Summary: After the long summer for America, a benign period of slow evolution, a new season has begun. It will be a time of rapid and unpredictable changes. We can only guess at its nature – and probably cannot imagine its results. But we can see that it is coming, and its broad outline. That allows us to prepare, if we choose to.
A warning that change is coming.
See the drastic changes coming to our world
“There are decades when weeks happen, and weeks when decades happen.”
— Fake but true quote attributed to Lenin.
Demographic change.
Western nations have opened their borders, allowing massive flows of people from radically different cultures. This is done with the insanely arrogant assumption that these people will abandon their values and adopt the West’s. The first generation does so in order to fit in. Subsequent generations recover their pride and reassert their values. There are a host of other effects. Perhaps most important, the development of a frustrated underclass as the host country is unable to assimilate them or provide low-skilled jobs.
- See the lies that keep the borders open.
- Cutting thru the fog of lies about immigration
- Choose: open borders or the welfare State?
- Important: Diversity is a grand experiment. We’re the lab rats.
- Prepare for mass migrants, the greatest challenge to America.
- The Left goes full open borders, changing America forever.
- Must our population grow to ensure prosperity? — Spoiler: no!
Also reshaping society is the collapse of fertility as a result of social change (e.g., women redefining themselves in terms of their careers and independence) – aided by contraceptive technology (a male “pill” will give this another push).
Technological change.
“{The arrival of sexbots} will blow up the world. It will make crack cocaine look like decaffeinated coffee.”
— Anonymous (source here).
A new industrial revolution has begun, with (as always) consequences we not only cannot see but cannot imagine. Ever-more capable machines (colloquially called robots and AI). New power sources (e.g., fusion). The Pandora’s Box of genetic engineering. Drugs and other tech making people stronger and (more importantly) smarter. Previous industrial revolutions reshaped nations in two generations. This one will do no less, and perhaps much more.
These will combine to produce things seen only in science fiction. Such as super-quality porn – and sexbots.
- Tech creates a social revolution with unthinkable impacts that we prefer not to see.
- Our scary future: sexbots are coming, powering the ‘sexodus’.
- A look at sexbots, prototypes of a radically different future for society.
- Technology will shape our society as porn and sexbots destroy 21st century marriage.
- Experts look at the future of sexbots and society, but can’t see it.
- Reluctant recognition that sexbots are coming.
Social change.
We have begun the adolescence of humanity. That is when a children realize that they can walk a different path than their parents laid out for them, and anything seems possible. We spin the dials on the control panel with childish glees and confidence. Bet on “unexpected” as the result.
- The coming crash of marriage: why, and what’s next.
- Millennial girls had a golden age. Gen Z’s inherit wreckage.
- Origin of the gender wars — Analysis by Allan Bloom.
- Women unleash their rage! Beta males revolt!
- America begins its post-marriage experiment.
- Men are abandoning the rat race, & changing American society. — See the data.
- Will young men break America’s family structure?
- Part 1: Why men are avoiding work and marriage.
- Part 2: Will today’s young men marry? America’s future depends on the answer.
- Science tells us why the family is dying – And about the results.
Senescence of the American political regime.
“Every country has the government it deserves”
— Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre. From Lettres et Opuscules (1811).
Political structures grow old and feeble, just as individuals do. The American Republic has had 242 good years, and has outlived almost all those alive at its birth. But its time has come. Something new will arise from its ashes. Whether for better or worse is up to us.
- Lilliput or America – who has a better way to choose its leaders?
- The presidential debates are performance art. They’re Kabuki.
- Can we love the Constitution without knowing what it says? – Spoiler: no.
- Can Constitutional amendments save the Republic? – Spoiler: no.
- Could a new Constitutional Convention help reform America? Is it worth the risk? – Spoiler: no.
- Our institutions are hollow because we don’t love them.
- After 230 years, the Constitution needs fixing.
- America isn’t falling like the Roman Empire. It’s worse.
Accompanying this political incapacity is the broad collapse of our institutions. This has already begun. For example, see this excerpt from Matt Taibbi’s new book, Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another
“It’s official: Russiagate is this generation’s WMD. The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it.”
These posts describe of few of the many other examples described here.
- Kunstler describes the ugly fruits of America’s social decay.
