Well in case anybody doesn't know, we've finally hit the 4T! Does anyone disagree? By the way, it happened when I said it would (late 2008).

Everyone refers to our times now as a crisis. For now, it is mainly financial. We are in 1929. The "recession" is deepening, and its place on the turnings cycle suggests that this "crisis" is only the beginning; that we will be in crisis mode from now on (until sometime late in the 2020s).

Of course, some said Katrina was the beginning in 2005; and this year we also had Ike. These two events are clearly a warning that this crisis is also ecological. So far we don't realize the extent of the changes we must make. People are speaking of converting to renewable fuels by 2020 or 2040; or that in ten years we must become "free of foreign oil" (not free from all oil). No, Greenland is melting. The "crisis" we face this time could be cataclysmic, if Greenland's melting stops the Gulf Stream. Where will all our friends in Europe go? What will they do, in that case?

Not only must we convert away from fossil fuels in the next few years; not over decades; it is probably too late to convert. We will also have murdered thousands of species; just because people are too afraid or ignorant to face the "inconvenient truth." What are we hanging on to? Oil companies? SUVs? If they can't convert to making renewable energy, they need to go out of business and disappear! Who needs them? Yet people like Arkham say it will be a calamity if oil companies suffer. The real calamity is that they have already not suffered nearly enough.

The "housing bubble;" everyone saw it coming. The financial speculators were allowed to run wild. Somehow, because of 60s "individualism" that trumped 60s "idealism," and took over under Reagan, we have let the free-market trickle-downers rule our country and dominate our discourse. As the 4T dawns, it is time for them to shut up and take a hike. Lack of regulation and low taxes are the cause of this 4T, just as they were of the last one. We're going in the opposite direction now folks. Idealism, not individualism. Contrary to what the authors thought, so far it is not "entitlements" that are the cause of the financial crisis, but lax regulations, and outdated energy policies and habits. We will need more government health care and welfare, not less.

There will be more famines, migrations and plagues to deal with. America needs to learn it is no longer the world's policeman or colonial emperor. There will be more revolutions after 2010; especially 2014. There will be good things too: after 2012 the economy could actually recover, powered by the green post-industrial ecological revolution. Lots of new industries and jobs will be available in our global warming society. Since the culture war will be waning, perhaps we can cultivate a genuine new culture too. That's the real "culture war;" how to replace our decadent culture with a real one. I suspect the American divide is not over though, and will rear its head again in the 2020s.

Eric the Green

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Well in case anybody doesn't know, we've finally hit the 4T! Does anyone disagree? By the way, it happened when I said it would (late 2008).

Welcome back.

You might want to visit the Return of the Catalyst thread in the Theory section. The question is less whether we are 4T than which catalyst deserves the most attention. I'm trying for a two phase theory, that the Bush 43 administration would be remembered as the security phase, and an economic phase is due to follow. There is no consensus, though.

My concern is that not enough attention is likely to be paid to the ecology. I've proposed that the next prophet generation will be the Green generation.

In the past 4Ts have often had two main phases. The first economic and the second military. I have never subscribed to the idea that 9-11 was the start of the 4T. That makes the cycle too fast, for one thing. Even now, the start of the 4T means we are a few years ahead (2008 is 79 years after 1929, and a complete cycle is at least 84 years). 9-11 was a phony issue from the get go; merely an excuse for 3T neo-cons to carry out a plan that had not the slightest relevance to anyone's needs or concerns. We were not a "changed people" after 9-11 either, as the authors wrote. Far from it. The 3T carried on as before, and 2004 was the most culture-war driven election of all. We did not even have the resolve to catch the ring leader of the perpetrators of 9-11. The event did not lead to any change in our approach to life or a crisis mood at all. Actually, the authors agreed and compared 9-11 to the anarchist bombings of 1919.

The Iraq War did not cause a crisis mood either. The people knew it was a totally unnecessary war that had nothing to do with 9-11. It was a war of choice, much like the War with Mexico in 1846, during another late phase of another 3T. Most people did not feel the sacrifice of the Iraq war either. The nation knew deep down that dying for George Bush was not worthy of any 4T mood.

So forget 9-11 as the start of a "military phase." We have just entered the 4T, as of last month. Like other turnings, we have entered the economic phase of the crisis, which comes first. The military phase, if there is one, will come in the 2020s, when we will see the reorganization of our country. The double-rhythm of turnings means that this one is primarily domestic, and the great American "red-blue" divide is no myth. It is real, and growing, and we will have to decide if we want to stay in the same nation. (Hint; don't just look at red and blue states, but red and blue counties and regions within states too; CA is completely balkanized now, for example).

Personally, I would rather not stay in the same nation. But it is not worth a civil war. I hope both sides come to the same conclusion. They might. Our whole country is obsolete, and once the crisis starts, and "change" continues to be the magic word it has become this year, bigger changes will come. Our system of electing a king may well be on the chopping block. So might our two party duopoly. All other democracies are parliamentary and multi-party; even the phony one we ourselves set up in Iraq. But-- we can't have one? Why not, I suspect people will wonder.

I don't know if we will avoid civil war or not, resolving these conflicts. We can hope so. But I suspect some level of violence is inevitable. To what extent powerful forces that rule our country will try to quell the change, using some form of a coup, we will also see. Powerful interests want to continue our "free-market" corporate society, and use prejudice to keep it afloat. It is not working in 2008, but it's probably not dead.

BTW the name "Homelanders" for the next adaptive generation should be canned. 9-11 was irrelevant to the 4T. The next generation, now that the 4T has started, can be thought of as having started around 2005.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Yet people like Arkham say it will be a calamity if oil companies suffer.

Please point to a specific instance in which I said that oil companies were crucial to our future.

Oh, wait. You can't. Because none such exists.

You really need to pay closer attention, Eric, so that you don't put your foot in your mouth.

The oil companies are dinosaurs. Like so many other products of the Industrial Revolution, their time is over.

