Keeping it Simple | Ep.38: Are We Fourth Turning Japanese? Or Is It Different this Time?

Great guest and interview. Thank you.

Great insight and conversation.

Harley, you're absolutely right that cycles are global, but at the same time country specific. Demographics (no surprise) is the huge driver. If you haven't, please read "End Times" (not a religious tome) by Peter Turchin, a proponent of something called 'Cliodynamics'. Agree or not, it's an interesting theory of cycles.

Mike once again deflects being wrong on inflation by ridiculing Harvey albeit in a good natured way. Even Powell has acknowledged his error, something arrogant Green can't bring himself to do.

Fantastic

Wow he is correct on GenX . 55 year old and latchkey kid. I was not overprotective but didn’t give my kids the freedom I had. I just didn’t want them doing and making some of the mistakes I did.

Every conversation with Mike Green seems like a debate over who is more intelligent. Do you want to be right or do you want to make money? Harley can't opine as eloquently as Green, few of us can, but the less he says the smarter he seems to me as Green doesn't know the first rule about digging a hole, to stop digging! Another interesting interview from Howe who is always refreshing to listen to.

It all comes down to how much elite overproduction takes place. Elite overproduction, compared to available positions for elites, always causes discontent. And as they say in the military, "Shit flows downhill." Ancient societies may have had (almost certainly did) less of a sense of linear progress (where everyone expects their lot to improve noticeably over time) than later, "modern" societies, but people in all societies (and all societies are pyramidal), are extremely sensitive to losing their social footing. In fact, people are much more sensitive to that than they are to some perception that they are not getting ahead of anyone else. "I may not be able to climb, but god help rulers if me and too many of my friends perceive 'slippage'."

An awful lot of seemingly anecdotal stuff said by Neil that just wouldn't hold up to any even cursory examination. For example, (talking about the 'G.I. Generation') "They were communal." Oh, really? They were incredibly tribal and racist, truth be told. This was the generation that, post-war, came home and red-lined huge chunks of American urban real estate, and who built superhighways smack through the middle of what wasn't deemed worth red-lining. Many of these "it was better back then" stories sound great. But the closer you look, the more you think, "Plus ça change." And it was *that generation, not the Boomers, who reacted so viscerally to Brown v Board of Ed, and to the Civil Rights Legislation that, LBJ correctly surmised, "... will cost us the South for as far into the future as I can see". It was adults, then, born in the 1920s and 1930s, who reacted like that. It was *that generation, born pre-war, that peppered the USA with "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards from coast to coast.

This guy has dreamed of a theory an axis, though it’s all backed up by fact it’s totally predictable. It’s a squishy and mushy is oatmeal.

Sorry for dropping one of the worst words in English... yes, you've guessed it, the K-word... "Karl Marx." Reading Karl Marx (who was an economist after all) would probably shed more light on this conversation than bringing up sketchy notions such as "Generation X" or other similar concepts. People react to their environment. After WWII, the economy was booming, which led to "Peace, Sex, and Rock 'n' Roll." Today, this generation is indebted, facing global warming, the opioid crisis, the rise of AI, underpaid jobs, and exorbitant rents and house prices. No wonder this generation is anxious and depressed.