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Neil Howe On The Fourth Turning: How Bad Will It Get, How Long Will It Last & What Comes Next? (PT1)

October 18, 2021

Neil Howe On The Fourth Turning: How Bad Will It Get, How Long Will It Last & What Comes Next? (PT1)

They say history rhymes.

That civilizations and societies tend to follow cycles — boom/bust, feast/famine, war/peace, cultural experimentation/a retrenchment to the “old ways”.

Neil Howe, the author of the best-selling book The Fourth Turning, lays out his prediction that today’s society has entered the “bust” part of our current cycle — where the status quo falls apart — often chaotically — to be replaced by a new, hopefully better, order.

Howe explains why the weight of history strongly suggests we are headed into a decade-plus period of economic and social disruption that will transform our political, economic, financial and social systems.

Volatility will reign. Crushing inflation looks likely. We may see a stock market crash and widespread job losses. Perhaps even war.

But as with all preceding fourth turnings, Howe predicts we’ll come of it ok. Yes, with some bruises; but likely also with some net improvements for society.

What should we expect from this period of disruption? Are there steps we can take to improve our odds of persevering?

Neil provides very detailed answers in this interview…

Why the US Is Headed into Its Fourth Turning

February 22, 2020

Why the US Is Headed into Its Fourth Turning

International Man: The economic, political, social, and cultural situation seems to have become increasingly volatile in the United States and more broadly in the West. Is this a unique situation or part of a recurring historical cycle?

Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe introduced a popular theory in their book, The Fourth Turning, outlining the recurring generational cycles that have occurred throughout American history.

What are your thoughts?

Doug Casey: I read Strauss and Howe’s first book, Generations, when it came out back in 1992. I thought it was brilliant.

Let me start off by recommending both Generations and The Fourth Turning to everybody. Both books offer quite a scholarly, readable, and prescient view of the cyclicality of history. And offer a very plausible forecast for the 2020s.

History’s best seen as cyclical, rather than a straight-line progress to some preordained end the way both the Marxists and the Abrahamic religions see it. But then, Ecclesiastes has its famous quote that there’s nothing new under the sun.

Plato in the Republic talks about how the younger generation—and we’re talking fourth century BC—can’t stand up to the moral values of their forefathers.

Older people have always thought that the younger generation wouldn’t quite measure up. In recent American history, you’ll recall, the younger generation were the beatniks in the ’50s, the hippies in the ’60s, and the yuppies in the ’80s—so it’s a passing parade. Older people have a tendency to think the world is going downhill. Nothing new there. But there’s always a rebirth.

Niccolò Machiavelli, in his Florentine Histories, said:

Virtue gives birth to tranquility, tranquility to leisure, leisure to disorder, disorder to ruin… and similarly from ruin, order is born, from order virtue, from virtue, glory and good fortune.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Rise Of Totalitarian Technology

March 10, 2019

The Rise Of Totalitarian Technology

Is technological progress bad for human autonomy? That’s the question posed by Shoshana Zuboff in “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” a book that recounts the ways in which corporations and governments are using technology to influence our behavior. Zuboff is just the latest to chime in on “totalitarian technology” (or “total tech”), a term that describes devices and algorithms by which individuals forfeit their privacy and autonomy for the benefit of either themselves or some third party.

In the United States, total tech can be sorted into three different categories, or “spheres” of life: consumer services, the workplace, and government and politics.

Is there such a thing as too much technology?ISTOCK

Total tech is pervasive in the increasingly data-driven world of retail. Many shopping apps tap into your phone’s GPS to access your location, allowing retailers to send you advertisements the moment you’re walking past their storefront. Personalized pricing enables retailers to charge you the exact maximum that you would be willing to pay for a given product. Your personal data isn’t safe at home, either: Digital assistants like Amazon Alexa store your query history, meaning they know everything from your unique shopping history to your travel patterns to your music preferences.