That does not mean I condone opportunistic scaremongering by Peak Oil and Global Warming doomers, whose only "solution" to the madness of late modernity is either a fatalistic resignation to the "inevitability" of environmental apocalypse or a radical top-down reorganization of society into some kind of draconian eco-theocracy. Peak Oil and Global Warming are non-issues, not because the science is invalid (though I am personally dubious of the alarmist climate predictions, and of the ability of current statistical models to capture complex global phenomena in general), but because the former is a cultural problem (by which I mean it is a product of a dysfunctional worldview, rather like the warped mentation of a drug addict), the solution to which will also resolve the latter. And we will resolve Peak Oil. The social and technical innovations already exist to do so, they just aren't widely distributed, and there are powerful interests that would prefer to delay alternatives* for as long as possible, in order to extract maximum rents. But these interests are imploding as the logic that sustains them self-annihilates; once they are gone, human ingenuity will produce an entirely different energy regime very quickly (for the same reason a pressurized container explodes when breached), and life will go on.

* Real alternatives, not the "safe" pseudo-alternatives like hybrid cars and crop-based biofuels.

The current Time leads with an article on Presidential temperament and has four men on the cover--Lincoln, FDR, McCain and Obama. No joke. I checked the article and it shows no awareness of the theory and no real clue to why they picked those two. .. but still, it's very interesting, don't you think?

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

The current Time leads with an article on Presidential temperament and has four men on the cover--Lincoln, FDR, McCain and Obama. No joke. I checked the article and it shows no awareness of the theory and no real clue to why they picked those two. .. but still, it's very interesting, don't you think?

Kipparent in David Keirsey's forum analyzed the type and temperament of both men and came up with strong resemblances (as people, not in ideloogy) to recent presidents of the opposite party. McCain, he said, was very much like Lyndon Johnson, as a man. And Obama, very much like Eisenhower, complete with the amiable public facade.

I note that McCain and Johnson share a regional culture, as do Obama and Eisenhower, for whatever it's worth. I think it's worth a fair amount, or nobody'd be laughing at Garrison Keillor or Jeff Foxworthy.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

McCain, he said, was very much like Lyndon Johnson, as a man.

Um... I don't think so. Love or hate either of them, I find it very difficult to picture John McCain holding staff meetings while sitting on the can.

Originally Posted by The Seattle Times

As U.S. sours, home beckons immigrants

By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter

Shortly after the company he worked for as a carpet layer went bankrupt in December, Lauro Manuel made a critical decision: He was taking his family back to Mexico.
The souring U.S. economy was showing no signs of turning around, and after searching for weeks for work alongside other laid-off undocumented workers, Lauro was convinced that he, his wife and their three U.S.-born children could do better in his home country.
It's a conclusion that some illegal immigrants apparently are reaching as the U.S. economy continues to shed jobs — particularly in the construction and service industries, where large numbers of them traditionally have found work.
Like most everyone else in this country, they are feeling the pinch of rising unemployment and higher food bills. Unlike U.S. citizens, they don't qualify for unemployment benefits or many other forms of public assistance.
So, many who have lost good-paying jobs are doubling up on lesser-paying ones, and many families have turned to food banks and churches in search of help. Still others have become virtual nomads — moving from city to city, state to state on word of better opportunities elsewhere.
Recent studies show that the number of illegal immigrants in the country has dropped slightly for the first time in years, incomes among their ranks are down further than those of all other U.S. households, and their jobless rates are up.
And some worry that, around here at least, things could get even rougher, when fruit pickers from Eastern Washington head to the Puget Sound area in search of work as they do this time of year.
Despite the bleak outlook, Lauro Manuel's wife, Carmina, said she wasn't on board with her husband's desire to return to Mexico because she believes the family's chances are more promising here — even in these bad times.
The two, identified here only by their given names, have been in the United States for years — she for 18 years, he for 21. Without legal immigration status, they had settled in California and Texas before moving to Washington five years ago.
A tax preparer at a national tax service, she was about to see her income surge with the upcoming tax season when her husband made his announcement. "We actually reached a crisis point," Carmina said. "I told him if he left, he was going by himself."
So she offered a deal instead: "We'll stay and try to save money, and if things don't turn around, we can go back in a year or so," she said.
"But I'm not going back to Mexico without money. If you can't find a good job over here, in the United States, in the country of opportunities, what chance do you have back home?"
Looking for help
As conditions worsen here, many are turning to places that offer help without asking questions.
At St. Mary's church in Seattle's Central Area, the Rev. Tony Haycock said lines at the church's food bank are longer.
"A lot of them are losing their jobs ... so they are struggling," he said. "It's across the board."
At El Centro de la Raza, Executive Director Roberto Maestas said he's seeing a marked increase in families visiting the food bank, coming for meals and seeking help with foreclosures.
"That's been discernible in the last month or so," he said. "Everybody is wondering: Is the roof caving in on my head?"
Along with being in an unstable job market, some illegal immigrants also are feeling vulnerable because of stepped-up immigration enforcement, including worksite raids.
Uriel Iñiguez, executive director of the Washington State Commission on Hispanic Affairs, said some companies, fearful of a worksite raid, are asking, " 'Why should we hire people who are undocumented?' We are seeing this more and more locally."
Miguel Estevez, a Mexican national who lives in West Seattle and works in asbestos removal, said companies have been more diligent about checking Social Security numbers. "Word gets around about which companies check and which ones don't," he said.
Nowhere is the economic crisis more evident than in the home-construction industry, where untold numbers of illegal immigrants were landing good jobs during the decade's boom years.
Many of those jobs now have disappeared.
A study by the Pew Hispanic Center found unemployment among Latino immigrants, both legal and illegal, was 7.5 percent during the first quarter of 2008, due in large part to the construction slump. That was well above the 4.7 percent rate for other non-Hispanic workers.
Some workers have found themselves toiling for contractors who haven't paid them because the contractors themselves have not been paid, said Jimmy Matta, organizing director of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters.
Matta said there's still action on the commercial end: "There are still a lot of cranes up," he said. "There are still jobs to sustain those who have been through apprenticeship programs or been in the trades for a long time."
But he said most of the local guys who are out of work don't have that kind of training.
"It breaks my heart to see them come in and say, 'I have a family here, and I'm looking for work,' " he said.
Matta said he takes about 20 calls a day — mostly from out-of-state workers who tend to be more highly skilled.
"I've met carpenters in the trades who've worked on 11 major casinos," Matta said. "There's no work in Las Vegas, Los Angeles. We're getting qualified guys wanting to come up here. The reality is, the market can't bear it."
Cesar Quintero is one of those who came here seeking work.
Originally from Tijuana, he had been in Los Angeles for more than a decade, most recently trying to muscle his way through throngs of unemployed construction workers. Now he's among growing numbers who line the sidewalk outside the Home Depot store in Sodo early each morning, hoping to grab painting or landscaping work for the day.
Some days are better than others. As soon as he makes $500, Quintero said, he'll buy a van he can live in and drive to Wenatchee to find work. He heard there's work there.
"I already have $150," he said.
Numbers hard to track
The extent to which illegal immigrants are returning home is hard to measure.
Iñiguez said he's heard anecdotally about families returning to the small farms or plots of land they left behind. Others are starting small businesses.
The Mexican Consulate office in Seattle said increasing numbers of people are seeking Mexican passports.
Some of that reflects seasonal workers returning home this time of year. And a new regulation requires passports for people traveling by air in the Western Hemisphere.
"But the increase is so large, it could be a reflection ... of people not able to find jobs and going back," said Marcela Leos, of the Mexican Consulate in Seattle.
Carmina, the tax preparer, said she knows several who have gone back — including two young construction workers who had their taxes done in April and then returned to Mexico to try to find work.
But she doesn't believe that's a good option for her and her family.
Her husband was out of work from January to May. He's since been able to find small part-time jobs, but nothing that pays the steady wages of carpet laying that helped sustain the family for years.
"He applies at all these jobs, and they don't call him," she said.
In the meantime, the family has cut back. As they struggle to pay their hefty adjustable-rate mortgage, they no longer eat out or go to the movies. "We go play soccer in the park. ... Now we do karaoke at home."
Still, she said, she wants to remain here. "A bad economy in the U.S.," she said, "is still better than anything we would find in Mexico."

