When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

[shiny!]

I came across this editorial, Truce and Consequences by Mark Steyn. In the last paragraph he wrote:

Daniels' "truce" is irrelevant measured against the likelihood of any truce between solvent and insolvent states, young and old, private sector and government retiree. We're approaching the point of no return.

How many times have I seen those words, "we're approaching the point of no return"? My question is, are we always approaching it or will anyone ever say we've passed it? A collapse is a process, not an event, but at what point will we know that we've actually crossed that point? I'm speaking not just of economics, but sociologically and morally as well.

I'd like the feedback from Tulipers: when do you think will we have passed the point of no return, or have we done so already? What indicators are you looking at?

[sunskyfan]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

We pass the point of no return when reconciliation of conflict is no longer possible via due process of the law. Though due process sometimes violates are common sense notions of what is just or fair it provides validation against the fiat nature of momentary leaders.

[bungee]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

when do you think will we have passed the point of no return, or have we done so already?

Return to what? when?

Gold Standard? Low tech economy (no computers and iPhones etc)? Full employment? 1920's? 1890's?

Without agreeing what we want to return to how can we know how far we are from it?

[c1ue]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

We passed the point of no return in 2002.

It was arguable that the advent of the Internet would provide enough productivity and intellectual property increase in order to maintain US living standards despite overall debt burden (federal, state, local, and individual) as well as greater world economic competition.

However rather than focus on enhancing and reaping, instead money, time and effort was poured into blowing up more bubbles: not merely the housing one, but equally the War on Terror one.

The debt burden and the economic dislocation is now such that there is not going to be a return. The iTulip/EJ analyses are quite clear on this: the US is not even going to be able to return to its previous economic arc even disregarding the massive debt accumulated in 'fixing' the global financial crisis and recession.

[shiny!]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

Return to what? when?

Gold Standard? Low tech economy (no computers and iPhones etc)? Full employment? 1920's? 1890's?

Without agreeing what we want to return to how can we know how far we are from it?

Good questions! In no particular order I would say:

A stable currency.

High employment and jobs that can support a decent quality of life. Return to a manufacturing economy rather than a service economy.

Polite, civil society with a sense of social cohesion. In the U.S., "We are all Americans" rather than increasing balkanization.

A return of personal privacy and self-responsibility.

No more Big Brother/police state/nanny state.

Government that functions within the confines of the Constitution. Limited government and greatly reduced bureaucracy on all levels. Government that remembers it serves the Citizenry (not the oligarchs) rather than the other way around.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

When do (did) we pass the point of no return?
A cynical answer is " it happened when we left the garden of Edan"

A more hopeful answer comes from the Fourth Turning (Strauss and Howe ). They claim that social trends don't just continue forever in linear fashion, social trends reverse in cyclical fashion. They further claim we're right now at a low point where things are worst, and soon society will become more polite, civil and cohesive.

[c1ue]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

A more hopeful answer comes from the Fourth Turning (Strauss and Howe ). They claim that social trends don't just continue forever in linear fashion, social trends reverse in cyclical fashion. They further claim we're right now at a low point where things are worst, and soon society will become more polite, civil and cohesive.

Are they offering odds on their bet? I'll take the opposite.

I hope to lose the bet, but apparently Fred agrees with me: http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...961#post198961

[shiny!]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

A more hopeful answer comes from the Fourth Turning (Strauss and Howe ). They claim that social trends don't just continue forever in linear fashion, social trends reverse in cyclical fashion. They further claim we're right now at a low point where things are worst, and soon society will become more polite, civil and cohesive.

I sincerely hope they're correct, but don't see how it can happen. Manners, courtesy, civic virtues... table manners, study hard and learn all you can, earn your money honestly, don't litter, don't lie, steal, hit people or curse... all of this and more used to be instilled in people in the early years of their childhood by parents and community expectations. It was taught by example, it was taught at the dinner table, it was taught in schools and churches. It was reinforced in the media.

We now have children desensitized to violence growing up from several generations of broken families, overworked and uninvolved parents, and unmarried welfare mothers who cannot teach their children what they never experienced and learned themselves. Parents who's only example of civic behavior is the Jerry Springer type talk shows. The mob violence we are witnessing at Black Fridays and this Memorial Day, for example, is becoming the normal behavior of our society.

How, specifically, does this get turned around?

[brent217]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

When do (did) we pass the point of no return?
A cynical answer is " it happened when we left the garden of Edan"

A more hopeful answer comes from the Fourth Turning (Strauss and Howe ). They claim that social trends don't just continue forever in linear fashion, social trends reverse in cyclical fashion. They further claim we're right now at a low point where things are worst, and soon society will become more polite, civil and cohesive.

Sure, but according to turning theory, this will not occur until WWIII is over. Then of course, the question becomes, how bad will WWIII be? According to the good reverend Malthus, we won't all die, but with today's weapons, I am no longer certain of that.

[charliebrown]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

From a financial stand point a lot will change when the fed gvt can no longer borrow money, it will end in a Greek type event. I'm not sure if they don't see it coming or it is what they want. After the debt ceiling dead line came and went,
they are even playing a bigger game of chicking taking the clock all the way down to 11:59 PM. Out of one side of thier moth they say were broke, and the other they are proposing to build high speed trains.
I read one author on the web that tried to use projected interest rates and debt/gdp and came up with around
120% debt to GDP as the end of the road. At 98% and the current gdp growth rate and debt rate, that puts the
end of the road a 6/24/18. Another economic down turn and that date will arrive much more quickly as gvt revenues will plunge.

