Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

There is definitely an intensity to this election that we have not seen in a long time. I can't remember one in my personal political awareness. I suspect we'd have to go back to 1972.

1980, Carter vs. Reagan... that the election of Reagan was the Catalyst for the Third Turning, not his "Morning In America" reelection campaign four years later.

You really think 1980 was this intense? Sure there were gas lines, hostages, dead helicopter pilots, stagflation, King Tut Funky Tut :wink: , and a lot of other tensors. But with GI's and Silent mostly running the show and with Boomer coming-of-age passion petering out, I don't see the intensity, and certainly not the childishness, that we see now.

1972 was anti-climatic. Now 1968, that was super intense! And so was 1964, with the upstart Goldwater madness.

Landon Jones (SIL, 1943), who Strauss and Howe consider the authoritative voice on the Baby Boom generation, wrote a book he entitled "Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation," in 1981. He did an entire chapter based on his research that revealed the baby boomer class of 1968 (Yale) were steeped in a severe personal depression in 1980.

One can read much into that. I'm simply reminded of how S&H make the case that the GI generation was "empowered" by their fourth turning, coming-of-age experience.

Personally, I am of the opinion that boomers were too, eventually... I know I, of the 1978 class, was big-time! It just wasn't in the same kind of way, as those heroes of Normandy, Dresden and Hiroshima were empowered. :wink: (tweak)

Post

Originally Posted by Mr. Robert J. Samuelson

Let's note, just for the record, that both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry have evaded the nation's largest budget problem: controlling federal retirement spending, mainly Social Security and Medicare. Partisans extol their candidates' honesty and courage, while both duck hard political choices. They propose new spending programs and tax breaks for education, health care, homeland security and worker training. All sound beguiling, but all would -- over the long run -- make a bad budget situation worse.

The central distributional issue of our time is not between rich and poor. It is between retirees and non-retirees.

Same Old Evasion from the 8 September 2004 number of the Washington Post.

Originally Posted by RJS

These are hard issues. But they are harder today because we didn't face them yesterday, and they will be harder tomorrow because we're not facing them today. Our lack of candor makes them worse. Prodded by Bush, Congress last year extended Medicare coverage to drugs. This significantly increased Medicare's long-term costs. Hardly anyone asked the basic question: Why should younger people, who need to pay for diapers and mortgages, be forced to pay for older people's drugs? People at different life stages have different costs. There was a case for coverage of catastrophic drug costs, though not ordinary costs.


Bush and Kerry practice and perpetuate this national denial. The longer benefit cuts are postponed, the more likely it is that Congress will be forced to make abrupt and unfair cuts for current recipients even while raising taxes. Bush deserves to lose the election based on his cynical Medicare drug plan, designed to attract elderly voters. But Kerry does not deserve to win, based on his equally cynical pandering to the same voters.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Post

Originally Posted by Mr. Robert J. Samuelson

The central distributional issue of our time is not between rich and poor. It is between retirees and non-retirees.

Same Old Evasion from the 8 September 2004 number of the Washington Post.

I had just posted...

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Originally Posted by Hermione Granger

After three years, you get 20 days a year, which amounts to 4 weeks. However, the real jackpot is after 15 years, when you get 26 days a year -- 5 weeks and 1 day. I hit the 15-year mark last spring.

This is in addition to 10 paid holidays, and days off from working flexible work schedules (such as 9-hour days with a day off every other week, or 10-hour days, with one day off each week).

It is a very sane way to live.

Isn't your Social Security program privatized as well? Unlike the the private sector, whose employees are forced to surrender ALL THEIR MONEY to the federal government "sucking sound" pyramid scheme, public employees retirement funds are growing in mutual funds, aren't they?

Funny, John Kerry will scream loudly at how Bush is going to destroy Social Security by giving everybody the same benefit$ that state and federal workers have been enjoying for years. :evil:

There you go, Saari dude, now you can whinge about my love of quoting myself, once more. :wink:

Originally Posted by Mr. Robert J. Samuelson

Bush deserves to lose the election based on his cynical Medicare drug plan, designed to attract elderly voters. But Kerry does not deserve to win, based on his equally cynical pandering to the same voters.

My dear Mr. Lamb why are you not displaying your disdain for Mr. Samuelson's views? You must have a quote on that point in your loops of self regard, surely you must. :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Post

Originally Posted by Mr. Robert J. Samuelson

The central distributional issue of our time is not between rich and poor. It is between retirees and non-retirees.

Same Old Evasion from the 8 September 2004 number of the Washington Post.

I had just posted...

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Originally Posted by Hermione Granger

After three years, you get 20 days a year, which amounts to 4 weeks. However, the real jackpot is after 15 years, when you get 26 days a year -- 5 weeks and 1 day. I hit the 15-year mark last spring.