I bet we'll see more of this as the 4T continues.

Originally Posted by writerGrrl

I bet we'll see more of this as the 4T continues.

Well let's hope so.

How ironic... an illegal alien who doesn't, can't, pay income taxes, working as a tax preparer!

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Please point to a specific instance in which I said that oil companies were crucial to our future.

Oh, wait. You can't. Because none such exists.

You really need to pay closer attention, Eric, so that you don't put your foot in your mouth.

The oil companies are dinosaurs. Like so many other products of the Industrial Revolution, their time is over.

There won't be anything made out of plastic?

Here's today's evidence that Hurricane Katrina was not the start of the Fourth Turning.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"Thinking about how the gay marriage issue might affect your vote for major offices, would you only vote for a candidate who shares your views on gay marriage, consider a candidate's position on gay marriage as just one of many important factors when voting, or would you not see gay marriage as a major issue?" Options rotated


.
Must Share Views | One of Many Factors | Not a Major Issue | Unsure

% | % | % | %


5/8-11/08

16 | 49 | 33 | 2


5/2-4/04

16 | 46 | 35 | 3

Originally Posted by Mr. Reed

If anyone still doubts that Xers are firmly in midlife, this article should put such doubts to rest.

I'm still not convinced that Xers have settled from young adult to midlife. Sure, there's the survivalism, but the current peer personality of Gen X leaves a lot to be desired.

You yourself have stated that the key role for Xers in a 4T will be to reëstablish social conventions. Now, it seems that social conventions have never died in the first place because Boomers have resacralized them and Jonesers are bitter about Boomers and Silents defecating all over them in the 2T, but even to the extent that social conventions have been damaged in the 90's . . . Xers are not yet in the stage of conforming to them. Xers are writing TV scripts that hit wildly upon "naughty" sexual themes and jokes (just look at Cartoon Network). Where I work, the Xers and post-X employees talk frequently and openly about genitals and lower-body bodily functions (I had a conversation with a 1977 cohort about penis pasta the other day). The Jonesers, Boomers and Silents, by contrast, don't. I see Xers, not Boomers, picking their noses and belching.

Xers are also supposed to turn into tyrannical parents during the 4T, as the Lost did. We should expect to see parents reminiscent of Capt. von Trapp from The Sound of Music is the authors are to be believed and this be 3T we're in. Howe and Strauss predicted Xers would be dictateurs-de-maison who perfunctorily grounded their teen-age children for everything from underage drinking to interracial dating. Instead Xers are taking their little kids to Hinder concerts and showings of RENT with them, as they did in the late 90's (except then with Stroke 9 instead of Hinder). They don't tell their children that they have to practice the religion their parents want them to. Jonesers, by contrast, have a "my children are my slaves" attitude.

Another thing Howe and Strauss state is that Xers will be particularly eocused on family during their midlife years. Their whole life is supposed to center around their spouse, children and to a lesser extent siblings, parents, nieces and nephews. I don't see Xers being thinking any more in a family-oriented way than, say, Boomers.

We should also expect to see Xers taking out their body piercing. Now I see more and more Xers and members of my generation who have their eyebrow, nose or labret pierced, and the new people who get piercings look less and less punkish all the time. At first it was just the punks, then it spread to types like slackers and ravers, now I see African-American women who listen to R&B with the outside of their noses pierced.

Besides, midlife doesn't start until age 42, and Xers born as early as October 1966 are still pre-42. This is one of the major problems with the theory, I think, and I've never received a satisfactory explanation for this. I basically don't believe in the whole phases-of-life aspect of the theory.

So it may be a while until Xers start turning into home-and-hearth Helgas. Until then, I hope they write some good music that can kick the posterior of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

Originally Posted by James E. F. Landau

I'm still not convinced that Xers have settled from young adult to midlife. Sure, there's the survivalism, but the current peer personality of Gen X leaves a lot to be desired.