- James Kunstler: the coming collapse of universities.
- About the corruption of climate science.
- Essential reading: A new, dark picture of America’s future.
The coming shock, following generations of stasis.
“For the world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.”
— Treebeard in Tolkien’s The Return of the King, end of the The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
What change looks like: 1860 – 1947
The US government changed almost beyond recognition during these 87 years. But so did everything else. Look at Dodge City in 1877. Bat Masterson is sheriff, one of those maintaining some semblance of law in the Wild West. Life in Dodge is materially only slightly better than that in an English village of a century earlier. But social and technological evolution has accelerated to a dizzying pace, and Bat cannot imagine what lies ahead.
- The transatlantic telegraph line and transcontinental railroad unite America, beginning the end of the regional identities had divided America.
- The theory of evolution remains controversial, 17 years after the famous debate between Bishop Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley (“Is it on your grandfather’s or your grandmother’s side that you claim descent from a monkey, Mr. Huxley?”).
- Medicine and public health remain primitive. A bedside manner and diagnostic skill are doctors’ most reliable tools. In 3 years Pasteur will discover the first artificially generated vaccine (for chicken cholera).
- One year ago Alexander Graham Bell had patented the telephone (1866)
- Next year Paul Haenlein will fly the first aircraft powered by an internal combustion engine.
- In two years (1879) Karl Benz will patent the first practical automobile engine, Edison will design the first practical electric light, and David Edward Hughes sent a wireless signal across London.
- We are two-thirds through the Long Peace between the Napoleonic Wars and WWI.
- The deterministic certainties of Newton still rule in science, but the era of great discoveries bad begun with advances in thermodynamics and electromagnetism leading to new sciences – and new technologies.
Bat Masterson was born on a primitive farm in 1853. He died in 1921 while working as a sportswriter for the Morning Telegraph — living in a New York City with telephones, automobiles, and electric power. Rapid change continued for another generation. One small drama in this was the horse apocalypse. In 1925, there were 22 million horses in the US. There were 11 million in 1945 (there were 3 million in 1960).
Rapid change continued. By 1947 the world had assumed roughly the shape we see today.
The stasis: 1947 to now.
Then the progress of science slowed, so that June Cleaver could step from her 1957 home (in the first episode of “Leave it to Beaver”) into her 2017 equivalent and easily adapt. Her only surprise at the technology would be the lack of progress over the past 60 years (much slower than during the previous 60 years, 1897 to 1957).
- The medical industry in 1957 looked much as it does today. Doctors can both prevent and treat most illnesses, but viral and degenerative diseases remain beyond their reach.
- After WWII Mao brought the theory and practice of 4GW to maturity. Since then no foreign occupier has been able to defeat a local insurgency (except by supporting the local military, or promising it independence).
- Rockets, nukes, computers, cellular telephones, and basic electronic devices had all been invented. We have seen just incremental progress since then.
- The government was larger, but in roughly the same form. The same two parties ruled.
Now a new cycle of change has begun.
Stop – Go – Stop.
This has been the pattern in the West for four centuries. Each cycle surprises us because we come to accept the current order as the nature one. Stephen Jay Gould, speaking of biological evolution, called it “punctuated evolution.” Long periods of stability with brief periods of drastic change.
Geologists see the world in much the same way. It changes slowly (gradualism), then cataclysmic change drastically reshapes it.
But this time we can see the coming wave of change. The great task of our time is to analyze and prepare. Most people will stick their heads in the ground and watch TV. The others can help this transition, to whatever extent we can.
- Some places to look for energy: We need better heroes. They are there, in stories from our past.
- Inspiration. The missing element that can reform America.
- Where we can find the inspiration to fix America?
Make a better future. Pick up the War Arrow.
For More Information
Ideas! See my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about forecasts and about reforming America: steps to new politics. Also see these visions of change.
Change: it’s not always good.
This is absurdly false. Change often happens, wanted or not.
Change can bring exciting opportunities. Or it can destroy all you hold dear.
This blog is like The Art of War for people dumb enough to take Quillette articles seriously.
Jumbolaya,
Can you explain that? It looks like a boing from your ideological deflectors, repelling any disconcerting info or ideas. Of course, that’s a commonplace in America today. It makes “conversations” between those of the Left and Right tribes look more like badminton then rational discourse.
