The Fourth Turning

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DougB

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I read a book many years ago called "The Fourth Turning". It has to do with Generational Dynamics and history repeating itself.

Two historians analyzed specifically American history, and saw a pattern - history repeated about every 80 years. With these 80 years segments, there are four distinct phases - each approx. 20 years long - they called these phases 'Turnings'. The most important Turning is the Fourth Turning.

·The first turning is a ‘high,’ an upbeat era in which institutions are strengthened, new civic orders are planted and individualism is weakened.
·The second turning is an ‘awakening,’ a passionate era of spiritual upheaval in which the civic order is challenged by new values.
·The third turning is an ‘unraveling,’ a time when individualism rises and institutions and civic orders weaken and new values are implanted.
·The fourth turning is a ‘crisis’ time when there is widespread upheaval and civic orders are replaced with new ones.

The last fourth turning was 1929 - 1949.

The start of this fourth turning is 2008 - the great Recession - just about 80 years from 1929.

What's interesting to me is how the crisis seems to be global in nature, and how the number of crisis grows and grows. The latest four being US invaded by illegals / Ebola / ISIS / Israel. It seems there is now a crisis every couple of weeks.
 

Terry

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My mother is 97, so I have heard a lot about what their life had been like.
My grandmother never thought man would walk on the moon.
In 1929, my father dropped out of Junior High and started working full time. Some of his jobs were driving logging trucks, and felling trees. He also worked with dynomite building roads in the North Cascades.
He finally went back and finished high school, graduating at the age of 22. He then went on to college, helped by a track scholarship. He ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. And then of course, he gets out of college and into a war.
On my mothers side, her dad died while she was in high school. They had a farm, and some crops. The neigbors came by and took the crop before they could harvest it. I guess they figured without her dad; they could.
They have always said that some generations have it harder. Lessons either get learned, or forgotten. It seems to cycle. I remember my father saying that one night eight people died in a fight about unions. They had come through the depression, lucky to have work, and I imagine a lot of employers liked how that was working for them. I've only had two union jobs, good ones. I believe if you do well, you should be paid well. The money finds a way of moving around. It all comes back to you. I don't know if my grandkids will be as well off as some generations. The world seems to be getting a little harder. I say that, but really in many parts, people are better off than they were. They say that areas of the world with plentiful water will do well in the future. It's good for food, and for manufacturing.
 
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JohnfrWhipple

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.... They say that areas of the world with plentiful water will do well in the future. It's good for food, and for manufacturing.

Here in the Pacific Northwest we should be fine. I think a home for my grand kids will start at $5,000,000 and up here in Vancouver. $1,200,000 these days is a tear down.
 

Ballvalve

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Check out the 'fall of the Roman Empire" and compare it to what we, and the courts, are doing to our country today.

Yes, the Romans became fat and lazy. I suppose their bath houses and fine system of prostitution would be comparable to the i-pods and tablets and "smart" [to make you stupid] phones of today. The huns took advantage of their falling awareness to threats. We have China unleashed and Russia run by a madman. Pray we get a leader that has some guts again. The schools have taken out all of the wood and metal shops in these parts - bought computers instead. This is a crime - the kids I interview for jobs pretty much are clueless when it comes to hard work with pride in a job well done. I had a guy that I trained for 10 years. He became a fair plumber, a decent electrician with guidance, a excavator, backhoe and dozer operator. He could fix anything on a fleet of vehicles, crawl under a house with a septic leak. Could drive a flatbed with 15,000# on it with a trailer and never a glitch. I got him into my cabinet shop and he became quite a cabinet and furniture maker. Then one day, about age 35, still strong as a bull, he decided to go to the local grocery store to slice meat in the deli! Wanted a warm spot to work with people around and not much responsibility - and at 1/3 less pay+. Go figure.

The picture is my son learning how to break open a bull pine cone and enjoy the fruit within - which supported the indians here for eons before we came in and ruined it all. Felt the the work of collecting them. Ask the average kid - "where do pine nuts come from?" Well, from the grocery store or online of course!
 
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Ballvalve

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My mother is 97, so I have heard a lot about what their life had been like.
My grandmother never thought man would walk on the moon.
In 1929, my father dropped out of Junior High and started working full time. Some of his jobs were driving logging trucks, and felling trees. He also worked with dynomite building roads in the North Cascades.
He finally went back and finished high school, graduating at the age of 22. He then went on to college, helped by a track scholarship. He ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. And then of course, he gets out of college and into a war.
On my mother side, her dad died while she was in high school. They had a farm, and some crops. The neigbors came by and took the crop before they could harvest it. I guess the figured without her dad; they could.
They have always said that some generations have it harder. Lessons either get learned, or forgotten. It seems to cycle. I remember my father saying that one night eight people died in a fight about unions. They had come through the depression, lucky to have work, and I imagine a lot of employers liked how that was working for them. I've only had two union jobs, good ones. I believe if you do well, you should be paid well. The money finds a way of moving around. It all comes back to you. I don't know if my grandkids will be as well off as some generations. The world seems to be getting a little harder. I say that, but really in many parts, people are better off than they were. They say that areas of the world with plentiful water will do well in the future. It's good for food, and for manufacturing.

So based on your genes, looks like this forum will be around a loong time. Nice story and good on you to have such a family. I watched the first moonlanding with my grandmother that was born in Czechoslovakia in a dirt floor farmhouse. She was crying. My father only got 88 years, but he supported his family in the depression with shooting squirrels and rabbits and collecting coal along the rail road tracks. Survived about 15 islands pushing the Japanese back home - never could get through a metal detector at the airport. One day at the Nickel docks in New Caledonia, He was in a cue of trucks waiting to unload large munitions. His buddy said "let's go up front and get some cold water" He declined as he was reading a magazine - gave him his canteen. A few moments later he was blown out of his truck, and luckily was able to crawl underneath it. A forklift had set off the entire depot and the shrapnel and body parts fell for over a minute. 4 trucks closer and he would have been dead. Never saw his friend or canteen again. I suppose we have soldiers from Iran and such parts that also came home with a new perspective on life, but those wars don't seem justified next to the ones that built our nation.

I have 9 year old son, and although he is addicted to a kindle, He shoots several rifles and pistols, can change and plug a tire faster than me, and from age 3 to 7 pounded about 40 pounds of mixed nails into a workbench I dedicated to him. Nailed down gloves, old hard drive components, computers he busted apart, and tons of hardware that was in the recycle bucket. Now I find him in odd corners of my shop - factory, assembling things and building play guns and boxes. Just sanded and refinished a table I built for him when he was 3. I hope it continues. He said to me the other day " Dad- no other kids in my school does this stuff! they don't even know what a lug nut or a impact wrench is".... thank god he figured it out. I have a 44,000 pound excavator, a JD 690E, and this kid can change the oil filter and open the hydraulic fluid compartment - he had to show a 40 year old worker of mine how to do it. Drives it quite well as its all hand controls, but not quite ready to swing the boom. Our kids are just becoming technically incompetent. When we go the the local Walmart, even he has to roll his eyes at some of the 25 year old 400 pound blobs riding the electric carts. Scary. How do they fit on a toilet? - he asked me, quite seriously. Really, I couldn't figure it out either.
 
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