You yourself have stated that the key role for Xers in a 4T will be to reëstablish social conventions. Now, it seems that social conventions have never died in the first place because Boomers have resacralized them and Jonesers are bitter about Boomers and Silents defecating all over them in the 2T, but even to the extent that social conventions have been damaged in the 90's . . . Xers are not yet in the stage of conforming to them. Xers are writing TV scripts that hit wildly upon "naughty" sexual themes and jokes (just look at Cartoon Network). Where I work, the Xers and post-X employees talk frequently and openly about genitals and lower-body bodily functions (I had a conversation with a 1977 cohort about penis pasta the other day). The Jonesers, Boomers and Silents, by contrast, don't. I see Xers, not Boomers, picking their noses and belching.

Maybe it's just where you work. Half the people in my office are Gen Xers, including my new boss, and while the occasional swear word isn't a big deal, I can guarantee that any "open talk" about genitalia would swiftly and surely invite severe admonishment by Human Resources and Legal Counsel... after which a repeat performance would get one fired. Which is, of course, how it should be. I don't use the word "offense" frequently, or lightly, however I take great offense at having someone else's sexuality rubbed in my face.

At any rate, where is it written in T4T that the entire Nomad generation should be securely in midlife in a Crisis? That is only the case at the very end of the Turning. At the beginning of a 4T, only the leading edge of Nomads are middle aged . Likewise, it's the eldest Artists who are dying off, the first wave of Prophets who are entering elderhood, and the earliest-born Hero cohorts moving into young adulthood.

Originally Posted by James E. F. Landau

Here's today's evidence that Hurricane Katrina was not the start of the Fourth Turning.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"Thinking about how the gay marriage issue might affect your vote for major offices, would you only vote for a candidate who shares your views on gay marriage, consider a candidate's position on gay marriage as just one of many important factors when voting, or would you not see gay marriage as a major issue?" Options rotated


.
Must Share Views | One of Many Factors | Not a Major Issue | Unsure

% | % | % | %


5/8-11/08

16 | 49 | 33 | 2


5/2-4/04

16 | 46 | 35 | 3

Link, please? Or at least the source?

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Link, please? Or at least the source?

http://www.pollingreport.com/civil.htm

Originally Posted by James E. F. Landau

Xers are not yet in the stage of conforming to them. Xers are writing TV scripts that hit wildly upon "naughty" sexual themes and jokes (just look at Cartoon Network).

Racy fare lasted well into the 4T last time. But I doubt that cultural indicators can be sued due to an inability to know how they changed in 4T before the last one.

Xers are also supposed to turn into tyrannical parents during the 4T, as the Lost did.

Yes, of their Artist, teen children. There won't be any teen artists for at least a decade, so your observations today don't apply.

Besides, midlife doesn't start until age 42, and Xers born as early as October 1966 are still pre-42.

I thought it was 44.

This is one of the major problems with the theory, I think, and I've never received a satisfactory explanation for this. I basically don't believe in the whole phases-of-life aspect of the theory.

Big problems with this, as I have described many times before.

So it may be a while until Xers start turning into home-and-hearth Helgas. Until then, I hope they write some good music that can kick the posterior of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

Yes it will be some time, probably a decade for so. How old are you?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Racy fare lasted well into the 4T last time. But I doubt that cultural indicators can be sued [used?] due to an inability to know how they changed in 4T before the last one.

I recall reading here that the first Boscoe cartoon was made after FDR's election. If we are in the 4T now, maybe Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" can be a modern equivalent.

But I was discussing whether Xers had entered a 4T generational role, not whether we were in the 4T.

Yes, of their Artist, teen children. There won't be any teen artists for at least a decade, so your observations today don't apply.

I thought Howe & Strauss said Nomads were strict with both Hero and Artist children. And that Artists were raised repressively. And yet, Heroes are supposed to give their kids freedom. But then what would Heroes raising Artists do? Another problem with the theory . . .

I thought it was 44.

Well, from what I recall, the phase of life turnovers occurred at 21, 42, 63, 84, so they could be all 21 years apart.

Big problems with this, as I have described many times before.

The phase of life aspect of the turning seems to be the most tenuous aspect of the theory, with parenting styles coming in a close second. I should make an entire post about this.

Yes it will be some time, probably a decade for so. How old are you?

I recently turned 29.

Any thoughts on the gay marriage polls?

Personally, I was never convinced that just because we would be in a depression, gays would stop caring about whether they were allowed to marry.

In California, Proposition 8 has the people excited (in both senses of the word). Homophobes are putting out a "Yes on 8" campaign that spreads the lie that schools will be required to teach about gay marriage under California's new Supreme Court ruling. They even use children for commercials in favor of Prop 8. A different kind of "prop", if you will.

Meanwhile, gay rights advocates have been busy debunking the lies spread by the yes-on-8 folks. Joe Solmonese's Human Rights Campaign (HRC), from which I get emails. has been a key player in the debunking. HRC was recently ranked as the #2 political action group in the nation this election cycle.

Proposition 4 is also getting a lot of air time and commercials pro- and anti-. The turnout of the Bittersweet Generation, which brought us the lowest 18-to-24 turnout since 1972 in 2002, may determine the fate of this and Proposition 8. Young voters coming to the polls because they like Obama could pollinate the flower of the yes-or-no-on-8 question, helping to defeat Proposition 8 and save same-sex marriage in California. This generation is a wild card for Proposition 4. On one hand, the Bittersweet Generation is pro-life. On the other hand, they are very pro-youth.

Originally Posted by James E. F. Landau

I recall reading here that the first Boscoe cartoon was made after FDR's election. If we are in the 4T now, maybe Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" can be a modern equivalent.

But I was discussing whether Xers had entered a 4T generational role, not whether we were in the 4T.