Perhaps you could do better. Try giving an objection to a post here using facts and logic! You’ll find it liberating.
Change is Coming
Firstly — the positive: Change is Coming!
Indeed, there I, for one, agree 110% (the extra 1/10 comes from ‘it’s been long overdue’)
Would it be the economy, a war or a social unrest? Who knows?? I don’t think it would be the CAGW and I hope it will not be a catastrophic pandemic. A logical prediction would be a combination of an economic downturn aggravated by another war (e.g. Venezuela, Iran, but not China, nor Russia).
Secondly — I find this rather confusing:
Changes (in everything) are coming, nobody knows what changes (as in: “rapid and unpredictable changes.”); yet, we shall prepare, “if we choose to.” — prepare for what exactly?
A friend of my son has predicted: ‘It won’t matter if you have a ton of gold, what will matter is how many bullets you have and whether you can use them efficiently!”
Thirdly — I disagree:
I don’t think the humanity has come to adolescence now; that stage may have passed with the ancient empires. What I think of this: the humanity is now in it’s mid-life crisis — we whether change our ways or we perish! Anyway, we can’t continue our path we have chosen — as progress being subverted by an ever-lasting economic expansion — to who’s benefit I ask!
Lastly — take an example from another country:
Say it: China!
I have read and re-read this post and I can’t formulate a definite judgement: is it a pure propaganda, is it the dream of Mao, is it somewhat “colored” reality of today or is it the combination of these and inspiration for all???
Judge it for yourselves:
http://www.unz.com/article/chinas-congresses-in-action/
Whatever happens, the future will find a way to judge us all…
Jako,
(1) “Firstly — the positive: Change is Coming!”
It’s not a positive, just an event. It could just as easily be bad.
(2) “prepare for what exactly?”
We can prepare for bad news without knowing details. Keep debt low. Have friends. Work to keep your community strong. Be cautious.
(3) “what will matter is how many bullets you have and whether you can use them efficiently!”
He’s been watching too much TV. That’s almost never true. Life is a team sport.
(4) “I don’t think the humanity has come to adolescence now; that stage may have passed with the ancient empires.”
I define adolescence in a specific way: we now have the ability to break free of patterns that were unbreakable. Contraceptive/fertility. Fixed carrying capacity of land (Malthusian economics). Etc. We can now change the basic factors of society.
(5) China: “I can’t formulate a definite judgement: is it a pure propaganda, is it the dream of Mao”
China is too vast, too rapidly changing, to be put into such simple categories. It is neither propaganda nor Mao’s dream. We can’t know its future. As for inspiration, each of us must find it where we can.
Well, I did like the post — therefore (1) “Positive” as “agreed with” — sorry for my clumsy expression…
(3) I thought this was to say: “no matter how much you saved, how well you built you retirement nest — what’s coming is beyond your anticipation; and, indeed, your community will be essential to your survival…
(4) I saw your point, but I still think the “mid-life crisis” is more fitting an allegory: adolescents do tend to break from the beaten path of their parents’ generation by their nature; however, they don’t have much invested in the society yet. I think we are at a crossroad (bifurcation point), we (the dreaded baby-boomers) realize we can’t continue marching on this path we have spent so much in clearing and maintaining — as it turned out, it may have been a wrong path after all. Perhaps we allowed too many “miss-fitting” elements to hijack our platform; all we we wanted was fairness and tolerance and all we got is a gross economic inequality and BLM + LGBTXYZ + lunatic feminists deploring us for being white or straight and intolerably male… The pendulum went way past the intended point, much further from the equilibrium than when we started pushing it, while on the other side.
(5) Please do read the Unz article — I could not believe it!
Mr. Kummer suggests that preparation is in order to be ready for destruction of our society and nation. I respectfully suggest that when you are observing a monumental avalanche or witnessing a widespread destructive tsunami or any other disaster there is no possible way to prepare for them. What would you suggest Mr. Kummer?
The “elephants” in the room are Greed, Power and Arrogance. Until those “elephants” are put down there will not and can not be preparation or a solution.
In a perfect world, after the “elephants” are no more. the ultimate solution would be 250 years or more of a succession of truly benevolent dictators; Humans or some other Entity who have the capacity to guide with a deep, abiding regard for the human condition.