Peak cheap energy will also be upon us.

=======================

This shrinking of gvt may be the key to many of our problems. Perhaps people will turn from the government as god to a real God. And a real God usually has objective goodness, not subjective goodness. A real God demands adherence to some form of morality. In a beuracry everthing is fine as long as it is getting bigger, and you pay into the system. As the school systems will shrink, parents will have to take responsibilty for educating their children.

The gvt will not be able to bail people out so they will have to pay attention in school and to their parents or they will fail hard. Civic organizations will have to take over more of the support for the down trodden then gvt. That means volunteers.
That will bring about connections between people and not isolation.

The military will be trimmed by 50-75% and those resource reallocated at home. However there goes pax americana, and who knows what will happen in the middle east, and the asian powder kegs, with no U.S. to worry about.

I don't know if manufacturing will ever return. Only if we are willing to live with less. If a purely American pair of shoes costs $30.00 to manufacture instead of $15.00 from imported sources, we are going to have to live with half the shoes. Unless we have massive deflation of the basics of life, we cannot compete with 2nd and third world wages.
We can automate shoe making with machines here, but then there goes the jobs.

I look forward to more community sharing. We are going to have to watch out for each other and pool our resources.
Everyone is not going to be able to afford every power tool, and electronic doo dad and professional services to fix stuff.
I see neighbor helping neighbor. I see children staying closer to home when they start their own life. I still remember the
multi-generational neighborhoods from my youth. 3 generations of families would live on the same block. They would help
Grandma instead of putting her in a home, they would hang out on weekend and bbq etc.

What I really fear in a collapse of gvt, and money is a sudden stop where the essentials of food, clothing, shelter and medicine get interrupted, and this results in suffering and death.

[flintlock]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

Good questions! In no particular order I would say:

A stable currency.

High employment and jobs that can support a decent quality of life. Return to a manufacturing economy rather than a service economy.

Polite, civil society with a sense of social cohesion. In the U.S., "We are all Americans" rather than increasing balkanization.

A return of personal privacy and self-responsibility.

No more Big Brother/police state/nanny state.

Government that functions within the confines of the Constitution. Limited government and greatly reduced bureaucracy on all levels. Government that remembers it serves the Citizenry (not the oligarchs) rather than the other way around.

That list is a good start!

[flintlock]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

They further claim we're right now at a low point where things are worst, and soon society will become more polite, civil and cohesive.

God I hope so. Its gotten pretty bad. Not Arab-Israeli bad, but still bad enough.

[Glenn Black]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

About 10 years ago, I was giving a lecture on the driving forces of the decade. My proposal was as follows:

1900's Automobile
1910's WW I
1920's Prohibition & Personal Freedom
1930's Great Depression
1940's WW II
1950's Pharmaceuticals
1960's Plastics
1970's Computers
1980's Quality
1990's Globalization
2000's Velocity (speed of response)
2010's Energy
2020's Food

Note how the previous decade becomes the enabling technology/philosophy for the following decade.

The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of rocks. Unknown

Does any of this help frame your points, and the debate?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

I sincerely hope they're correct, but don't see how it can happen. Manners, courtesy, civic virtues... table manners, study hard and learn all you can, earn your money honestly, don't litter, don't lie, steal, hit people or curse... all of this and more used to be instilled in people in the early years of their childhood by parents and community expectations. It was taught by example, it was taught at the dinner table, it was taught in schools and churches. It was reinforced in the media.

We now have children desensitized to violence growing up from several generations of broken families, overworked and uninvolved parents, and unmarried welfare mothers who cannot teach their children what they never experienced and learned themselves. Parents who's only example of civic behavior is the Jerry Springer type talk shows. The mob violence we are witnessing at Black Fridays and this Memorial Day, for example, is becoming the normal behavior of our society.

How, specifically, does this get turned around?

I hate to seem to endorse their theories, because I don't. Much of it boils down to a predetermined destiny, and I believe more in individual free-will. But I've read the book twice and can explain it. Their theory is very attractive.

They spin a theory of a four-step generational cycle of about 80 years total, whereby one's formative childhood years affect how one's social attitudes gel. They support their theories with an examination of several hundred years of history.

They say people who are children during times of great social chaos and danger turn towards teamwork and unity as a cohort. The horrible milieu of their tender youth turns them away from conflict and dissent and makes them more team oriented and well-behaved. They postulate conversely that children of a golden age of peace and unity become bellicose and sow conflict because they have no vivid personal experience with war and violence and so don't fear it.

Brent217 correctly points to their concept of the crisis at the fourth turning (which the authors say does not need to be huge war but often has been).

Their theory, not mine.

[housingcrashsurvivor]

Re: When Do We Pass the Point of No Return?

...They say people who are children during times of great social chaos and danger turn towards teamwork and unity as a cohort. The horrible milieu of their tender youth turns them away from conflict and dissent and makes them more team oriented and well-behaved. They postulate conversely that children of a golden age of peace and unity become bellicose and sow conflict because they have no vivid personal experience with war and violence and so don't fear it....Their theory, not mine.

What then becomes the cohort experiencing not food lines but food stamps, not homelessness but unpaid mortgages and wars with unseen caskets.