In recent years, Boomers have quit being the new young parents -- especially mothers -- as they have entered at the least the late 40s. Like other other Idealist generations they are better described as authoritative parents and teachers (and still are, but now no longer as parents of toddlers): firmly, but selectively disciplinarian. They tolerate intellectual curiosity but not self-destructive behavior. Contrast the Silent (poor parents because they were finally pushing the boundaries in life for themselves and their children, as is typical for Adaptives) and Generation X who are more pervasively repressive as the antithesis of the permissiveness that their parents thought 'liberating'.

I thought Howe & Strauss said Nomads were strict with both Hero and Artist children. And that Artists were raised repressively. And yet, Heroes are supposed to give their kids freedom. But then what would Heroes raising Artists do? Another problem with the theory . . .

That's not so problematic. The Lost and the GIs raised Silent children. By 1925, Missionaries had almost entirely aged out of the new-parent role as they entered their mid-forties while GIs were just beginning to enter the years of independent child-rearing. By 1943, the Lost had largely abandoned the role of new parents. Between 1925 and 1943 the Lost seemed to dominate the role in shaping the institution of the family even if the parents were GIs... as elementary-school teachers who had certain expectations of children between 5 and 10. Although 50-year-old and older new fathers are always possible, those fathers usually have wives decidedly younger... and in such cases the wives have more influence than their husbands upon children. Let's remember that many marriages are between people across the arbitrary lines of generations, so there were plenty of families in which one spouse was born in 1898 and the other in 1902 --- and of course 1888 and 1904 (in which the younger spouse was likely the woman who was likely to have more influence upon a child).

When the new parents are in two different generations split largely between the thirties and twenties, the older generation more shapes the patterns of child-rearing.

Well, from what I recall, the phase of life turnovers occurred at 21, 42, 63, 84, so they could be all 21 years apart.

Fair estimates, as people between 21 and 42 are in general the new parents; people between 42 and 63 are often becoming new grandparents; people between 63 and 84 are typically becoming the new great-grandparents; and people over 84 have generally little personal influence upon infants. Great-grandparents have ordinarily had little lasting influence upon children, although that could change. Let us remember that when teenage pregnancies, inside or outside of matrimony are commonplace grandparents often end up with roles characteristic more of parents than of grandparents. Teen parents are usually awful parents and do not shape institutions of childcare.

Fact: I looked at Today's Weather in the local paper and saw that the high today would be 57, rising to 66 later in the week. I remembered that we had highs in the low 70s for Election week, then lost 20 points - I mean, degrees - very shortly thereafter, and everyone felt was if they were freezing to death, especially since it was cold and gray and damp, with wind.

The weather reports since have been bumping their way downward, with rallies that never reach the previous highs but which feel very good after the last low. Then a serious downturn with nasty weather attached, and a rally or two, and a return to the last high - the one which used to be the low and during which you felt as if you were freezing -

Typical mid-November weather. Remind you of anything?

Slate has a fairly typical article here, The Genius Cabinet, nominating the team the magazine thinks ought to be supporting Obama. It's a decent article on its primary thrust of cabinet building, but the bolded sentence below hits a theme I've been seeing in several articles on assembling cabinets. It feels like another indication that the ordinary journalist is seeing a Fourth Turning, and doesn't feel shy about putting it in print.

For discussion purposes.

Originally Posted by Jacob Weisberg

Here's a radical suggestion: Barack Obama should pick the smartest people he can find for his Cabinet.

Brilliance has sometimes been a criterion in presidential appointments, of course, but seldom the major one. It usually takes a back seat to rewarding friends and backers, playing congressional politics, seeking diversity, and appeasing industry and interest groups. Presidents also feel obliged to avoid too many retreads and place a high premium on personal loyalty.

Obama can't avoid such considerations, of course. He needs to cultivate his congressional relationships, avoid alienating allies where possible, and rely on people he trusts. President No Drama doesn't want a Cabinet full of undisciplined prima donnas. But it makes sense for Obama to give greater weight to intellectual acumen and subject-specific knowledge than his recent predecessors have, both because of the depth of the problems he faces and because of his own style as a thinker and a decision-maker. Bush, whose ego was threatened by any outburst of excellence in his vicinity, politicized all policymaking and centralized it in the White House. Obama, happily, has the opposite tendencies. He is intellectually confident, enjoys engaging with ideas, and inclines to pragmatism rather than partisanship. He can handle a Lincolnesque "Team of Rivals" or a FDR-style brain trust. And he's going to need one.

I saw some commercials advertizing layaway while watching "Dancing With the Stars" the other day. Here is an article from Wall Street Journal about it. I actually remember layaways still hanging around in the 70s.

Remember layaways?

Neither do we. Mostly because their biggest boom was during the Great Depression. But thanks to the credit crunch, the layaway has been resurrected, reports today’s WSJ.

A layaway lets a customer put a purchase aside without having to pay for it in full upfront. Dying for that Robopanda but not ready to shell out $199.99 to Kmart right now? No problem. Kmart will hold onto one for you! But there is a catch:

Layaway plans aren’t free — most stores charge a fee for setting aside the merchandise, and ask for a down payment. Kmart requires customers to pay a $5 service fee and a $10 cancellation fee upfront, or put down 10% of the item’s cost, whichever is greater. Customers must make biweekly payments over eight weeks to pay the balance. In case of default, the item goes back into stock and the customer receives a refund, minus the $15.

Some other companies, like TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Burlington Coat Factory, are offering similar layaway plans this season as well. (Wal-Mart axed their layaway plan in 2006.) Sites like eLayaway.com have sprung up, luring consumers with iPod Touches for “as low as $42.23 a month.”

In a perfect world, people would only spend money they actually have on holiday goods. But we’re realists and understand the appeal of the layaway. Compared to the typically sky-high interest rates on credit cards, this might actually be a better alternative if you’re in a pinch.

Keep in mind that the store — not a bank or credit card issuer — sets the rules here. If you miss a payment, you still don’t have the item (since they’re laying it away until you pay in full), and you won’t get all of your money back.

They’re not going to negotiate a payment plan with you like a credit card company might. (Not that those guys have been super-flexible lately, either.)