In the mean time, while observing a monumental avalanche or witnessing a widespread destructive tsunami or any other disaster the very best thing one can do is get out of the way and when it has ended, search for survivors and move on.
Or
Have you considered the concept that humans have reached the end of time allotted and we are witnessing that end time? Have you considered the possibility that Earth is throwing off a destructive scourge in order to heal and go forward? [Men] with their infinite arrogance assume they know IT all and have all the answers. Perhaps there is only one answer and it has nothing to do with the survival of mankind, society, institutions or anything else to do with beating hearts. We may simply not matter in the purpose of the Universes. After all is aid and done mankind is simply failing faster and faster
Codetrader,
(1) “Mr. Kummer suggests that preparation is in order to be ready for destruction of our society and nation.”
You’ve been reading too many dooomster stories. Very entertaining. Totally bonkers.
“Change” goesn’t meaning going back to paleolithic levels.
(2) “Have you considered the concept that humans have reached the end of time allotted and we are witnessing that end time?”
Wow. Way too much doomster fantasy. But dreams of the apocalypse has been a thread in western thinking for millennia. Always entertaining. BIg money in manufacturing such stories.
There’s no evidence of any such thing happening.
Yes, a nice little rhetorical setup that leaves the reader in despair and doing nothing.
@codetrader:
Get married; have children. Lean and practice skills for reality; food, medicine, music, science, fabrication. Live on one income. Homeschool or die. If you are an immigrant you’d be better off going back; your home country is probably pre-collapsed and needs you.
That’s the general idea, so quit whining and do.
vfm,
While I like your attitude, deciding what to do is not that simple. Anytime you think it’s that simple, stop and reflect on what you’ve missed. The world is changing.
For example, it’s not clear that marriage is a great deal today. The benefits are far less than in the past, and the divorce rate (most initiated by the wife) makes it expensive. See these posts for details.
Larry,
I’m certain that I missed quite a bit. However, as you noted, the world is changing. I can’t foresee what’s going to happen, nor can I get risk-free. I do know where I’m going, and I’ll share it, but no one has the same path up the mountain.
As a thought experiment that speaks to marriage, MGTOW, and defeatism:
You might ask for advice on when the best time to plant a fruit tree is. You’ll have some tell you that you’ll never grow that tree in your climate, or that it will be destroyed by bugs/deer/gophers, or that disease will kill it, or it will take too long for you to enjoy, and you’ll move and never taste its fruit.
In truth, the best time to plant a fruit tree (or any tree) is 5 years ago, or last year, or now.
Marriage, children, etc. are like planting fruit trees. You don’t know if they’re going to grow or flourish. You don’t know if they’ll fall on your house and wreck it unexpectedly. You don’t know what the future will hold. Most people will try to talk you out of it, because reasons.
You plant one anyway. You practice good husbandry because that’s all you can do, and you don’t get lazy about maintaining the tree. You prune it, water it, and harvest its fruit, and if you have to cut it down you do so.
Then you plant a replacement.
MGTOWs and those that despise Game will never get around to planting that tree in the first place. Like Codetalker they prefer inaction, especially preferring it to the risk of failure. The future will always belong to those that take a risk, to those that marry and have children, to those who don’t follow the Globohomo path of serfdom and become sheep to be sheared. The world is changing, as you say, and the changing world will belong to those who can adapt and pass their adaptations to their genetic offspring.
I will reserve my fear for those groups that do the same; their offspring will battle with mine. All that I am is for naught if it dies with me. So many people are only thinking of themselves, in the now, that it has brought about that changing world you speak of.
It is clear to me that adaptation is the only way survive change, and that adaptation has no value if its not propagated in the most personal and direct fashion possible.
So now’s the time to do anything, or else it will never get done.
VFM,
(1) “Marriage, children, etc. are like planting fruit trees.”
I don’t see the validity of those analogies. Children have a slight resemblence to trees – investments in the future – but …
Getting marriage has little or nothing in common in common with planting trees. It is a fanciful analogy.
(2) “The future will always belong to those that take a risk”
Such logic has and will convince few men. The future belongs to those who live there. Not to us, no matter what risks we take. Marriage was undertaken for its likely benefits to those involved – in the certain present. Not for such fanciful reasons.
