We’re in for so much pain:
We’re in for so much pain.
The global economy is about to go caput.
We’re going to see things not felt in most people’s lifetime.
Yet that have happened many times in history.
An inflationary spiral.
The breaking down of a monetary system.
A global re-ordering of power.
It’s happening before our eyes.
As I heard in a podcast recently, these things don’t happen overnight.
They take time to develop.
But one day you’ll wake up and notice all the patterns.
I can tell you now.
We are living through a 1930s-style crisis.
And sadly, it’s just begun.
Over-leveraged debt.
Authoritarian policies.
Breakdown of free speech.
The world dumping the reserve currency in favour of gold.
Ongoing wars.
The leading superpower supporting multiple wars in Ukraine and Palestine.
Bombing indiscriminate countries like Yemen who aren’t even a threat to Americans.
Breaking down the international rule of law and order.
Bankrupt banks.
Self-inflicted tariff war.
Self-inflicted economic war.
Excess money printing.
Ongoing inflation.
These are all happening simultaneously.
Only they’ve been happening for years.
All of these are connected.
This is what you read about in history.
We are living through it now.
The issue is when you read history, the short term is not good.
It’s in fact very bad.
The fourth turning.
We are now in that phase.
Here’s a good summary video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeVyfiP0cLk.
The idea is this.
The world happens in 80 year blocks.
At least it did for America.
It’s split into 4 phases, each lasting roughly 20 years.
The current one began post world war 2.
We’re now in the last phase.
The crisis phase.
It began in 2008.
And is likely to last through the end of this decade.
It means the world will be remade.
Reshaped.
But this is necessary.
We must go through the struggle to get out the other side.
As the authors write in the book, the turnings are like forest fires.
Unpleasant as they’re happening but necessary for the advancement of humanity.
We’re in a crisis phase now.
This won’t be easy for most people.
It will likely get harder.
Much harder.
I hate saying it.
I hate writing it.
I hate believing it.
Yet history is clear.
There are ups.
And there are downs.
Newton’s third law of motion.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
We’ve had it really good the last few decades.
Especially in America.
But now it’s crumbling.
The debt from the trillions wasted on wars is now coming up.
America has a massive fiscal problem.
36 trillion in debt.
The interest on that debt is now approaching, if not over 1 trillion.
The issue in America is instead of cutting spending or raising taxes, they’re doing the opposite.
The boomers are raiding the coffers of our generation.
They’re printing into infinity because they need to survive.
They don’t care about our future.
They won’t be here to live it.
Meanwhile we’ll have to fix it.
Figure it out.
Work through it.
We can only do this together.
Working together.
Working with one another.
History has told us that the issue is at these times, most people don’t co-operate.
They fight.
The leading empire doesn’t want to give up its power.
So it’ll fight till the end to keep it.
The population will elect strong arm leaders thinking they’ll put everyone’s best interest at heart.
Meanwhile they’re just as corrupt as anyone else.
So instead of helping everyone, they make the problem worse for the next guy to deal with.
Unfortunately most people suffer through that period.
Especially the lower classes.
We are now in that phase.
So what can you do?
Not much.
Control what you can.
Forget about everything else.
Turn away from the news.
It will likely get worse.
A lot worse.
Or they’ll propagandize you into believing everything is ok.
When you and everyone around you know it's not.
Build community.
Find good people.
Build good relationships.
Protect your wealth as it gets inflated away.
That’s the path we’re heading down.
Foreigners don’t want to buy US treasuries anymore.
As the US issues more debt to cover it’s existing debt, who’s going to buy it?
The lender of last resort.
The US Federal Reserve.
How are they going to do it?
By printing the money.
Every time we have printed money in history, it has always ended badly.
As the great Charlie Munger said before he died, inflation is how democracies die.
We’re headed on that path now.
It’s sad to say.
Unfortunately we’re in for so much pain.