Some stores that offer layaways allow you to charge the payments to your credit card, which doesn’t make much sense: Not only are you racking up layaway fees, but you’re also incurring potentially high interest rates from your credit card. Not a good move.

Before you sign up to lay away, ask yourself a few questions: Do you really need that robotic bear (or whatever)? Can you hold off and pay in full later? What will those payments will look like once the holiday hullabaloo has died down?

Readers, we know you’re beginning to make your Christmas list. Will you consider buying presents on layaway?

This article projects what Depression 2.0 would be like in modern times. I think that he has it partially right, but there are a lot of other elements that are missing.

1. I agree that the long angry lines will form elsewhere, such as schools, hospitals, gas stations, among other places.

2. The media environment will contribute to a sense of isolation, particularly among thiryish to fortyish members of society. They will continue watching television (one way or another), even as the media environment is changed beyond prior recognition. In an era in which abandoned homes cause more criminal danger in the suburbs, the police will be more of a presence, and local schools would be even more strict. In addition, there is likely to be some sort of civic upheaval. This is a prefect environment to raise an Adaptive generation. This time around, Adaptives may see the outdoors even less than Millennials, contributing to an unusually high sense of cabin fever.

3. As younger people move to the city, the suburbs will begin to age. Millennials will not be as isolated as the Xers. Cities will become the new hubs of activities. I don't think that rust belt cities will die. New industries will merely take over, and cities will experience a revitalization through a massive public works program. The cities will also be centers (they actually already are) for a new modernism. Urban density will increase through the Crisis, and new skyscrapers will push the limits of height, and new technologies (such as urban farming and new urban rail) will begin to transform the cities, towns, and the national infrastructure grid. There will be new public (and often civic) events in the cities.

4. Boomers would also inhabit the suburbs if they retain their homes. As such, the suburbs would attain a much older feel than before. Newly rundown suburbs will acquire a newly dark, eerie, and ancient feel. For a new generation of child Adaptives, many abandoned Boomer homes will become the new haunted houses. As this happens, Boomers will begin to embrace their old age. They will also become newly active in social life.

5. Like all other Crises, there is a revolution of rising expectations and social transformation. This will be accompanied with a more mainstream DIY movement, and technologies will become more available which propel this new movement in technology and organization. By the end of the Crisis, the new core infrastructure will have changed dramatically; the post-WWII electronic age will have clearly ended, and the new system is creating material affluence.

Depression 2009: What would it look like?

Lines at the ER, a television boom, emptying suburbs. A catastrophic economic downturn would feel nothing like the last one.

By Drake Bennett | November 16, 2008 OVER THE PAST few months, Americans have been hearing the word "depression" with unfamiliar and alarming regularity. The financial crisis tearing through Wall Street is routinely described as the worst since the Great Depression, and the recession into which we are sinking looks deep enough, financial commentators warn, that a few poor policy decisions could put us in a depression of our own.

It's a frightening possibility, but also in many ways an abstraction. The country has gone so long without a depression that it's hard to know what it would be like to live through one.

Most of us, of course, think we know what a depression looks like. Open a history book and the images will be familiar: mobs at banks and lines at soup kitchens, stockbrokers in suits selling apples on the street, families piled with all their belongings into jalopies. Families scrimp on coffee and flour and sugar, rinsing off tinfoil to reuse it and re-mending their pants and dresses. A desperate government mobilizes legions of the unemployed to build bridges and airports, to blaze trails in national forests, to put on traveling plays and paint social-realist murals.

Today, however, whatever a depression would look like, that's not it. We are separated from the 1930s by decades of profound economic, technological, and political change, and a modern landscape of scarcity would reflect that.

What, then, would we see instead? And how would we even know a depression had started? It's not a topic that professional observers of the economy study much. And there's no single answer, because there's no one way a depression might unfold. But it's nonetheless an important question to consider - there's no way to make informed decisions about the present without understanding, in some detail, the worst-case scenario about the future.

By looking at what we know about how society and commerce would slow down, and how people respond, it's possible to envision what we might face. Unlike the 1930s, when food and clothing were far more expensive, today we spend much of our money on healthcare, child care, and education, and we'd see uncomfortable changes in those parts of our lives. The lines wouldn't be outside soup kitchens but at emergency rooms, and rather than itinerant farmers we could see waves of laid-off office workers leaving homes to foreclosure and heading for areas of the country where there's more work - or just a relative with a free room over the garage. Already hollowed-out manufacturing cities could be all but deserted, and suburban neighborhoods left checkerboarded, with abandoned houses next to overcrowded ones.

And above all, a depression circa 2009 might be a less visible and more isolating experience. With the diminishing price of televisions and the proliferation of channels, it's getting easier and easier to kill time alone, and free time is one thing a 21st-century depression would create in abundance. Instead of dusty farm families, the icon of a modern-day depression might be something as subtle as the flickering glow of millions of televisions glimpsed through living room windows, as the nation's unemployed sit at home filling their days with the cheapest form of distraction available.

The odds are, most economists say, we will yet avoid a full-blown depression - the world's policy makers, they argue, have learned enough not to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s. Still, in a country that has known little but economic growth for 50 years, it matters to think about what life would look like without it.

. . .

There is, in fact, no agreed-upon definition of what a depression is. Economists are unanimous that the Great Depression was the worst economic downturn the industrial world has ever seen, and that we haven't had a depression since, but beyond that there is not a consensus. Recessions have an official definition from the National Bureau of Economic Research, but the bureau pointedly declines to define a depression.
What sets a depression apart, most economists would agree, are duration and the scale of joblessness. To be worthy of the name, a depression needs to be more than a few years long - far longer than the eight-month average of our recent recessions - and it needs to put a lot of people out of work. The Great Depression lasted a decade by some measures, and at its worst, one in four American workers was out of a job. (By comparison, unemployment now is at a 14-year high of 6.5 percent.)

