Every business era has a leading industry, a ruling industry, and a fading industry.
It’s clear that for our time – for the rest of my life anyway – the leading industry will be computing and the fading industry will be energy. The rising industry will likely be biosciences, including everything from prosthetics to genetic engineering.
Seen through the prism of a day, a week, or even a month, this seems to have been an “annus horribilus” for Barack Obama.
Hating him has become a national pastime. His party was pounded in the November midterm elections. For the rest of his term he will face a Congress filled with Republicans who are like rabid dogs in their personal hatred for him, and all he stands for.
In fact, history will record this as the year the tide turned, not only in President Obama’s favor, but in favor of the Obama Thesis of Consensus, which he represents.
The reason has to do with a history paper my own son wrote in high school. He chose to major in biology, but his 11th grade paper contrasted the foreign policy approaches of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan relating to the Cold War and the Soviet Union. It was pretty good.
Kennedy talked soft power but used hard power, military force, both in Cuba and in Vietnam. Reagan talked hard power but actually used soft power, diplomacy and economics, jawboning the price of oil from nearly $50/barrel down to as low as $8.
The immediate result of what Kennedy did was Vietnam. Reagan got the collapse of the Soviet Union.
This is Volume 18, Number 50 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. This is the last time, however, that I will use the Clue meme as part of my weekly column. Starting next week, and going forward, we'll go straight to the column. Enjoy.
This could have been the 1930s. It’s shaping up to be the 1970s.
Not only are we getting stagflation instead of Depression, but we’re also finding ourselves, again, in a decade defined by energy. But while the 1970s were a decade of energy scarcity, this will become a decade of energy abundance.
Republicans want to credit fracking with all that has happened in our time. That technology has had an impact much like Obama’s Stimulus – it has accelerated changes already taking place. First natural gas went into glut, and this year oil went into glut.
Whether the glut is temporary or permanent, it’s permanent. Because the glut is giving alternative energy sources time and space to grow in. It’s also providing incentives for solar and wind to keep costs down, to keep innovating, because the ceiling under which they define “crossover” is a sinking one.
Think of this as Volume 18, Number 48 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.
A few weeks ago I posited the theory that President Obama threw the last election so that Democrats can come back stronger in 2016 and beyond.
But there’s another theory, and it’s based on a recent visit to the suburbs.
Atlanta is divided into two parts. I live Inside the Perimeter (ITP). Most of the city is Outside the Perimeter (OTP), the I-285 ring freeway dividing them from one another. I’ve been surprised that anyone could be against this government since life is great ITP. My home’s value has increased, there are tons of new shops and restaurants opening up within walking distance, and the new intown malls built over the last 10 years are crowded all the time.
As I’ve written here many times, the center of our economic life is changing. It’s moving from offices to labs. Most of the jobs done in office towers – marketing, middle management, etc. – can now be done by computers. Those jobs aren’t coming back.
The Mad Man era is over, Willy Loman is now an algorithm, and if Dan Draper can’t code he’s hitting the bricks alongside him. The offices that remain are basically factories, software factories. Atlanta is lucky to have so many software companies, especially in complex areas like transaction processing, which happens to be where my wife has made her career.
S0 economically, things are great in my household. I have been doing pretty well moving my beat from technology to finance. She has been doing great at her job, which she’s very good at. Our assets have grown substantially in the last six years, and our lives much more convenient. It has been a great time for us.
Think of this as Volume 18, Number 45 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.
What’s unique about the present crisis, which began in 2008, is that it has been so slow moving. It has been slow moving because it has been, for the most part, non-violent. It has been non-violent, in large part, because Barack Obama has refused to give-in to liberal Democratic calls for him to be more confrontational.
That makes sense when you understand the Obama Thesis of Consensus, which I first wrote about under that name almost six years ago but had been describing, under other titles, for almost three years before that.
Consensus implies that people come to agreement, despite sharp disagreement. If consensus is what you’re looking for the last six years have been a complete failure. Republicans continue to play politics based on the Nixon Thesis of Conflict , and most Democrats today want to play the same game.
Which leads me to this startling conclusion. Barack Obama threw the mid-terms.
Think of this as Volume 18, Number 43 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.
Every crisis period in American history proceeds in its own way, at its own pace.
What’s remarkable about the current crisis is how relatively non-violent it has been. This has extended the period of crisis.
Yes, there have been small wars, and police killings, and random violence. But we haven’t had a Vietnam, a World War II, or a Civil War. Global prosperity is actually high and rising, with millions in Africa and Latin America leaving extreme poverty every year.
In retrospect, this means Barack Obama will be seen as one of the great Presidents.
Think of this as Volume 18, Number 42 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.
History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes.
Our decade reads like a bizarro version of the 1970s. We’re going through an oil shock, but it’s in reverse.
The 1970s were vulnerable to such a shock due to the nature of the economy. We were a manufacturing economy. Inputs of raw materials and wages determined prices and profits.
But beneath the headlines a new kind of economy was being born, one based on Moore’s Law.
Think of this as Volume 18, Number 40 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.
While every real crisis in American history is based in economics, the existential threat behind it remains the same.
That threat is to democracy.
Democracy matters for the same reason capitalism matters, and for the same reason liberty matters. Democracy gives a society flexibility. In times of rapid change, and all times are times of rapid change, flexibility matters a lot.
Flexibility means you can adjust to change. And flexibility always comes from the bottom-up, never the top-down. Incumbent leaders either have a set direction that has always worked for them, or demand a set direction whether it is working or not. They want to stay on top, and that desire will always trump the need for change.
Democracy changes leaders. Capitalism brings change to the mix of products and services offered for sale. Liberty delivers new ideas and concepts to the market, to society, and eventually to leaders.
What drives democracy under is tribalism. When people are aligned by tribe, they stop responding to signals for change that are all around them. They follow their tribal leaders instead.
Think of this as Volume 18, Number 36 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.
The darkness in any generational crisis consists of false choices, with advocates of “once and for all” solutions lined up against supporters of democracy, of liberty, and of free markets.
So far, democracy has won every time.
But when people are inside the crisis, it’s hard to tell that this will be the outcome. Until then, the crisis continues.
At this point it’s important to understand the nature of the current crisis. It’s not about the housing bubble, and it’s not about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about oil, which is in such artificial scarcity as to actually be the world’s currency. Those who have it have, since 1973, been soaking up the rest of the world’s wealth for themselves, and its political power, as the world runs on oil.
Continue reading "The War against Oil Remains The Real Battle of our Time " »
Think of this as Volume 18, Number 33 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.
There is a reason why the sixth year of any President's term is the hardest for his own advocates. History doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.
By this time we know the President's personality. We know how he will react to events. Satirists can “do” him. Their program has been enacted, and none works perfectly. Defending any President in their sixth year is exhausting. Ask Democrats in 1998, or Republicans in 1986.
Right now we're playing what I would have called, a decade ago, the 1974 Game. That year represented the six year mark following the election of Richard Nixon, which was the election that transformed American politics for a generation. Take Nixon's votes, add Wallace's, and you get an unstoppable coalition. Ronald Reagan and both Bushes would take full advantage. It defines Republicanism to this day.
But it doesn't have to turn out the way it did for Nixon. Despite Republican fever dreams there is nothing in Barack Obama's record to merit impeachment. Especially in comparison with his predecessor, whom those attacking him now defended.
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