This is in addition to 10 paid holidays, and days off from working flexible work schedules (such as 9-hour days with a day off every other week, or 10-hour days, with one day off each week).

It is a very sane way to live.

Isn't your Social Security program privatized as well? Unlike the the private sector, whose employees are forced to surrender ALL THEIR MONEY to the federal government "sucking sound" pyramid scheme, public employees retirement funds are growing in mutual funds, aren't they?

Funny, John Kerry will scream loudly at how Bush is going to destroy Social Security by giving everybody the same benefit$ that state and federal workers have been enjoying for years. :evil:

There you go, Saari dude, now you can whinge about my love of quoting myself, once more. :wink:

When your candidate or anyone else's is willing to advocate the painful transition from pay-as-you-go to investment for retirement, I'll be glad to cheer from the stands. If ...

Ultimately, even Samuelson will have to admit that all retirement spending is wealth transfer from producers to non-producers. The investment track has the advantage of years (decades?) where the asset is used productively before it's tapped. We were going to do that with the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fundst, but 'unimportant' deficits took precedence.

Hint: fix that first! :evil:

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Originally Posted by Mr. Robert J. Samuelson

Bush deserves to lose the election based on his cynical Medicare drug plan, designed to attract elderly voters. But Kerry does not deserve to win, based on his equally cynical pandering to the same voters.

My dear Mr. Lamb why are you not displaying your disdain for Mr. Samuelson's views?

It's pretty simple, dude, and it is not the least bit surprising that an anti-war paleocon will never understand it...

Simply put... there are blunders, and then there are blunders. You've got your defining "blunders" and I've got mine. The difference between the two is what defines the two candidates, and this election.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Post

Originally Posted by Mr. Robert J. Samuelson

The central distributional issue of our time is not between rich and poor. It is between retirees and non-retirees.

Same Old Evasion from the 8 September 2004 number of the Washington Post.

I share many of Samuelson's concerns. I was hoping Bush would really address this issue at the convention (as I posted as such at this website). Alas, he skimmed over the issue too much to please me. Still, I am quite sure the debates will reveal with clarity where each candidate stands on this issue, and what they propose to do about it.

OTH, can somebody out there write to Peter Jennings and Dan Rather, asking them to be sure and bring the subject up in the debates? I am sure that if they think it's a loser for Kerry, they might not ask about it.

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

There is definitely an intensity to this election that we have not seen in a long time. I can't remember one in my personal political awareness. I suspect we'd have to go back to 1972.

1980, Carter vs. Reagan... that the election of Reagan was the Catalyst for the Third Turning, not his "Morning In America" reelection campaign four years later.

You really think 1980 was this intense? Sure there were gas lines, hostages, dead helicopter pilots, stagflation, King Tut Funky Tut :wink: , and a lot of other tensors. But with GI's and Silent mostly running the show and with Boomer coming-of-age passion petering out, I don't see the intensity, and certainly not the childishness, that we see now.

1972 was anti-climatic. Now 1968, that was super intense! And so was 1964, with the upstart Goldwater madness.

Landon Jones (SIL, 1943), who Strauss and Howe consider the authoritative voice on the Baby Boom generation, wrote a book he entitled "Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation," in 1981. He did an entire chapter based on his research that revealed the baby boomer class of 1968 (Yale) were steeped in a severe personal depression in 1980.

One can read much into that. I'm simply reminded of how S&H make the case that the GI generation was "empowered" by their fourth turning, coming-of-age experience.

Personally, I am of the opinion that boomers were too, eventually... I know I, of the 1978 class, was big-time! It just wasn't in the same kind of way, as those heroes of Normandy, Dresden and Hiroshima were empowered. :wink: (tweak)

A serious post. Very nice.

When mentioning '72 I was thinking primarily of the Eagleton "scandal" and the continuing, if petering, passions regarding Vietnam. 1968 was certainly quite intense, and I don't think what we've experienced so far this year matches that. However, the undercurrents this time may be much stronger than they appear on the surface.

Why did Jones think the Yale Class of '68 was depressed 12 years on?

Jones was an editor at People Magazine, who, I believe, conducted a poll of the Yale class of 1968. Or, it might have been Time.

Kifflie Scott ought to know, she has the book.

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Jones was an editor at People Magazine, who, I believe, conducted a poll of the Yale class of 1968. Or, it might have been Time.

Kifflie Scott ought to know, she has the book.

Does anyone think that we have had enough Yalies offered as presidential stock? Diversity, anyone?

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Jones was an editor at People Magazine, who, I believe, conducted a poll of the Yale class of 1968. Or, it might have been Time.