In a modern depression, the swelling ranks of the unemployed would likely change the landscape of the country, uprooting people who would rather stay where they are and trapping people who want to move. In the 1930s, this took the visible form of waves of displaced tenant farmers washing into California, but it also had another, subtler effect: it froze the movement of the middle class. The suburbanization that was to define the post-World-War-II years had in fact started in the 1920s, only to be brought sharply to a halt when the economy collapsed.

Today, a depression could reverse that process altogether. In a deep and sustained downturn, home prices would likely sink further and not rise, dimming the appeal of homeownership, a large part of suburbia's draw. Renting an apartment - perhaps in a city, where commuting costs are lower - might be more tempting. And although city crime might increase, the sense of safety that attracted city-dwellers to the suburbs might suffer, too, in a downturn. Many suburban areas have already seen upticks in crime in recent years, which would only get worse as tax-poor towns spent less money on policing and public services.

"You could have a sort of desurburbanization phenomenon," suggests Michael Bernstein, a historian of the Depression and the provost of Tulane University.

The migrations kicked off by a depression wouldn't be in one direction, but a tangle of demographic crosscurrents: young families moving back to their hometowns to live with the grandparents when they can no longer afford to live on their own, parents moving in with their adult children when their postretirement fixed incomes can no longer support them. Some parts of the country, especially the Rust Belt, could see a wholesale depopulation as the last remnants of the American heavy-manufacturing base die out.
"There will be some cities like Detroit that in a real depression could just become ghost towns," says Jeffrey Frankel, a Harvard economist and member of the National Bureau of Economic Research committee that declares recessions. (Frankel does not, he emphasizes, think we are headed for a depression.)

. . .

At the household level, the look of want is different today than during the last prolonged downturn. The government helps the unemployed and the poor with programs that didn't exist when the Great Depression hit - unemployment insurance, Medicaid, food stamps, Social Security for seniors. Beyond that, two of the basics of existence - food and clothing - are a lot cheaper today, thanks to industrial agriculture and overseas labor. The average middle-class man in the late 1920s, according to the writer and cultural critic Virginia Postrel, could afford just six outfits, and his wife nine - by comparison, the average woman today has seven pairs of jeans alone. So we're less likely to see one of the iconic images of the Great Depression: Formerly middle-class workers in threadbare clothes lining up for free food.

If we look closely, however, we might see more former lawyers wearing knockoffs, doing their back-to-school shopping at Target or Wal-Mart rather than Banana Republic and Abercrombie & Fitch. Lean times might kill off much of the taboo around buying hand-me-downs, and with modern distribution networks - and a push from the reduce-reuse-recycle mind-set of environmentalism - we might see the development of nationwide used-clothing chains.

In general, novelty would lose some of its luster. It's not simply that we'd buy less, we'd look for different qualities in what we buy. New technology would grow less seductive, basic reliability more important. We'd see more products like Nextel phones and the Panasonic Toughbook laptop, which trade on their sturdiness, and fewer like the iPhone - beautiful, cleverly designed, but not known for durability. The neighborhood appliance shop could reappear in a new form - unlicensed, with hacked cellphones and rebuilt computers.

And while very few would starve, a depression would change how we eat. Food costs remain far below what they were for a family in the 1920s and 1930s, but they have been rising in recent years, and many people already on the edge of poverty would be unable to feed themselves on their own in a harsh economic climate - soup kitchens are already seeing an uptick in attendance. At the high end of the market, specialty and organic foods - which drove the success of chains like Whole Foods - would seem pointlessly expensive; the booming organic food movement could suffer as people start to see specially grown produce as more of a luxury than a moral choice. New England's surviving farmers would be particularly hard-hit, as demand for their seasonal, relatively high-cost products dried up.

According to Marion Nestle, a food and public health professor at New York University, people low on cash and with more time on their hands will cook more rather than go out. They may also, Nestle suggests, try their hands at growing and even raising more of their own food, if they have any way of doing so. Among the green lawns of suburbia, kitchen gardens would spring up. And it might go well beyond just growing your own tomatoes: early last month, the English bookstore chain Waterstone's reported a 200 percent increase in the sales of books on keeping chickens.
At the same time, the cheapest option for many is decidedly less rustic: meals like packaged macaroni and cheese and drive-through fast food. And we're likely to see a move in that direction, as well, toward cheaper, easier calories. If so, lean times could have the odd effect of making the population fatter, as more Americans eat like today's poor.
. . .
To understand where a depression would hit hardest, however, look at the biggest-ticket items on people's budgets.

Housing, health insurance, transportation, and child care are the top expenses for American families, according to Elizabeth Warren, a bankruptcy law specialist at Harvard Law School; along with taxes, these take up two-thirds of income, on average. And when those are squeezed, that could mean everything from more crowded subways to a proliferation of cheap, unlicensed day-care centers.

Health insurance premiums have risen to onerous levels in recent years, and in a long period of unemployment - or underemployment - they would quickly become unmanageable for many people. Dropping health insurance would be an immediate way for families to save hundreds of dollars per month. People without health insurance tend to skip routine dental and medical checkups, and instead deal with health problems only when they become acute - meaning they get their healthcare through hospital emergency rooms.

That means even longer waits at ERs, which are even now overtaxed in many places, and a growing financial drain on hospitals that already struggle to pay for the care they give uninsured people. And if, as is likely, this coincided with cuts in money for hospitals coming from cash-strapped state and local governments, there's a very real possibility that many hospitals would have to close, only further increasing the burden on those that remain open. In their place people could rely more on federally-funded health centers, or the growing number of drugstore clinics, like the MinuteClinics in CVS branches, for vaccines, physicals, strep throat tests, and other basic medical care. And as the costs of traditional medicine climbed out reach for families, the appeal of alternative medicine would in all likelihood grow.

Higher education, another big expense, would probably take a hit as well. Students unable to afford private universities would opt for public universities, students unable to afford four-year colleges would opt for community colleges, and students unable to afford community college wouldn't go at all. With fewer applicants, admissions standards would drop, with spots that once would have been filled by more qualified, poorer students going instead to wealthier applicants who before would not have made the cut. Some universities would simply shrink. In Boston, a city almost uniquely dependent on higher education, the results - fewer students renting apartments, going to restaurants and bars, opening bank accounts, buying books, taking taxis - would be particularly acute.

