The Prophecy: Looking Back to Look Forward
At the end of the last century, we had an era dubbed the Fin-de-Siècle. This was an era of good feelings, of strides in philosophy and the mind. It was a good time to live if you ignored the coming storms, and most people did. In 1914, World War I destroyed all that happiness.
The Roarin’ 20s was our next carefree era. The flappers kicked up their heels, the mob was at the height of its public power, women became a little faster and men didn’t care. That was destroyed by the Great Depression and the rise to power of a filed artist who went on to cause World War II.
The ‘80s and ’90s are the same indicators of a fall – either economic or political. The Dow has risen by 4,000 points since 1995. We are in an era, when, for the rich, the high economic times seem to be beginning and no one is taking precautions. Profits are up, economic indicators are up, and the working man is working more hours than he did in 1948.
The baby boomers are reaching an age where they will be retiring and withdrawing their funds from the stock market. They will be withdrawing their contributions to Medicare. They will be consuming more resources while contributing little to no productivity. Their children and grandchildren, meanwhile, will have to clean up the mess left by their parents. The children will have to deal with the sanitary landfills, the toxic waste and the ecological destruction wreaked on this planet by an irresponsible and selfish era – an era that has made the bottom line more important than family, more important than job security, and ultimately, more important than production itself.
My generation will be the first generation not to do better financially than our parents. Hopefully, we can far surpass our parents in the areas that really matter – friends, love, relationships, generosity and selflessness.
If we are unable to do so, we have set in motion a dangerous corrupted mechanism that will fail, and that failure is coming soon. The date will be June 5, 2006. Its effects will be fully realized the following day.
The Roarin’ 20s was our next carefree era. The flappers kicked up their heels, the mob was at the height of its public power, women became a little faster and men didn’t care. That was destroyed by the Great Depression and the rise to power of a filed artist who went on to cause World War II.
The ‘80s and ’90s are the same indicators of a fall – either economic or political. The Dow has risen by 4,000 points since 1995. We are in an era, when, for the rich, the high economic times seem to be beginning and no one is taking precautions. Profits are up, economic indicators are up, and the working man is working more hours than he did in 1948.
The baby boomers are reaching an age where they will be retiring and withdrawing their funds from the stock market. They will be withdrawing their contributions to Medicare. They will be consuming more resources while contributing little to no productivity. Their children and grandchildren, meanwhile, will have to clean up the mess left by their parents. The children will have to deal with the sanitary landfills, the toxic waste and the ecological destruction wreaked on this planet by an irresponsible and selfish era – an era that has made the bottom line more important than family, more important than job security, and ultimately, more important than production itself.
My generation will be the first generation not to do better financially than our parents. Hopefully, we can far surpass our parents in the areas that really matter – friends, love, relationships, generosity and selflessness.
If we are unable to do so, we have set in motion a dangerous corrupted mechanism that will fail, and that failure is coming soon. The date will be June 5, 2006. Its effects will be fully realized the following day.