Larry,
Literalism is a tough obstacle to overcome. Do you offer the same criticism of the Bible in reference to planting seed, choosing ground, husbanding vineyards, fields, fruit trees, etc. in reference to planting the word of God? Do you dismiss such by saying “what has growing wheat to do with Jesus?”
What is a tree, but the representation of hope for the future with time and effort now?
What is marriage, but the hope for the future with time and effort now?
What are children, but the hope for the future with time and effort now?
All three begin with hope for the future, require decades to bear fruit, need attention and effort to succeed, and may or may not survive at any moment.
Again, the moment to start such endeavors is now. Regardless of predictions of change, nothing will happen to you if you choose to do nothing. So quit whining and do something.
VFM,
I made specific analysis of why your analogy was inappropriate and of little utility. Name-dropping (“Jesus”!) and big academic words (“literalism”!) are neither explanations nor rebuttals.
You are pretty clearly missing the point. Which is why these trends will continue unless people make changes to society to discourage them. You can spout poetry all day, nobody cares. If you believe otherwise, find a group of young men and try. See if they’re impressed.
Larry,
Here’s the question I responded to from Codetrader:
“I respectfully suggest that when you are observing a monumental avalanche or witnessing a widespread destructive tsunami or any other disaster there is no possible way to prepare for them.”
In the context of:
“The “elephants” in the room are Greed, Power and Arrogance. Until those “elephants” are put down there will not and can not be preparation or a solution.”
To which I responded:
“Yes, a nice little rhetorical setup that leaves the reader in despair and doing nothing.
@codetrader:
Get married; have children. Lean and practice skills for reality; food, medicine, music, science, fabrication. Live on one income. Homeschool or die. If you are an immigrant you’d be better off going back; your home country is probably pre-collapsed and needs you.
That’s the general idea, so quit whining and do.”
Which you responded with:
“While I like your attitude, deciding what to do is not that simple. Anytime you think it’s that simple, stop and reflect on what you’ve missed. The world is changing.”
And so on, until:
“Which is why these trends will continue unless people make changes to society to discourage them. You can spout poetry all day, nobody cares.”
People. Make. Changes.
You consider that. Who? What people? Who? Obviously not you, Codetrader, or any of the young men you speak of.
I get the point far more than you, and your doom porn, while more subtle than Codetrader’s, is the same.
“Don’t take risks and let someone else, not you, change society because you might fail!”
The answer to the question of “Who” is me.
I’ve done all those things I’ve suggested but the last one, because America is my home country. I have skin in the game and huge risk. I may lose. I may win. It’s like all those farming examples; nature can screw you over in a second. But farmers still farm, and I’m a farmer.
So yeah, I get the point as to “Who” makes changes in society. I do. So will my children, because I took a risk and had them.
Those who don’t, won’t.
VFM,
You’ve obviously not read my posts carefully. Or at all, except thru your thick thick filters. You’ve also ignored my replies.
Well, OK then. No point in saying more.
I read this in an investment news letter
“Interestingly, the US government deficit widened to $234 billion in February, marking the largest monthly deficit on record according to Treasury data. The reduction in the corporate tax rates have exacerbated the government deficit over the past year. Some economists have reasoned that such a large deficit will limit the US government’s ability to support growth in a recession scenario.” Fat Phophets 25/3/19
I have written this before, but what do we do?
I agree about doomsday, it is a small percentage chance.
What I do question is why we import so much, I know costs are lower, but so what I am paying a little extra for my kids jobs. The quality is often lower, anyway.
My Australian made shoes will finish out this semester and go in the bin after three years wear, yes they are 100% dearer that those made in Asia, but I only get a year out of the Asian made shoes, so which is cheaper?
I think the first thing must be to start to buy less, buy better value and buy from home wherever we can. Yes, trade lifts people overseas out of poverty, but the closing of production at home is shifting that poverty to our poorest at home.
Probably, I am wrong, but I buy Australian whenever I can, from the razor, to the soap and towel, to the clothes i wear and unfortunately no longer to the car I drive, but includes the sofa I sit on of an evening after work. The pans are quality Australian made and the food we cook in them is as 100% Australian and local as I can get. For those who will try the racist line, the majority of the vegetables i get are from a local Vietnamese grower, who sell cheap, fresh vegetables. The clothes factories are likely to have disproportionately more non whites to the national demographic, due to lack of language skills, so again it is not a race issue.