A depression would last too long for unemployed college graduates to ride out the downturn in business or law school, so people would have to change career plans entirely. One place that could see an uptick in applications and interest is government work: Its relative stability, combined with a suspicion of free-market ideology that would accompany a truly disastrous downturn, could attract more people and even help the public sector shake off its image as a redoubt for the mediocre and the unambitious.

. . .

In many ways, though, today's depression would not look like the last one because it would not look like much at all. As Warren wrote in an e-mail, "The New Depression would be largely invisible because people would experience loss privately, not publicly."

In the public imagination, the Depression was a galvanizing time, the crucible in which the Greatest Generation came of age and came together. That is, at best, only partly true. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam has found that, for many, the Depression was isolating: Kiwanis clubs, PTAs, and other social groups lost around half their members from 1930 to 1935. And other studies on economic hardship suggest that it tends to sap people's civic engagement, often permanently.

"When people become unemployed in the Great Depression, they hunker down, they pull in from everybody." Putnam says.

That effect, Putnam believes, would only be more pronounced today. The Depression was, famously, a boom time for movies - people flocked to cheap double features to escape the dreariness of their everyday poverty. Today, however, movies are no longer cheap. Nor is a day at the ballpark.
Much of a modern depression would unfold in the domestic sphere: people driving less, shopping less, and eating in their houses more. They would watch television at home; unemployed parents would watch over their own kids instead of taking them to day care. With online banking, it would even be possible to have a bank run in which no one leaves the comfort of their home.

There would be darker effects, as well. Depression, unsurprisingly, is higher in economically distressed households; so is domestic violence. Suicide rates go up in tough times, marriage rates and birthrates go down. And while divorce rates usually rise in recessions, they dropped during the Great Depression, in part because unhappy couples found they simply couldn't afford separation.

In precarious times, hunkering down can become not simply a defense mechanism, but a worldview. Grant McCracken, an anthropologist affiliated with MIT who studies consumer behavior, calls this distinction "surging" vs. "dwelling" - the difference, as he wrote recently on his blog, between believing that the world "teems with new features, new things, new opportunities, new excitement" and thinking that life's pleasures come from counting one's blessings and appreciating and holding onto what one already has. Economic uncertainty, he argues, drives us toward the latter.

As a nation, we have grown very accustomed to the momentum that surging imparts. And while a depression remains far from inevitable, it's as close as it has been in a lifetime. We might want to get a sense for what dwelling feels like.

I don't know for sure but I suspect the drop in gas prices has less to do with a slowdown here than reduced demand in China.

Unemployment continues to be at near historic lows. Rates of home ownership remain very high. Inflation continues to be low too.

I'm not saying people shouldn't demand at least competence and responsiveness by their elected officials and not take steps to innoculate themselves against excessive risk but I think there's probably good reason for a wide majority of people to feel optimistic about their own livelihood and the country.

And even if you lose your job there has never been more you can do to find another one - a better one - or get the education you need to do something else, something better; America has the most democratic higher education and vocational training system in the world. You can become something else at any point in your life.

As to feeling isolated I can't remember being continually happy since I was ten or eleven years old; that's the nature of childhood. Being an adult is different, more rigorous.

But I'm happier now than I was in my twenties. I understand how the world works better; you can shape it and make it work for you.

My English professor - a nice old Silent lady - used to say that you're alone in the most important moments: the birth of a child, dying.

Good post, Mr. Reed!

I'm not particularly interested in the new Great Depression stuff, but I am interested in some of the trends that you seem to be seeing.

Television

The claim that television audiences are aging is something of a myth. What's happening is that people are looking at a decline in youth viewership for the Big 3 networks while ignoring the spectacular growth and profitability of television aimed at Millennials. The median ages for networks like MTV, Disney, The N, Nickelodeon, ABC Family and a number of other youth-oriented networks are solidly Millennial, and some of them are growing steadily even as the number of options increases.

In fact, far from being terrified, television executives are excited about female Millennials in particular, because they're avid viewers who are extremely loyal to the programs that they watch and they're more likely than other groups to get their peers to tune in.

What we may see in the coming years, "Great Depression 2.0" or not, is an increasingly divergent market, with Millennial males drawn toward video games and Millennial females drawn toward cable television. Interestingly enough, a similar split took place among the GIs, with GI males drawn toward the pulps and comics and GI females drawn toward radio soap operas.

Suburbs and Cities

First of all, there's no such thing as "The Suburbs". There are bedroom communities, edge cities, boomburbs (a dumb name, I know, but I didn't coin it), levittowns (which I'm using here as a generic name for mass-produced postwar planned communities), old money suburbs, and many other suburban arrangements. It's simplistic to make sweeping statements about "The Suburbs" because they're going to evolve in very different ways. A levittown may become a ghetto as its aging housing stock is converted into tenements for immigrants, a bedroom community for young professionals may transform into an upscale micropolis, and an expanding boomburb may merge with a nearby city.

Well, maybe that boomburb won't merge with a city, but with a Metropolitan Statistical Area instead. Or a Micropolitan Statistical Area. See, according to the census bureau, there aren't really any cities anymore. Cities are now understood to be anchors for complex arrangements of interdependent communities, and those arrangements are going to evolve in very different ways based on a lot of factors.

People don't move to generic "cities" or generic "suburbs" anyway, they move to places, and they usually have reasons for doing so. A lot of Millennials are moving to the boomburb of Cary, which is a suburb of Raleigh in North Carolina's Triangle. That doesn't mean that they'd be just as likely to move to a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. A lot of Millennials are moving to Brooklyn to rough it in the urban brownfields of Williamsburg. That doesn't mean that they'd be just as likely to rough it in the urban brownfields of Flint, Michigan. My suggestion would be to get past the "city" and "suburb" stuff and start paying attention to places instead.