Employers are also using total tech to track and monitor their workers. A growing number of companies use biometric time cards that scan an employee’s fingerprint, hand shape, retina, or iris. UPS outfits its trucks with sensors that track the opening and closing of doors, the engine of the vehicle, and the clicking of seat belts. Amazon is patenting an electronic wristband that would be used to track hand movements—making sure, for instance, that a warehouse worker stays busy moving boxes. Global freelancing platform Upwork runs a digital “Work Diary” program that counts keystrokes and takes screenshots of workers’ monitors.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

2019 From a Fourth Turning Perspective

January 1, 2019

2019 FROM A FOURTH TURNING PERSPECTIVE

“An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

Image result for budget impasse trump schumer

Strauss and Howe wrote their book in 1996. They were not trying to be prophets of doom, but observers of history able to connect events through human life cycles of 80 or so years. Using critical thinking skills and identifying the most likely triggers for crisis: debt, civic decay, and global disorder, they were able to anticipate scenarios which could drive the next crisis, which they warned would arrive in the mid-2000 decade. The scenario described above is fairly close to the current situation, driven by the showdown between Trump and the Democrats regarding the border wall.

It has not reached the stage where all hell breaks loose, but if it extends until the end of January and food stamp money is not distributed to 40 million people (mostly in urban ghettos) all bets are off. The likelihood of this scenario is small, but there are numerous potential triggers which could still make 2019 go down in history as a year to remember.

As we enter the eleventh year of this Fourth Turning, the fourth Crisis period in U.S. history, the mood of U.S. citizens and citizens around the globe continues to darken. Fourth Turnings are driven by generational configuration and the emotional reaction to events by the Prophet generation leaders, Nomad generation spearheads, and Hero generation cannon fodder.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Keep Going. This Too Shall Pass.

March 30, 2018

Keep Going. This Too Shall Pass.

Like the weather when a storm approaches, or as the seasons turn, or waves pounding on a shoreline, any deviations are measured and compared by speed and intensity. The same can be said for headlines: Omnibus, discouraged Deplorables, rumors of war, prospects of peace, economic bubbles, fluctuating markets, and political intrigue. Round and round it goes; when it ends, nobody knows. It’s a time of transition; and when traveling over mountaintops, through valleys, and on rough seas, no one has all of the answers.

Even when looking at maps.

The books, “Generations” (1992) and “The Fourth Turning“ (1997), were written by the historians William Strauss and Neil Howe. These recent explorers identified recorded cycles of history and categorized them across multiple cultures and eras. In both books, historical timelines were analyzed and populations were correlated to specific life-cycles labeled as generational types. Strauss and Howe additionally addressed the concept of time in the context of both circular and linear perspectives and defined what is called a “saeculum” as a “long human life” measuring roughly 80 to 90 years. Every saeculum is comprised of four turnings, each lasting around 20 years.

Just as there are four seasons consisting of spring, summer, fall and winter, there are also four phases of a human life represented in childhood, young adulthood, middle age and elderhood. As each phase of human life represents approximately 20 years, so is each generational archetype identified within the historical cycles, or turnings, as follows.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fourth Turning’s Neil Howe: “Today’s Demographics Defy Conventional Wisdom”

March 10, 2018

Fourth Turning’s Neil Howe: “Today’s Demographics Defy Conventional Wisdom”

John Mauldin interviewed Fourth Turning best-selling author and demographics expert, Neil Howe about generational changes and their effect on the markets, during a session at the Strategic Investment Conference 2018. Howe said that demographics and generational factors have a huge impact on equity prices in the long run. Not only that, he thinks that there’s now a generational shift in wealth distribution that could spark major political and economic disruption.

Today’s Demographics Defies Conventional Wisdom

The main example Howe shared is that people in the 75+ age bracket still dominate stock ownership by far. This defies conventional wisdom that people reduce risk as they retire and leave the workforce. Meanwhile, Millennials have lower income and stock ownership levels than previous generations did at the same age.

This is a key change as senior adults once had the highest poverty rates. Younger people are now challenging that once-safe assumption.

Howe also pointed out striking differences between early and late Baby Boomers. Those born in the mid/late 1940s inherited some of the Silent Generation’s wealth and good fortune. Late-stage Boomers born in the early 1960s score lower in all kinds of metrics.

Major Political and Financial Disruption Is Ahead

Neil Howe ended with an update on his Fourth Turning generational theory. He thinks we are about midway through it. From an economic standpoint, he foresees inflation fear and Fed tightening, which will be followed by a painful recession.