Kifflie Scott ought to know, she has the book.

You have a good memory, Marc. On both counts.

The book jacket of the hardcover edition reads, "A Senior Editor at People Magazine and former Education Editor for Time, Landon Y. Jones has written for such publications as The Atlantic, Esquire, and Saturday Review. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife and three children. He was born in 1943."

Originally Posted by David '47 Redux

The investment track has the advantage of years (decades?) where the asset is used productively before it's tapped.

No it doesn't. Social security can be thought of as forced savings. Savings are not in and of themselves assets. They can be used to purchase assets. Saving does not directly produce assets, so the idea that if Social Security funds were put into, for example, the stock market there would then be more "assets" to be used productively is not necessarily true.

Savings can indirectly affect asset formation if savings are in short supply relative to existing assets. In this case asset price would be low and there would be little incentive to create new assets (i.e. wealth formation or what we call economic growth). [Another way to say this is high interest rates are bad for economic growth].

If savings (money for investment) is adequate then asset prices are at normal levels and new assets are produced normally. If excess money is available for investment, asset prices are bid up way beyond their normal levels and asset bubbles result.

Asset price is the reciprocal of the yield. When dividends and interest rates are very high (i.e. asset prices are very low), like in the early 1980's, making more money available for investment (i.e. "supply side" polices) can boost asset prices, encouraging the formation of more assets (i.e. economic growth). When interest rates and dividend yields are very low, like now, asset prices are high. Making more money available for investment (like putting SS funds into private accounts), when asset prices are already in the stratosphere, will have no positive impact on economic growth. Instead it will generate bubbles, which when they burst will harm economic growth. It will also necessarily depress investment returns from what it they would have been in the absence of the additional sources of investable cash.

Here's a question. I am not sure that the 4T requires an immediate coming together of the cultural warriors, and I think that's been covered here. Given that the two sides may not allign right away (until maybe a terrorist-school incident or something like that), is it possible that Bush's particular spending style, invasion of Iraq, and so on represent the moral/ideological war style that we expect to see in a 4T?

I guess I am asking if we aren't seeing the beginnings of ideological war and economic policy that charactize 4t, just from only one side of the culture war debate?

And if so, then what? We could be hit by terrorists or peak oil in such a way that the blues get on board with the ideological war, and ppl come together. Or not, so then we just peter from one catastrophe to another?

Originally Posted by monoghan

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Jones was an editor at People Magazine, who, I believe, conducted a poll of the Yale class of 1968. Or, it might have been Time.

Kifflie Scott ought to know, she has the book.

Does anyone think that we have had enough Yalies offered as presidential stock? Diversity, anyone?

YES! Why have so many people from www.safetyschool.org (an inferior safety school in New Haven which sucks at football) when Harvard students are WAY smarter?

Colin Powell in *&%!$# neocon 'crazies' row

WARNING! BAD ADJECTIVE! WARNING

John Kampfner, political editor of the New Statesman and author of Blair's Wars, said Naughtie's characterisation of the feverish political atmosphere of the summer of 2002 was entirely accurate. 'The British government saw Powell as the most significant voice of sanity in the US administration. At different times during this very difficult period, the Brits used Powell to get across their point of view to the White House. But, bizarrely, Powell sometimes also used Blair to pass messages to Bush.'

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow: 3T :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Did you notice that the third anniversary of 9/11 almost felt like an afterthought? I live 3 miles from one of the three "ground zeros" (the Pentagon) and we just went about our Saturday. Other than a bunch of extra flags being flown on houses or put up over road overpasses, it was just another nice, but busy Saturday.

I didn't notice any unusual display today until I stopped by an ethnic festival at a Greek Orthodox Church. There the Stars and Stripes were displayed with the Greek flag.

Originally Posted by Hermione Granger

Did you notice that the third anniversary of 9/11 almost felt like an afterthought?

But isn't that usually the case whenever we get farther away from a specific point in time?

Think about the death of Princess Diana in 1997. With each coming anniversary the tibutes and vigils diminished markedly.

Originally Posted by Andy '85

Originally Posted by Hermione Granger

Did you notice that the third anniversary of 9/11 almost felt like an afterthought?

But isn't that usually the case whenever we get farther away from a specific point in time?

Think about the death of Princess Diana in 1997. With each coming anniversary the tibutes and vigils diminished markedly.

Yeah, that's true. When Diana was killed I was in a karaoke bar about to sing...the news blew in like an uninvited and unwanted guest. Later that week most people were glued to the TV set watching the Anglican pomp and circumstance of her funeral precession.

Exactly one year later the local NBC (?) affiliate in Seattle rebroadcast the entire funeral precession.