My grandfather used to say “never a debtor or a borrower be”, if a country doesn’t allow balanced trade over the cycle, then thanks, but no thanks to trade.
Just a Guy,
(1) “I have written this before, but what do we do?”
It’s not even a small problem. It is a purely self-imposed illness, like bulima. We get the budget balanced (or close to it), the Republican slash taxes for the rich and boost defense spending – causing massive deficits. They are put into office by people who whine about deficits. This is a prime example of the senescence of our political institutions. Like so many of the increasingly dysfunctional aspects of America, they are resistant to normal processes of political reform.
For more about this see A new, dark picture of America’s future.
(2) “What I do question is why we import so much”
It’s math, the inevitable result of the US Dollar being the world’s primary reserve currency (which is why economists call that role a “poisoned chalice”).
(3) “My grandfather used to say “never a debtor or a borrower be”
With respect to your grandfather, that’s terrible advice. The phrase was famously said by Polonius, counselor to the King in Hamlet. He was an old windbag, and his advice was consistently wrong.
As usual, Roman’s had better advice: sola dosis facit venenum. “The dose makes the poison.” In moderate amounts, debt is a powerful and useful tool. In excess, debt (like everything) has ill effects.
Larry-
Have you ever studied Kondratiev waves?
“In economics, Kondratiev waves (also called supercycles, great surges, long waves, K-waves or the long economic cycle) are hypothesized cycle-like phenomena in the modern world economy. It is stated that the period of a wave ranges from forty to sixty years, the cycles consist of alternating intervals of high sectoral growth and intervals of relatively slow growth. Long wave theory is not accepted by most academic economists. Among economists who accept it, there is a lack of agreement about both the cause of the waves and the start and end years of particular waves. Among critics of the theory, the general consensus is that it involves recognizing patterns that may not exist.”
What I found interesting is looking at that we’re now experiencing the downturn of
– 39 year Generational Cycle (Baby Boomers)
– 35 year Geopolitical Cycle
– 45 year Innovation Cycle
– 10 year Business Cycle
-Mike
Mike,
“Have you ever studied Kondratiev waves?”
There are no such things. Statistical noise, much like people seeing the face of the Virgin Mary in a cake or cracks on a wall.
We are all guilty of being the offspring of survivors. Life is a team sport.Humans have been preparing for the known and unknown for recorded history: just look at the advice of politicians and generals about peace and war. Those who have children have determined the transgenerational trends of the future; this will continue. The basic human unit may change somewhat, but there is no way at present to get rid of childhood.
LK: “We can prepare for bad news without knowing details. Keep debt low. Have friends. Work to keep your community strong. Be cautious.”
I would add: Support our children and caregivers. Work to keep your family strong. Make your family part of the community.
John,
“We are all guilty of being the offspring of survivors.”
“Guilty” of what?
“Humans have been preparing for the known and unknown for recorded history”
More often, failing to prepare. Which is why stories of sensible precautions are so noteworthy – because they are rare. Like Egypt’s Pharaoh taking Joseph’s advice to build a reserve of grain for bad years.
Larry, in explanation. We are all offspring of survivors. We have our beliefs about what it took in the past to do this, but our knowledge will be correct in some case, not in others. I don’t believe anyone can reasonably claim that we know all of what it took, or what sins were committed by our forbears such that we have the gift of life. But the input socially and genetically, from what it took to survive, is part of who we are as humans.
Also, in specific to handling unknowns, our ancestors were able to survive and sometimes even prosper. It is also true that a lot of what we think is biased by our self image. The Decline and Fall of Just about Everybody, Will Cuppy, with its description of how Alexander and the Greeks became famous for being such civilizers for the world, comes to mind: prosperity and civilization through theft, murder, and destruction.