Politically, Millennials desperately want civic re-engagement. They are seeking to completely restructure institutions. The right wing is a brick wall on this subject and numbers have let them hold off the pressure so far. This will change as Millennials grow older and Boomers die.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fourth Turning’s Neil Howe Fears “Strong Parallels” Between 1930s And Today: “It’s Going To Be A Rollercoaster Ride”

August 13, 2017

Fourth Turning’s Neil Howe Fears “Strong Parallels” Between 1930s And Today: “It’s Going To Be A Rollercoaster Ride”

This week on the MacroVoices podcast, host Erik Townsend interviewed Neil Howe, co-author of The Fourth Turning, an investing tract that’s found renewed relevance thanks to White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who’s cited it as an inspiration for his (and by extension, President Donald Trump’s) worldview.

According to the New York Times, which published a story earlier this year explaining the theories encapsulated in the book, the Fourth Turning was “written by two amateur historians, making the case that world events unfold in predictable cycles of roughly 80 years each, and that they can be divided into four chapters, or turnings: growth, maturation, entropy and destruction. Western societies have experienced the same patterns for centuries, the book argues, and they are as natural and necessary as spring, summer, fall and winter.”

Few books have been as central to the worldview of Mr. Bannon, a voracious reader who tends to see politics and policy in terms of their place in the broader arc of history.”

Turner shares Bannon’s enthusiasm, saying in his preamble that he believes the Fourth Turning is “the most important investing book of our time…I am such a big fan of this book personally that I literally named my own investment management company Fourth Turning Capital Management after Neil’s work.”

During the interview, Turner and Howe discussed Howe’s conclusion that America is presently in the middle of a 20-year-long period of social, economic and political upheaval.

Howe begins by explaining how the first book written by himself and William Strauss, with whom he also collaborated on the Fourth Turning, introduced him to the idea that America’s economy and culture follow distinct patterns.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Civil War II–Fourth Turning Intensifying (Part 1)

November 5, 2016

CIVIL WAR II – FOURTH TURNING INTENSIFYING (PART I)

“History offers even more sobering warnings: Armed confrontation usually occurs around the climax of Crisis. If there is confrontation, it is likely to lead to war. This could be any kind of war – class war, sectional war, war against global anarchists or terrorists, or superpower war. If there is war, it is likely to culminate in total war, fought until the losing side has been rendered nil – its will broken, territory taken, and leaders captured.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997

As we enter the final stretch of this vitriolic, deplorable, venomous, propaganda saturated, deceitful, rigged presidential election spectacle, it becomes painfully obvious this Fourth Turning is careening toward bloodshed, bedlam, confrontation, and civil war. The linear fixated establishment, who fancy themselves intellectually superior to the irredemables, are too blinded by their sociopathic, increasingly audacious subversion of the Constitution, to grasp the level of rage and disillusionment of a white working class that has been screwed over for decades.

As the Wall Street shysters frantically accelerate their embezzlement of what remains of middle class wealth, with the Fed and the corporate media propagandists as their wing-men, the country devolves into a corporate fascist state. The disposition of the nation grows dark like the sky before an approaching deadly blizzard. As passions boil over and violence portends, this Fourth Turning hastens towards a bloody decade ahead with an uncertain climax.

If you think this is just hyperbole, you either haven’t studied history or your cognitive dissonance and normalcy bias prevent you from seeing the unavoidable societal altering clashes, which occur like clockwork on an eighty year cycle, when the portents are right in front of your eyes. Historian Arnold Toynbee’s great war cycle that arise every 80 years or so, aligns perfectly with the Fourth Turninggenerational theory. Great wars occur when the generation that doesn’t remember the last catastrophic war ascends to leadership of the country.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

14 Signs the World Is on the Verge of Generational Chaos

June 30, 2016

14 Signs the World Is on the Verge of Generational Chaos

It is one of the great ironies of life that each generation believes its experiences are unique. The reality is that we have seen this movie before—with different actors, plot twists, and technological advancements.

The basic plot seems to push along a hauntingly familiar path.

In 1997, Neil Howe and William Strauss introduced the concept of Fourth Turning. They divided the population into four generational archetypes: Hero, Artist, Prophet, and Nomad. (read more about the archetypes and their characteristics here)

Each generation consists of people who were born and came of age at the same period in history. They had similar experiences and thus gravitated toward similar attitudes.