The next year, 1999....nothing much at all.

Originally Posted by Chris Seamans '75

[
If we're currently in a "phony" Crisis right now, the real Crisis will likely come so close on its heels that both will appear to be part of the same whole.

That is very possible.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by David '47 Redux

The investment track has the advantage of years (decades?) where the asset is used productively before it's tapped.

No it doesn't. Social security can be thought of as forced savings. Savings are not in and of themselves assets. They can be used to purchase assets. Saving does not directly produce assets, so the idea that if Social Security funds were put into, for example, the stock market there would then be more "assets" to be used productively is not necessarily true.

Savings can indirectly affect asset formation if savings are in short supply relative to existing assets. In this case asset price would be low and there would be little incentive to create new assets (i.e. wealth formation or what we call economic growth). [Another way to say this is high interest rates are bad for economic growth].

If savings (money for investment) is adequate then asset prices are at normal levels and new assets are produced normally. If excess money is available for investment, asset prices are bid up way beyond their normal levels and asset bubbles result.

Asset price is the reciprocal of the yield. When dividends and interest rates are very high (i.e. asset prices are very low), like in the early 1980's, making more money available for investment (i.e. "supply side" polices) can boost asset prices, encouraging the formation of more assets (i.e. economic growth). When interest rates and dividend yields are very low, like now, asset prices are high. Making more money available for investment (like putting SS funds into private accounts), when asset prices are already in the stratosphere, will have no positive impact on economic growth. Instead it will generate bubbles, which when they burst will harm economic growth. It will also necessarily depress investment returns from what it they would have been in the absence of the additional sources of investable cash.

If you assume that all investment is private, and the returns you mean are those on stocks and bonds, then you are probably right. If you ignore that assumption and put the money to use by "investing" in what is important to America, then you might have seen publid investments such as infrastructure upgrades, or improved public health. Neither of these is a viable private investment, but both are critical.

If the money had been used to cover the 'extras' rather than propping-up the eefforts of the deficit spending mavens, then the country would be ahead of where it current is, and the ability to repay would be better.

Just my $0.02

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander

Savings can indirectly affect asset formation if savings are in short supply relative to existing assets. In this case asset price would be low and there would be little incentive to create new assets (i.e. wealth formation or what we call economic growth). . . . Asset price is the reciprocal of the yield. When dividends and interest rates are very high (i.e. asset prices are very low), like in the early 1980's, making more money available for investment (i.e. "supply side" polices) can boost asset prices, encouraging the formation of more assets (i.e. economic growth).

This assumes that a low level of savings (i.e., of money available for capital investment) is the cause of the low asset price. But the same result would ensue if assets were of low attractiveness as investments compared to alternatives such as jewelry, precious metals, real estate, bonds, artwork, etc. If the economy is in a slump, investment in stock might be seen as relatively unprofitable regardless of the price. You have an actual shortage of investment capital when you see a decline in all investments in everything except consumption spending. Unless such a decline is visible, supply side policies as those are usually conceived, with one important exception, are unlikely to make much difference.

The exception involves tax cuts targeted directly toward making asset investment more attractive, e.g. a capital gains tax cut. By reducing the threshold of profitability, this does spur investment.

So I am sitting here listening to NPR and they are talking about how gay/les is being included into the sex ed curriculuum in MA.

The culture warriors are still going at it. A les teacher is talking about different kinds of intercourse a female couple can have, as part of a class discussion. 'two women can have vaginal intercourse, for instance they can use sex toys...'

It's an interesting world.

Originally Posted by mgibbons19 (71)

So I am sitting here listening to NPR and they are talking about how gay/les is being included into the sex ed curriculuum in MA.

The culture warriors are still going at it. A les teacher is talking about different kinds of intercourse a female couple can have, as part of a class discussion. 'two women can have vaginal intercourse, for instance they can use sex toys...'

It's an interesting world.

Geez, and I thought my eighth-grade sex ed class back in '72 was coercive!

Those poor Mills :-(

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

Originally Posted by Chris Seamans '75

[
If we're currently in a "phony" Crisis right now, the real Crisis will likely come so close on its heels that both will appear to be part of the same whole.

That is very possible.

Even likely. If G/T Theory had been presented in the 1920s, certainly the discussion forums of 1931 would have debated whether We Be 3T or 4T as well...it wasn't until '32-'33 that the 4T consensus would have been reached. As I've said before, most people on this forum seem to expect the current or coming 4T to break in a similar fashion and timetable to the last one. It doesn't have to. We could have 7 or 8 years (rather than 3-4)between the Catalyst and the Social Moment, and when we're obviously enroute to Hell In A Handbasket people will still look back to the Catalyst (such as 911) as when they started paving the Road.