On US debt
“The U.S. government finances its debt by issuing U.S. Treasuries, which are considered the safest bonds on the market. The countries and regions with the 10 largest holdings of U.S. Treasuries are as follows:
Taiwan at $182.3 billion
Hong Kong at $200.3 billion
Luxembourg at $221.3 billion
The United Kingdom at $227.6 billion
Switzerland at $230 billion
Ireland at $264.3 billion
Brazil at $246.4 billion
The Cayman Islands at $265 billion
Japan at $1.147 trillion
Mainland China at $1.244 trillion” Investopiedia. viewed 26/3/19
That is a big medical bill to pay even in ten or twenty years of heavily taxation and low public expenditure. It may leaved the economy anorexic and wishing it had the money to afford bulimia.
I should have made it clear when I said “we”. I was meaning the entire Western nations are just massively in debt basically. The west is just running deficits to replace falling wages.
Agreed on debt, but house prices are so high now, that for most ordinary workers purchasing a house involves debt levels so high they are “poisonous”, there are few alternatives, renting forever or living at your parents home and saving. Renting forever is no great option for most, living at home putting aside the personal dynamics, may do little good, if the prices are increasing faster than you can add to savings.
I fear the debt level are so high they would require years of surpluses to pay down, and who would vote for that when the opposition is talking up investing in education, housing and alternatives to create jobs that will pay for themselves in a few years – you know the political capital that would be made for the “other party” (whichever started down this path) on cut backs, higher taxes and paying off debt.
Year ago on a freeway (motorway) and we were all travelling at 70 mph (UK), as I applied the brakes coming round the corner i saw the pile up, I knew I would also crash into the pile up and the three cars behind me would in turn pile into me. It was a long two minutes or less as I watched the accident happen. Sometimes I feel like I am back their with my foot firmly applied to the brake and know all I can do is my best to reduce the damage to me and the other road users. I often get that feeling now.
I always learn something from your site, never knew my Grandfather could quote from Hamlet! He was a simple man, he rented once he married and left home, they lived on nothing and saved until they bought their one and only house with probably a 50% deposit, but he lived in a time when house prices moved very little in price over the decades. He bought his first car for cash and drove it for 22 years, probably all the while saving for the next one. In over sixty years of driving he had three cars.
What I fear Editor is when we finally start to repay all this debt, life might well look a lot more like my our grandparents lives did. Few women would make do and mend like our grandmothers and not that many more men would work the hours and intensity our grandfathers did.
Just a guy,
You are reading people who are lying to you. It’s a common problem today, one of the worst afflicting us. That’s why becoming more skeptical – paying attention to reliable sources, not those giving tribal truths – is high on my list of ways to reform American (see some posts here).
(1) “That is a big medical bill to pay even in ten or twenty years of heavily taxation and low public expenditure. It may leaved the economy anorexic and wishing it had the money to afford bulimia.”
That’s quite false. Organizational and finance theory says that there is an optimum level of leverage for each entity. It is seldom zero. Britain has carried its debt since the Napoleonic Wars. As the current interest rate shows, investors are no concern about the US govt’s debt level. Nor should they. Also, having the reserve currency requires carry a modest level of debt.
If the GOP would stop trashing the national balance sheet – as Reagan, Bush Jr, and Trump have done – we could easily reduce the debt. At the end of Clinton’s term, we were on schedule to payoff the debt in a decade or two.
(2) “and who would vote for that when ”
That’s quite false. Both Clinton and Obama were popular, and took steps to fix the national balance sheet after GOP malfeasance (Obama put us back on budgetary course after the great recession, with a partial rollback of the mad Bush Jr. tax cuts for the rich).
(3) “house prices are so high now, that for most ordinary workers purchasing a house involves debt levels so high they are “poisonous””
That’s quite false. After the explosion of home-ownership after WWII, middle class families raised families of 5 or 6 in homes of 1,000 to 1,100 sq feet. We raised two children in a home of 1,010 sq feet (with a one car garage). It was quite adequate. Now the median home price is $200k, with the median size of 2,700 sq ft (up from 1400 in 1970). Median HH income is $61k. A 1,000 sq ft home in suburbia is easily affordable for most middle class households (i.e., married couples), except in the few bubble-villes (e.g., San Francisco).
Your problem with that 1000 square foot home is — who’s making them? The margin’s lower than on the big boxes. Something will have to be done on that front, even if that “something” is “the current model falls into the ocean”.
SF,
That’s not correct. Home-builders are the extreme case of demand-sensitive vendors.