The change of control from one generation to the next is called a “turning” in the Strauss/Howe scheme. On a Fourth Turning, the cycle repeats, sparking a generational crisis.

When Howe uses that word, he doesn’t mean a short period of difficulty. He means an existential crisis—one in which society’s strongest institutions collapse (or are severely challenged and stressed) and national survival is in serious doubt.

By Neil Howe’s timeline, we are today about halfway through the Fourth Turning’s Crisis phase. If this Fourth Turning is like previous ones, here is what we should see.

See how the following Fourth Turning characteristics match today’s landscape…

Rising community

Notice in the Orlando shooting coverage how often people use the word community to designate the different groups with which people identify.

Following the tragic nightclub events, Orlando’s communities drew together to support their members and each other. We see the same behavior in other stressful events. “Je suis Charlie,” the motto that emerged from the January 2015 Paris shootings, comes to mind.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Keeps Neil Howe Up At Night: An Interview With The Author Of “The Fourth Turning”

October 14, 2015

What Keeps Neil Howe Up At Night: An Interview With The Author Of “The Fourth Turning”

“Underproduction, undercapacity, deflation, currency wars, demographics, falling birth rates” – those are the biggest fears which Fourth Turning author, and head of Saeculum Research Neil Howe, lays out in this interview excerpt courtesy of RealVision TV.

While Howe goes on an interesting tangent on the one topic that will surely be absent from all presidential debates, namely the fact that migration into the US is “actually in huge decline“, and that the largest immigrant group into the US is Asian (after all someone has to buy those luxury NYC condos), what is more interesting are Howe’s parallels of the current economic situation to the Great Depression: “whole areas of the world no longer having a global superpower, no longer having global institutions that enforce orders so you have these huge areas of failed states and power vacuums and regional authoritarian governments – that’s exactly what people saw in the 1930s and we’re seeing it now in Russia, China, Iran doing whatever they want.”

He continues:

“Another interesting economic parallel is the crisis of overvaluation: in the 1930s it was the gold standard, for southern Europe it’s the Euro, and for China they have a fixed rate regime that they’re attending to too little too late. It’s the nature of an authoritarian regime to always to do too little and too late. Everyone is too timid to tell the person in power “this is what you need to do.” I think China faces an absolute choice between a huge devaluation to restimulate its economy, because becoming competitive I think the carry trade is going to go and I think even domestic savings are going to flee. If they don’t do that they have very few options left at this point. They have $3.5 trillion of reserves – you’ll be amazed how quickly that goes. So that’s another parallel.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Neil Howe: What To Expect From The Fourth Turning We’re Now In

March 15, 2015

Neil Howe: What To Expect From The Fourth Turning We’re Now In

More centralized control, crisis & conflict

Neil Howe demographer and co-authour of the book The Fourth Turning returns to the podcast this week. In our prior interview with him, we explored his study of generational cycles (“turnings”) in America which reveal predictable social trends that recur throughout history and warn of a coming crisis (a “fourth turning”) based on this research.

Fourth turnings are characterized by a growing demand for social order, yet supply of it remains weak. The emergence of the surveillance state, a perpetual war machine, increased intervention in the markets by the central planners, greater government control of critical systems like health care and the Internet — all of these are classic signs that we are well into a fourth turning now:

In the fourth turning, the supply of order is still absent that the demand for order grows. So we now have a demand for order and no supply. That creates the unusual dynamics of a fourth turning — kind of like we had in the 1930’s. People suddenly feel that no one is in control and that enormous events are overtaking their society which no one of leadership age has any idea how to confront or how to manage. And it goes without saying today we look up to Gen Xers and Boomers and we see leaders who couldn’t organize their way out of a shoe box. I live in the Washington DC area and the government and Congress literally does nothing. All they do is argue and fight and nothing gets done in this city. It’s amazing, and a great testament to the power of institutional inertia that things keep moving forward in some manner. There is this great unsettled feeling we have that there is a rudderless ship that we’re on where no one knows where it is going. We see dangers that we seem paralyzed and unable to respond to.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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