no trouble preventing crisis wars, then people in the
fifth era do everything they can to make sure that a new crisis war
occurs.

A study of the fifth era and its "Super-Nomad" coming of age
generation is a worthwhile and highly relevant subject for anyone
wishing to do research in Generational Dynamics.

I rather like your hypothesis, John. It would almost imply mechanically that with enough angular momentum in a saeculum the whole thing could break up and fly apart, and the spin-off of human shrapnel would be deadly. Even deadlier might be the loss of a saecular cadence, as I see it, because my favorite metaphor, Princicess Summerfall Winterspring, would be having something like a bloody menopause. So your "Super-Nomad" would be a chilly Child of Spring, for which Winter lingers on like an ice age.

Exodus 8

The Green Geezer

Dear Richard,

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> I rather like your hypothesis, John. It would almost imply
> mechanically that with enough angular momentum in a saeculum the
> whole thing could break up and fly apart, and the spin-off of
> human shrapnel would be deadly. Even deadlier might be the loss of
> a saecular cadence, as I see it, because my favorite metaphor,
> Princicess Summerfall Winterspring, would be having something like
> a bloody menopause. So your "Super-Nomad" would be a chilly Child
> of Spring, for which Winter lingers on like an ice age.

Yuk. Princess Summerfallwinterspring used to be one of my favorites,
at least until now. Anyway, in a 5T the earth slows down in winter,
so the angular momentum would decrease. She would become Princess
Summerfallwinterwinterspring.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

John, are you then talking about a "cultural ice age"? I like it, if the winter metaphor fits. Nature, as you know, has her "little ice age" episodes now and then, so the 4-cycle cadence reasoning could accommodate such an extension. Maybe the biggest question is about whether an extended winter would make the burst into spring even more explosive.

Exodus 8

The Green Geezer

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